Israel PM wants regular meetings with Palestinians
By IAN DEITCH, Associated Press Writer 11:30AM AUG 28,10
JERUSALEM – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wants to meet with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas every two weeks once direct peace talks resume next week, Israeli officials said Saturday.Netanyahu will propose the biweekly meetings with the Palestinian leader when the U.S.-brokered negotiations formally resume on Thursday in Washington after a nearly two-year break, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to speak to the media.The Israeli leader's proposal appears to indicate that he is serious about the talks and won't allow them to fizzle out after next week's meeting in the U.S.Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said he hadn't heard about the proposal but would be open to the idea. We are not against this in principle, it's just premature to talk about this now, Erekat told The Associated Press.The last round of Mideast peace talks broke down in late 2008 after Israel launched a three-week military offensive against Islamic militants in the Gaza Strip to stop near-daily rocket attacks on southern Israel. Officials close to the talks said at the time that the sides were close to an agreement.During those negotiations, Israeli and Palestinian leaders met on a regular basis.The resumption of talks comes after months of diplomatic efforts by Washington to coax the sides back to the negotiating table. U.S. special envoy George Mitchell shuttled back and forth between the sides for the past few months, urging them to agree to resume negotiations.
Netanyahu has been calling for direct talks to resume without preconditions soon after he took office last year.The Palestinians, however, have been reluctant to return to the negotiating table, fearing that they will be blamed if the talks collapse. That has left them hesitant to commit to new negotiations without Israel first agreeing to preconditions, such was a freeze on settlement construction in the West Bank.A 10-month moratorium on West Bank settlement construction will expire at the end of September, and the government is divided over whether to extend it. Netanyahu ordered the building freeze in an effort to get talks with the Palestinians back on track.The Palestinians have already announced they will withdraw from peace talks if building is renewed.Israel captured the West Bank from Jordan in the 1967 war and began building settlements there soon after.There are more than 100 of them in the West Bank today, territory the Palestinians envision for their future state along with the Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem. The international community at large does not recognize the settlements as legally part of Israel.The fate of east Jerusalem, meanwhile, lies at the heart of the settlement dispute. Israel considers all of Jerusalem its eternal capital, while the Palestinians want east Jerusalem as the capital of a future state.The Palestinian Authority is split between the Western-backed Fatah party in the West Bank and the Islamic militant group Hamas that has controlled Gaza since it ousted Fatah in street battles in 2007.Hamas leader in Gaza Ismail Haniyeh condemned the renewal of talks late Friday and demanded a boycott.Also Saturday, the European Union said it will not participate in the talks. The bloc said foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton will be in Beijing at the time.
Britain urges release of captured Israeli soldier
Sat Aug 28, 6:09 am ET
LONDON (AFP) – Britain called Saturday for the immediate release of an Israeli soldier captured by Gaza militants in June 2006, using the occasion of his 24th birthday to condemn his unjustifiable detention.The thoughts of many in Britain are with Gilad Shalit and his family as he spends his 24th birthday in captivity, a Foreign Office spokesman said.His detention is unjustifiable and unacceptable. The British government demands his immediate and unconditional release.The Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, which rules Gaza, captured Shalit with other militant groups in a deadly cross-border raid, and has demanded an exchange involving hundreds of Palestinian prisoners.
US lawmaker urges France not to arm Lebanon army
Fri Aug 27, 6:11 pm ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) – A US lawmaker on Friday warned France not to sell anti-tank missiles to Lebanon, saying they could end up being used against Israel amid pro-Iranian influence in the Lebanese government.US Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the ranking Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, issued the warning after the Arabic-language newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat reported the planned sale.The influence of Hezbollah militants and their Iranian and Syrian backers in the Lebanese government is rising, Ros-Lehtinen said in a statement.Therefore, to sell weapons to Lebanon at this time would be very irresponsible, and could jeopardize security and stability in the region, she said.France should do the responsible thing and cancel this sale unless and until the Lebanese government takes the steps necessary to root out extremists from its own ranks and disarm Hezbollah, she said.
Asharq Al-Awsat, quoting a top French official, said French Defense Minister Herve Morin had sent a letter to his Lebanese counterpart Elias Murr in May informing him that Paris was ready to deliver 100 HOT missiles to Beirut.The paper said Lebanon wants to arm its French-designed Gazelle army helicopters with the HOT (High Subsonic Optical Remote-Guided Fired from Tube) missile, a long-range, anti-tank missile system designed by Euromissile.The French official quoted by the newspaper on its website acknowledged that Israel protested the French decision to provide Lebanon with arms and that Washington raised question marks over the missile deal.
However, he also categorically denied that Paris had given in to pressure and that this was why the sale had not been completed.The French official instead said confusion within the Lebanese government was responsible for the deal's delay or failure.On August 10, US Congressman Howard Berman, the Democratic chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, announced he had placed on hold 100 million dollars in aid to Lebanon's military.Berman said he could not be sure the Lebanese armed forces were not working with Hezbollah, which Washington lists as a "terrorist" organization and whose militiamen fought a devastating month-long war against Israel in 2006.
Egypt's Mubarak to discuss Mideast peace talks with Sarkozy
Fri Aug 27, 2:17 pm ET
CAIRO (AFP) – Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak is to meet French counterpart Nicolas Sarkozy next week ahead of the relaunch of direct Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, a state-owned daily said on Friday.Mubarak will discuss the talks with Sarkozy on Monday during a stopover on his way to Washington to join the inaugural meeting between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas, the flagship Al-Ahram newspaper said.Thursday's meeting will launch the first direct negotiations between the two sides since the Palestinians broke off talks in December 2008 after Israel launched a devastating offensive against the Gaza Strip.
Palestinians riot in east Jerusalem neighborhood By DALIA NAMMARI, Associated Press Writer – Thu Aug 26, 1:13 pm ET
JERUSALEM – Palestinian residents in east Jerusalem threw rocks at police and settlers and set cars on fire in an ongoing dispute over a contested neighborhood Thursday.Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said the early morning clashes in Silwan neighborhood erupted due to a disagreement over a pathway claimed by both Jewish and Arab families. He said an Israeli court ruled in 2000 that the pathway belongs to a Jewish family.Palestinian residents, however, say the clash erupted after settlers were seen trying to break into a local mosque.About 50,000 Palestinians and 70 Jewish families live in Silwan and tensions are high in the neighborhood over a municipal plan that includes the slated demolition of Palestinian homes. There have been recent clashes.The pathway leads to an ancient underground spring that some Jews use as a ritual bath to cleanse themselves before morning prayers.
There is a mosque near the spring's entrance.
Silwan resident Ahmed Qaraein told The Associated Press that residents saw four settlers trying to enter the mosque compound. He said he yelled at the settlers and they ran to a nearby house.Palestinian residents then threw rocks at the house and settlers responded with warning shots, Qaraein said.Rosenfeld denied anyone tried to enter the mosque.Israel captured and annexed east Jerusalem in the 1967 Mideast war. Israel considers the sector part of its capital. That claim is not recognized internationally.The fate of east Jerusalem figures to play a central role in Israeli-Palestinian peace talks set to resume next week.
Top Israeli judge defends naval blockade of Gaza
Thu Aug 26, 12:00 pm ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – Israel's top military judge said on Thursday the naval blockade of the Gaza Strip is legal, in testimony before an inquiry into a deadly May 31 raid on an activist ship seeking to break it, media reported.We've consulted with the attorney general and with the Supreme Court, and found that it is legal and permitted, Judge Advocate General Major General Avihai Mandelblit told the five-member Israeli commission of inquiry, according to the Haaretz daily.He also said the naval blockade was imposed out of pure military considerations and not as a part of economic warfare against Hamas, the Islamist movement that rules Gaza and is committed to Israel's destruction.He also pointed out that even before the blockade was imposed in 2007, all supplies were transferred to the Gaza by land because Gaza has no proper port.The commission, which includes two international observers, is only mandated to look at the international legality of the blockade and the raid.
Nine Turkish activists were killed on May 31 when Israeli naval commandos stormed the Mavi Marmara ferry, which led a six-ship flotilla seeking to deliver aid to Gaza in defiance of the blockade.Activists claim the troops started firing as soon as they hit the deck, but Israeli authorities say activists attacked the commandos with steel rods and wooden staves as they were abseiling down from helicopters.
Israel govt mulls alternatives to settlement freeze
Thu Aug 26, 11:17 am ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – Israel's premier and his top ministers are mulling alternatives to the settlement freeze Palestinians are seeking as the two sides prepare to launch a new round of talks next week, media reported on Thursday.One proposal finding favour is to allow construction in the main settlement blocs Israel intends to annex as part of any peace deal while imposing a mini freeze in isolated West Bank settlements, Israeli newspapers reported.The idea would be to keep the restrictions quiet in order to minimise chances of a public uproar among rightwing Israelis.On the one hand, (the prime minister) is interested in showing the Americans an alternative that does not involve massive construction in the territories; on the other, Netanyahu wants to do so without having to declare a construction freeze publicly, the Yediot Aharonot daily said.But the proposal, taken up by the the forum of seven top ministers in recent days, is unlikely to impress the Palestinians who are seeking a complete halt to settlement construction in the West Bank, including east Jerusalem.The settlement issue is one of the thorniest in Middle East peace efforts and will figure at the new round of peace talks Netanyahu and Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas will launch in Washington on September 2.
The international community considers the settlements to be illegal, while the Israeli government faces strong pressure at home not to renew a partial, 10-month moratorium on settlement construction that expires on September 26.In a letter sent earlier this month to members of the Middle East diplomatic Quartet -- made up of the European Union, Russia, the United Nations and the United States -- Abbas stressed that if Israel resumes settlement activities, including in east Jerusalem, we cannot continue with negotiations.But Israel's firebrand Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman insisted on Wednesday: There is no reason to continue to freeze settlement, adding We've done enough and we got nothing in return.The Palestinians initially insisted they would not resume face-to-face negotiations with the Israelis unless there is a total freeze on settlement activity, but eventually agreed under US pressure to resume the direct negotiations that collapsed 20 months ago.About half a million settlers live in the West Bank, including east Jerusalem, which Israel seized from Jordan in the 1967 Six Day War.
Prospects bleak for peace deal: Israel's Lieberman By Jeffrey Heller – Wed Aug 25, 8:45 pm ET
JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel and the Palestinians have virtually no chance of reaching a peace deal within the one-year target set by the United States, Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said on Wednesday.I think there's room to lower expectations and get real, Lieberman, a far-right member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's cabinet, told Israel Radio.There's no magic recipe ... that can bring us within a year to a permanent agreement resulting in the end of the conflict and the solution of all of the complicated issues, such as refugees, Jerusalem and Jewish settlement, he said.Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, in his first public comments since agreeing to a new round of peace talks to begin on September 2, spoke about the failure of past negotiations, the official Palestinian news agency WAFA reported.If there is a one percent chance of reaching peace, we will strive for it, he added in an address in Ramallah to religious figures and diplomats attending an iftar -- the daily meal at sundown when Muslims break their Ramadan fast.We want to reach peace with our neighbors. That's why we are going to direct negotiations, he said.Inviting Israel and the Palestinians last week to restart direct talks, last held in late 2008, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the United States believed all major issues could be resolved within a year.
The talks will begin in Washington.
But the negotiations could swiftly hit a bump on September 26, when a 10-month limited Israeli moratorium on new housing starts in Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank expires.Abbas, whose authority has extended only to the West Bank since Hamas Islamists took control of the Gaza Strip in 2007, has threatened to pull out of the talks if Israel presses ahead with settlement construction.Lieberman voiced confidence that the Israeli cabinet would not extend the freeze -- agreed by Netanyahu under U.S. pressure to coax the Palestinians into direct talks -- and said projects for several thousand new settler homes could get under way fast.The United States opposes settlement expansion but has stopped short of calling for Netanyahu to extend the moratorium, a move that could cause cracks in a governing coalition dominated by pro-settler parties including his own.Instead, it has urged both Israel and the Palestinians not to take measures that could jeopardize the negotiations and said the settlement issue would be raised in next week's talks.
NEW PROJECTS
Acknowledging a de facto moratorium in East Jerusalem, which was not included in the formal freeze, Lieberman said 1,600 housing units for Israelis have gone through all the approval processes.Construction could also begin immediately on another 2,000 homes in the West Bank once the freeze ended, he said.Dan Meridor, a moderate in the Israeli cabinet, has proposed resuming housing construction only in the major settlement blocs that Israel intends to keep in any future peace deal, which could include territorial swaps.This is my position -- it's not the government's position yet. I am mentioning it because we should discuss it and try to reach an agreement on it. We're not there yet, Meridor said in a radio interview on Tuesday. Netanyahu, who has been on vacation in northern Israel this week, has not commented on Meridor's remarks. The YESHA council, the main settler organization, warned him in a letter that he could face trouble from its cabinet allies.If we are not given the legal right to actually build homes for our families and children, we cannot allow a situation where this coalition will continue to govern,the letter said. Israel captured the West Bank and East Jerusalem in a 1967 war and has settled some 500,000 Jews in the two areas, where 2.5 million Palestinians live. Palestinians fear the settlements will deny them a viable state. (Additional reporting by Tom Perry; Editing by Kevin Liffey)
Israeli settlers warn PM could face day of judgment
by Patrick Moser – Wed Aug 25, 6:59 am ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – Israeli settlers warned on Wednesday that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will face his day of judgment if he caves in to pressure to further limit settlement construction in the West Bank.This is not a time to mince words as this is literally a day of judgment for our prime minister and government, said Naftali Bennett, head of Yesha, the main association of settlers in the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territory.Yesha warned in a letter to Netanyahu of serious diplomatic and political implications if he reneges on his promise to resume issuing building permits for settler homes when a partial, 10-month moratorium ends on September 26.
The issue of settlements is one of the thorniest in the Middle East peace process and is expected to figure prominently at the new round of direct Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations starting in Washington on September 2.The Palestinians initially insisted they would not sit at the negotiating table without guarantees the moratorium on building permits be extended.But no such guarantee has been made public in statements from the US administration and the Middle East peace Quartet when they announced the new round of negotiations.Netanyahu faces Palestinian and international calls for a freeze on settlement construction.But the leader of a centre-right ruling coalition is also under strong pressure, including from within his own Likud party, to clear the way for construction of more settler homes in the West Bank.And Bennett insisted Netanyahu needs to appreciate that we will stand firm on our commitments to strengthen and expand the communities and we cannot bend to any international pressure.These upcoming negotiations promise to be another futile display of diplomacy but we must not allow citizens of Israel to become the scapegoats in this process, he said.Far-right Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman also played down the prospects of the talks, suggesting the one-year target set by the United States is unrealistic.
The peace process is unlikely to end within the next year, as disagreements between the two sides are too deep, the online edition of the Haaretz newspaper quoted him as saying.A similar relaunch of US-brokered negotiations in 2007 produced no visible results by the time the talks collapsed when Israel's military launched a devastating 22-day offensive on the Gaza Strip just over a year later.The new round of talks between Netanyahu and Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas follow several months of arduous US mediation.Efforts to put the peace process back on track suffered a major setback in March when Israel announced the construction of 1,600 new settler homes in annexed east Jerusalem, just as US Vice President Joe Biden was visiting the region.Indirect talks through the United States eventually started on May 9 with the stated aim of moving on to face-to-face negotiations within four months.If we are not given the legal right to actually build homes for our families and children, we cannot allow a situation where this coalition will continue to govern, said settlers' movement leader Bennett.
Saturday, August 28, 2010
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
HEZ URGES LEBANON TO BUILD NUCLEAR SITE
Hezbollah urges power-starved Lebanon to build nuclear plant
Tue Aug 24, 6:29 pm ET
BEIRUT (AFP) – Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah on Tuesday called on Lebanon to consider building a nuclear power plant in the energy-starved nation.I call on the Lebanese government to seriously consider ... building a nuclear power plant for the peaceful purpose of generating electricity, which would be more cost-efficient than the plan the government has endorsed, Nasrallah said in a speech broadcast via video link.Iran's Bushehr nuclear facility, which will provide a large part of Iran's electricity needs, cost much less than the (Lebanese) state's reform plan, Nasrallah said in a speech to mark an iftar, the evening meal that breaks the dawn-to-dusk Ramadan fast.We may even develop a nuclear plant that meets all of Lebanon's power needs and even sell power to Syria, Cyprus, Turkey, Jordan and other countries.The Lebanese government in June adopted a six million dollar (4.7 million euro) reform plan for the electricity sector, which includes infrastructure for liquefied petroleum gas and a pipeline along the coast.
Electricity has been a constant concern since the end of the 1975-1990 civil war in Lebanon, which allocates the third largest slice of its budget to power supply, after debt servicing and salaries.The country suffers daily power cuts, including in the capital where many businesses and apartment blocks use generators to tide them over during lengthy blackouts.Angry Lebanese have staged a string of protests demanding better power supply, mainly in the impoverished north and in areas near the airport.Hezbollah's main backer Iran said on Saturday it has started loading fuel into the Russian-built Bushehr nuclear power plant, in the face of stiff opposition from world powers over its controversial atomic programme.The United States has said there was no proliferation risk from the civilian plant because of Russian involvement.
Hezbollah: Iran can equip Lebanese army
Tue Aug 24, 4:40 pm ET
BEIRUT – The leader of Lebanon's Shiite Muslim Hezbollah group says authorities should formally ask Iran to help equip the country's military.Sheik Hassan Nasrallah vows his Iranian-backed group would use its friendship with Iran to secure assistance to the national army.His televised comments Tuesday were in response to a decision by a U.S. congressman this month to suspend $100 million worth of American military aid over concerns the weapons could be turned on Israel and that the militant Hezbollah group may have influence over the Lebanese army.The Lebanese government has since opened an account at the central bank to receive donated funds to buy weapons for the country's military.
Hamas urges Jordan, Egypt to boycott Mideast talks launch
Tue Aug 24, 4:18 pm ET
DAMASCUS (AFP) – Exiled Hamas chief Khaled Meshaal urged the Egyptian and Jordanian leaders on Tuesday to boycott the resumption early next month of direct Israeli-Palestinian talks to be hosted by Washington.I appeal to President Hosni Mubarak (of Egypt) and (Jordan's) King Abdullah II not to back these negotiations which are rejected by the Palestinians, Meshaal said in Damascus where he lives in exile.Mubarak and the Jordanian monarch have been invited by the United States to join a summit in Washington on September 2 during which Israel and the Palestinians are due to resume direct peace talks after a 20-month hiatus.The results of these negotiations will be catastrophic for the interests and the security of Jordan and Egypt, and are aimed at liquidating the Palestinian cause, Meshaal said in a speech.
The political leader of the Islamist group that rules in the Gaza Strip insisted that the talks are only the fruit of an agreement between US President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.He added that the Palestinian people will not feel bound by the outcome of these negotiations because the Palestinian negotiators renounced their demands that Israel freeze settlement building in the West Bank, including east Jerusalem.Hamas formally rejected Washington's call for direct Israeli-Palestinian talks to resume next month, immediately after US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton last Friday announced the September 2 summit.Hamas rejects the American call for the resumption of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said at the time.This invitation is a new attempt to fool the Palestinian people after the Annapolis experience, during which we were promised a Palestinian state within a year, but many years have passed and we are still at square one.A relaunch of negotiations amid much fanfare at Annapolis in Maryland in November 2007 had produced no visible results by the time the talks collapsed when Israel launched its devastating military 22-day offensive on the Gaza Strip just over a year later.
Mideast talks will fail: Iran
Tue Aug 24, 4:20 am ET
TEHRAN (AFP) – Direct peace talks between Israel and Palestinians will fail as long as the root of the problem remained, Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said on Tuesday.We don't think (peace) talks are going to yield any results, Mehmanparast told reporters at his weekly press conference.The root of the Palestinian problem should be cured. We cannot see a solution to the Palestinian issue when the Palestinians have been driven out to other countries, while occupiers and invaders have come from other countries (to Palestinian territories), Mehmanparast said.Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas have accepted a US invitation to relaunch direct peace negotiations in Washington on September 2 following a 20-month hiatus.The Palestinians insist talks should lead to the creation of an independent state, and sought an Israeli freeze on settlement activity for the talks to resume.Netanyahu has made it clear there should be no preconditions for the talks.The Islamic Republic of Iran does not recognise Israel and relations between the two have deteriorated under the presidency of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has infuriated Western countries by claiming that the Holocaust was a myth.Israel, believed to be the sole nuclear weapons holder in the Middle East, has never ruled out a military strike against Tehran to stop its controversial atomic programme.
Mideast passions quiet over NY mosque showdown By BRIAN MURPHY, Associated Press Writer – Mon Aug 23, 5:48 pm ET
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates – On the streets of lower Manhattan, there's no mistaking how the passions flow: One side saying its their patriotic duty to block a planned Islamic center and the other insisting America cannot curtail freedoms as revenge for the Sept. 11 attacks.But in the Middle East — where the imam spearheading the plans is now touring on a U.S.-funded outreach mission — the proposed mosque and community center near the former World Trade Center towers is viewed in less stark tones.Much of it circles back to what the showdown says about Islam's identity in the West, theories about the roots of Islamophobia or even whether the plans in New York are worth the fight.Mideast commentators argue that many in the region view the clash as a wholly American spectacle — about political posturing and the lingering wounds of 9/11 — that distracts from genuine troubles such as Iran's growing clout or Israel's pressure on Gaza.The mosque is not an issue for Muslims and they don't care about it being built, wrote Saudi columnist Abdel Rahman Rashed in the pan-Arab Asharq al-Awsat newspaper.Some Muslims would even consider building a mosque there would be a permanent reminder of the acts of terrorists, who carried out their crime in the name of Islam, he added.Despite the power of the 9/11 memories, other Muslim struggles in the West have brought far greater public outcry in the Middle East — such as Switzerland's ban on new minaret construction and the growing European moves to outlaw burqas and other Islamic coverings.
There is indifference, complained Sheik Fawzi el-Zefzaf, a member of Egypt's Islamic Scholars Association. The Arab and Muslim worlds should be supporting the imam, he said, referring to Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, whose Cordoba Initiative is behind plans for the $100 million, 13-story project about two blocks from where the Twin Towers once stood.Rauf plans to travel Tuesday to Qatar — home of the influential Al-Jazeera television network — as part of a State Department-funded trip that began last week in Bahrain. Rauf has avoided any extensive comments of the New York project. Instead, he has stuck closely to less-volatile subjects such as battling extremism and Islam's compatibility with the U.S. Constitution and other Western values of freedom and open debate.In an interview with Bahrain's Al Wasat newspaper published Monday, Rauf said he was trying to reach out to Islamic scholars to urge Muslims worldwide to become more effective members of their communities and have complete nationalism — apparently meaning integration with local laws and standards.
He stressed that Muslims can remain faithful as well as actively engaged in the affairs of the countries where they live.I see that every religious community faces challenges, but the real challenge lies in keeping true to the core values of the faith and how to express these values in a specific time and place, the imam was quoted as saying.But Rauf's refusal to publicly answer questions about the New York mosque on his 15-day Mideast trip stands in stark counterpoint to the scenes Sunday near Ground Zero.Hundreds of demonstrators squared off — sometimes in nose-to-nose confrontations. No mosque, no way, some chanted. Others replied with cries: We say no to racist fear! Rauf's wife, Daisy Khan, said the rage against the project is like a metastasized anti-Semitism.Fear is back, with a vengeance, wrote James Zogby, president of the Arab American Institute in a commentary published in The National, which is supported by Abu Dhabi's government. It rules the street and we have every right to be concerned. What is needed now is are strong voices appealing to our better selves.Others in the Mideast media and Web chat rooms have chewed over whether President Barack Obama — and the Democrats by extension — will pay a political price for his stance that Muslims have the right to build the center at the site. Obama, however, has not commented on whether he thinks the plan should move forward.
Obama's election was widely welcomed across the Middle East, but his popularity has suffered over perceptions he has failed to take a harder line with Israel and expanded the war in Afghanistan. Lebanese political affairs analyst, Salim Nasser, wrote in the pan-Arab daily Al Hayat that the firestorm over the mosque plans is a political bomb that will end up wounding Obama and his party. Two professors at Al-Azhar, Sunni Islam's leading scholarly institution, stated in a widely read editorial in the Egyptian daily Al-Masry Al-Youm, that the real damage has been to the international perception of Islam since the New York battles can only end up reinforcing the memory of 9/11.From Kuwait, Egyptian publisher Ahmed el-Adly said Muslims' image in the West has been ravaged time and again after 9/11 and other jihad-inspired attacks in London, Madrid and elsewhere. He wondered if the New York mosque proposal is the right goal at the right time. No need to rock the boat, he said. Associated Press writers Sarah El Deeb in Cairo and Bassem Mroue in Beirut contributed to this report. (This version CORRECTS that el-Adly's comments were made in an interview).
Gaza Mall sparks debate over Israeli blockade By BEN HUBBARD, Associated Press Writer – Mon Aug 23, 11:49 am ET
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip – Palestinians in this blockaded territory can now buy $80 bottles of perfume, Turkish-made suits and Israeli yogurt at the new Gaza Mall. But with only two floors of shops connected by a broken elevator and a staircase, Gaza's first shopping center is a far cry from the sprawling luxury malls famous elsewhere in the Middle East.Nevertheless, for the war-battered residents of the impoverished coastal strip, it is a symbol of pride and normalcy. But the mall has become more than just a modest attempt at a shopper's paradise. Since its opening last month, it has become the focus of an argument over how bad things really are in Gaza.Israel has pointed to photos of the mall's toy displays, supermarket and racks of clothes as proof that Gazan suffering has been exaggerated, amid claims of a humanitarian crisis and a crippling lack of building materials because of an Egyptian-Israeli blockade of the territory.This clearly belies all the moaning about the human catastrophe in Gaza, said Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor.Occupying the first two floors of an existing Gaza office tower, the shopping center features a fried chicken restaurant — now closed during the day for the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan — and a supermarket on the ground floor. The upstairs has a toy store, a perfume and accessories shop and clothing stores.
If they have the cash, shoppers can now buy Pringles chips, Israeli yogurt, Turkish-made suits and $80 bottles of perfume. But Gazans maintain that the mall doesn't change the fact that the coastal strip sufferes from rampant unemployment, poor utilities and the border closures that keep people locked in.People say there are no problems because Gaza has mayonnaise and ketchup, said Gaza dentist Samir Ziara, 59, while browsing the mall's supermarket. If you lock someone in a room but take care of all of his basic needs, is that enough to make him happy? Local media heavily reported the mall's festive opening last month. Hamas Social Affairs Minister Ahmed al-Kurd cut the ribbon. Other Hamas officials also attended, though Hamas and mall administrators denied any official connection.Many Israelis, however, took the news as proof that life in Gaza wasn't as bad as Palestinians, media outlets and the United Nations often claim.Images from the new mall make one wonder about the humanitarian crisis all these international aid ships are sailing to, wrote Jacob Shrybman on the Ynet Israeli news website.Similarly, Israel's Government Press Office sent a sarcastic e-mail to foreign correspondents in May suggesting that while they cover alleged humanitarian difficulties in Gaza they also visit a recently opened Olympic-size swimming pool and the Roots Club, a luxury restaurant. We have been told the beef stroganoff and cream of spinach soup are highly recommended, read the e-mail.Mall manager Saladin Abu Abdu brushed off the criticisms and played down the mall's importance.It has no excess or luxury, he said. The only thing special here is that we collect everything under one roof. That's what you can't find elsewhere.The economy in the impoverished territory has been in decline since Hamas militants overran the strip in 2007 and Israel and Egypt responded with a strict blockade. Most of Gaza's merchandise was then smuggled in through tunnels under the Egyptian border.Then a deadly Israeli raid on a flotilla seeking to break the blockade in May drew widespread international criticism, and Israel loosened restrictions on consumer goods — many of which can now be bought at the new mall.
Mall administrators, however, say about 80 percent of the goods on the shelves are still coming through the smuggling tunnels.The shopping center has its own generator, exempting it from the frequent power outages in most Gaza homes and is also air conditioned, although a recent visitor found the interior only slightly less stifling than the sticky, Mediterranean heat outside.Pushing a cart piled high with glassware, diapers, toilet paper, shampoo, chocolate, a food processor and a dish rack, Osama Saleh, 35, said Gaza now had more goods than he'd seen before. They are easing the blockade a bit, but the crisis is more than that, he said, adding that few Gazans had the cash to shop like him. The unemployment here is unbelievable.
About one-third of Gaza's work force is currently jobless, and 80 percent of the population depends on food aid. While consumer goods enter, Israel still bans exports and many raw materials that could allow Gaza's factories to reopen. Israel says those problems are due to the refusal of Hamas — whose charter calls for Israel's destruction — to engage with the Jewish state. It's something new and nice, said Ziara, the dentist, pushing a cart holding Israeli yogurt, a bucket of laundry detergent, a hunk of cheese and a bottle of corn oil. Ziara said his practice affords him a comfortable life but that being stuck in Gaza is emotionally taxing. He can't visit his two brothers who live in Saudi Arabia, he said, and hasn't seen his 22-year-old son since he left to study in France three years ago. It's pretty small for a mall, said Saleh, who was born in Gaza, but having lived for 18 years in Miami, Fla. had seen bigger. I'm used to the huge ones, but by Gaza standards it's nice.
Israel police: Former PM Olmert should stand trial
Mon Aug 23, 10:06 am ET
JERUSALEM – Israeli police have recommended that former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert stand trial on corruption charges for his role in a real estate deal during his time as Jerusalem mayor a decade ago.Police said on Monday that Olmert is suspected of fraud, breach of trust and taking bribes to promote an apartment project in the city.
Olmert has denied any wrongdoing but stepped down last year to battle the charges. His spokesman, Amir Dan, calls the allegations baseless.A police recommendation is standard practice in Israel and usually the first step before an indictment.Olmert is currently on trial on separate charges of accepting illicit funds from an American supporter and double-billing Jewish groups for trips abroad, also before he became prime minister.
Israeli PM aims to surprise sceptics by Steve Weizman – Sun Aug 22, 10:49 am ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday he wanted to surprise the sceptics by reaching a settlement with the Palestinians at revived US-sponsored direct peace talks next month.I know there is a lot of doubt after the 17 years which have passed since the start of the Oslo (peace) process, Netanyahu told reporters at a weekly cabinet meeting.We are seeking to surprise the critics and the sceptics, but in order to do this we need a real partner on the Palestinian side. It is possible to succeed with a hand extended in peace, but only if someone on the other side likewise extends one.Netanyahu and Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas have accepted a US invitation to relaunch direct peace negotiations in Washington on September 2 following a 20-month hiatus.It will be the latest in a series of attempts since secret talks in the Norwegian capital produced a 1993 Declaration of Principles on autonomy with the goal of a peace agreement which has yet to materialise.US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's announcement on Friday of yet another relaunch was welcomed by Netanyahu.I welcome the US invitation to start direct talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority without preconditions... The achievement of a peace agreement between us and the Palestinian Authority is a difficult thing, but it is possible.Israeli media commentators on Sunday did not share Netanyahu's enthusiasm.
We've seen this movie before, columnist Nahum Barnea wrote in the mass-circulation Yediot Aharonot. And we've seen it again and again and again. It's hard to believe that this time it will have a happy ending.A string of interim agreements since the 1993 Oslo accords gave the Palestinians limited autonomy pending a final-status settlement on an independent state have failed to bear fruit.Top-level talks in 2000 between then Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat at the US presidential retreat of Camp David, triggering a second intifada, or uprising.In 2003, the Quartet of the United States, Russia, the European Union and United Nations produced the roadmap blueprint for peace, aiming to resolve the conflict by 2005. The opening phase only has been implemented.In November 2007, the peace process was relaunched amid fanfare in Annapolis, near Washington, but talks ground to a halt again when Israel launched a major assault on the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip in December 2008.The free distribution daily Israel Hayom, which supports Netanyahu, also had reservations.The festive dinner at the White House will be impressive, wrote Zalman Shoval, a former Israeli ambassador to Washington and Netanyahu confidant.One can only hope that the fate of the process it will be launching will not be the same as that (started) at another ceremony on the White House lawn 17 years ago, when Arafat and then Israeli premier Yitzhak Rabin shook hands.Netanyahu told reporters on Sunday that a settlement must safeguard Israel's national interests, foremostly security.Security, recognition of the national state of the Jewish people and the end of the conflict. There are the three components that will ensure us a real and lasting peace agreement, he said.
The Palestine Liberation Organisation has accepted the US invitation while the Islamist Hamas rulers of the Gaza Strip have rejected the planned talks. Nevertheless chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat has warned that if Israel pursues its settlement activities in the occupied West Bank and annexed Arab east Jerusalem, the negotiations will founder. If settlements continue after September 26... negotiations will not continue, he said on Sunday -- in reference to a 10-month Israeli moratorium on West Bank construction announced in November.
Lebanon aid trip to Gaza delayed
Sun Aug 22, 9:17 am ET
TRIPOLI, Lebanon (AFP) – A Lebanese aid ship for Gaza was postponed on Sunday to await a green light from a third country as a transit point for the mission to the Israeli-blockaded Palestinian territory.The Mariam, a Bolivian-flagged cargo ship, was to have left from Tripoli in north Lebanon later the same day for Cyprus on the first leg of a crossing to Gaza despite an Israeli warning it could use force to keep the blockade intact.The trip has not been cancelled but delayed, one of the organisers, Samar al-Hajj, told a news conference in Tripoli, as efforts continued to secure authorisation from another state in the region to dock before heading for Gaza.Lebanon and Israel remain technically at war and have no diplomatic ties or maritime links, barring the Mariam's direct departure from a Lebanese port for Israeli-controlled waters.The Mariam, renamed in honour of the Virgin Mary, plans to carry aid to Gaza in a bid to break Israel's four-year siege of Gaza with more than 50 Lebanese and foreign women activists on board.Cyprus has denied the Mariam permission to dock or use its waters and the ship has been trying to negotiate with Greece, Yasser Kashlak, another of the organisers, told reporters.Contacts are under way with Athens to receive the ship but so far we have not received a reply," he said.
Kashlak said he would give Greece until Friday to reply after which the mission would go ahead whatever the outcome. We will then have one plan left, to fly the United Nations flag and leave for Palestine, he said.But Lebanon has said it will not allow the Mariam, which has a male crew and would also carry journalists, to head for any port with which it does not have maritime links.Israel has been putting pressure on Cyprus and Greece not to cooperate with the Mariam, according to Kashlak. I hope that Greece will not bow to the pressure like Cyprus did, he said.
Kashlak was referring to an aid flotilla caught up in a deadly Israeli naval commando raid on May 31 with which Cypriot authorities refused to cooperate.On Saturday, Transport Minister Ghazi Aridi said Lebanese authorities will not authorise the Mariam to leave for the Gaza Strip unless the legal conditions are met.
Rima Farah, the aid mission's spokeswoman, told AFP on Saturday that contacts were also under way with Turkey.Israel came under international censure over its seizure of a six-ship aid fleet bound for the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip when Israeli commandos shot dead nine Turkish activists in a clash on the lead boat.Israel has warned it could use force again to stop the new aid boat to Gaza.
Broken dreams, broken pledges in Gaza
by Steve Weizman – Sat Aug 21, 10:08 pm ET
KIBBUTZ KARMIYYA, Israel (AFP) – Dana Chetrit, her husband Alain and their two young children in August 2005 reluctantly left their home in the northern Gaza settlement of Elei Sinai, never to return.They were among 8,000 Israeli settlers evicted by their own government from 21 settlements in Gaza, in a move heralded as ending 38 years of Israeli occupation and as bringing closer an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.To Chetrit, a 36-year-old art teacher, the pullout brought broken dreams, broken promises and a broken marriage.It has not brought a golden age for the Gaza Strip's 1.5 million Palestinians either.Today the coastal territory is run by the militant Islamist movement Hamas while Israel has an iron grip on its airspace and sea lanes, maintaining a total blockade on both while tightly restricting land access.Gazans are no longer admitted to neighbouring Israel, cutting off a job market which used to employ around 20,000 of them every day, and are rarely allowed to export any produce. As a result Gaza unemployment has climbed to about 40 percent and is expected to continue rising, while the United Nations says 80 percent of the population depend on food aid.Still, Gazans say, life today is better than it was when Israeli troops were present everywhere.
My God, I hope those days never return, said Fadi Zindah, 26, who had the settlement of Dugit as his neighbour, 250 meters (yards) from his home in the northern Gaza Strip.We could not leave the house before nine in the morning or after the sunset call to prayer, he said. If we looked out of the window at night, the soldiers would fire immediately, so we had to keep them closed.Mubarak al-Sawarka, 32, who lives between what were once Dugit and Elei Sinai, says he had to show a written permit from the Israeli military to leave home in the morning and return in the evening, with passage allowed only at specific hours.Our life was a big, dangerous prison during the days of the settlements, he said.Five years since soldiers ordered settler Dana Chetrit out of her home, she is still living in temporary accommodation at the Karmiya kibbutz just across the border in Israel.Her marriage collapsed under the strain of the move.As a 22-year-old newly-wed in 1996, she had found her ideal home in the small settlement of Elei Sinai, just inside the Gaza Strip and about five kilometers (three miles) from where she now lives.It was our first home, it was the home we had been looking for, she said. We wanted to live in a communal community, it was cheap, there were other young couples there, everyone was like us.
The idyll was shattered in October 2001 when Hamas gunmen cut through the settlement's perimeter fence and shot dead a 19-year-old girl and her 20-year-old boyfriend.Another 15 Israelis were wounded before the attackers were shot dead in a gun battle with soldiers. Chetrit said the incident only strengthened her attachment to the settlement and her commitment to her neighbours. But in 2004, then Prime Minister Ariel Sharon announced the withdrawal of Israeli troops and settlers from Gaza. On August 18, 2005, the Chetrits were turfed out of their home.The violence, however, followed them across the border to the small kibbutz collective farm, where she and the boys now live in a five-roomed prefabricated house.
Gaza militants regularly fire rockets across the border.
In February 2006, a Qassam rocket, produced in the workshops of the Palestinian territory, thudded into a neighbour's house, destroying it and blowing a toddler out of the playpen in which he had been sitting. The injured child recovered but the traumatised parents moved out the same day.Rockets had fallen before but this was a direct hit, Chetrit said. If you had seen the house, you would have been amazed that anybody could come out of it alive.In a separate attack, a rocket fell on the kibbutz football pitch, injuring two people, she said, adding that there were plenty of near misses as well. Of around 50 families from Elei Sinai who were initially housed at Karmiya, only about 20 remain today, some driven out by fear of more rockets. Chetrit, who has been promised land on which to build a home in the nearby village of Talme Yafe, said the bureaucratic wheels are turning very slowly. We haven't yet received a plot, she said. By the time we get building permits ... it could be another four or five years.She is not going to move again until she has a permanent home. Qassams or no Qassams, I'm not leaving again ... I can't see myself packing up again and moving house, she said.
Tue Aug 24, 6:29 pm ET
BEIRUT (AFP) – Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah on Tuesday called on Lebanon to consider building a nuclear power plant in the energy-starved nation.I call on the Lebanese government to seriously consider ... building a nuclear power plant for the peaceful purpose of generating electricity, which would be more cost-efficient than the plan the government has endorsed, Nasrallah said in a speech broadcast via video link.Iran's Bushehr nuclear facility, which will provide a large part of Iran's electricity needs, cost much less than the (Lebanese) state's reform plan, Nasrallah said in a speech to mark an iftar, the evening meal that breaks the dawn-to-dusk Ramadan fast.We may even develop a nuclear plant that meets all of Lebanon's power needs and even sell power to Syria, Cyprus, Turkey, Jordan and other countries.The Lebanese government in June adopted a six million dollar (4.7 million euro) reform plan for the electricity sector, which includes infrastructure for liquefied petroleum gas and a pipeline along the coast.
Electricity has been a constant concern since the end of the 1975-1990 civil war in Lebanon, which allocates the third largest slice of its budget to power supply, after debt servicing and salaries.The country suffers daily power cuts, including in the capital where many businesses and apartment blocks use generators to tide them over during lengthy blackouts.Angry Lebanese have staged a string of protests demanding better power supply, mainly in the impoverished north and in areas near the airport.Hezbollah's main backer Iran said on Saturday it has started loading fuel into the Russian-built Bushehr nuclear power plant, in the face of stiff opposition from world powers over its controversial atomic programme.The United States has said there was no proliferation risk from the civilian plant because of Russian involvement.
Hezbollah: Iran can equip Lebanese army
Tue Aug 24, 4:40 pm ET
BEIRUT – The leader of Lebanon's Shiite Muslim Hezbollah group says authorities should formally ask Iran to help equip the country's military.Sheik Hassan Nasrallah vows his Iranian-backed group would use its friendship with Iran to secure assistance to the national army.His televised comments Tuesday were in response to a decision by a U.S. congressman this month to suspend $100 million worth of American military aid over concerns the weapons could be turned on Israel and that the militant Hezbollah group may have influence over the Lebanese army.The Lebanese government has since opened an account at the central bank to receive donated funds to buy weapons for the country's military.
Hamas urges Jordan, Egypt to boycott Mideast talks launch
Tue Aug 24, 4:18 pm ET
DAMASCUS (AFP) – Exiled Hamas chief Khaled Meshaal urged the Egyptian and Jordanian leaders on Tuesday to boycott the resumption early next month of direct Israeli-Palestinian talks to be hosted by Washington.I appeal to President Hosni Mubarak (of Egypt) and (Jordan's) King Abdullah II not to back these negotiations which are rejected by the Palestinians, Meshaal said in Damascus where he lives in exile.Mubarak and the Jordanian monarch have been invited by the United States to join a summit in Washington on September 2 during which Israel and the Palestinians are due to resume direct peace talks after a 20-month hiatus.The results of these negotiations will be catastrophic for the interests and the security of Jordan and Egypt, and are aimed at liquidating the Palestinian cause, Meshaal said in a speech.
The political leader of the Islamist group that rules in the Gaza Strip insisted that the talks are only the fruit of an agreement between US President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.He added that the Palestinian people will not feel bound by the outcome of these negotiations because the Palestinian negotiators renounced their demands that Israel freeze settlement building in the West Bank, including east Jerusalem.Hamas formally rejected Washington's call for direct Israeli-Palestinian talks to resume next month, immediately after US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton last Friday announced the September 2 summit.Hamas rejects the American call for the resumption of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said at the time.This invitation is a new attempt to fool the Palestinian people after the Annapolis experience, during which we were promised a Palestinian state within a year, but many years have passed and we are still at square one.A relaunch of negotiations amid much fanfare at Annapolis in Maryland in November 2007 had produced no visible results by the time the talks collapsed when Israel launched its devastating military 22-day offensive on the Gaza Strip just over a year later.
Mideast talks will fail: Iran
Tue Aug 24, 4:20 am ET
TEHRAN (AFP) – Direct peace talks between Israel and Palestinians will fail as long as the root of the problem remained, Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said on Tuesday.We don't think (peace) talks are going to yield any results, Mehmanparast told reporters at his weekly press conference.The root of the Palestinian problem should be cured. We cannot see a solution to the Palestinian issue when the Palestinians have been driven out to other countries, while occupiers and invaders have come from other countries (to Palestinian territories), Mehmanparast said.Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas have accepted a US invitation to relaunch direct peace negotiations in Washington on September 2 following a 20-month hiatus.The Palestinians insist talks should lead to the creation of an independent state, and sought an Israeli freeze on settlement activity for the talks to resume.Netanyahu has made it clear there should be no preconditions for the talks.The Islamic Republic of Iran does not recognise Israel and relations between the two have deteriorated under the presidency of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has infuriated Western countries by claiming that the Holocaust was a myth.Israel, believed to be the sole nuclear weapons holder in the Middle East, has never ruled out a military strike against Tehran to stop its controversial atomic programme.
Mideast passions quiet over NY mosque showdown By BRIAN MURPHY, Associated Press Writer – Mon Aug 23, 5:48 pm ET
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates – On the streets of lower Manhattan, there's no mistaking how the passions flow: One side saying its their patriotic duty to block a planned Islamic center and the other insisting America cannot curtail freedoms as revenge for the Sept. 11 attacks.But in the Middle East — where the imam spearheading the plans is now touring on a U.S.-funded outreach mission — the proposed mosque and community center near the former World Trade Center towers is viewed in less stark tones.Much of it circles back to what the showdown says about Islam's identity in the West, theories about the roots of Islamophobia or even whether the plans in New York are worth the fight.Mideast commentators argue that many in the region view the clash as a wholly American spectacle — about political posturing and the lingering wounds of 9/11 — that distracts from genuine troubles such as Iran's growing clout or Israel's pressure on Gaza.The mosque is not an issue for Muslims and they don't care about it being built, wrote Saudi columnist Abdel Rahman Rashed in the pan-Arab Asharq al-Awsat newspaper.Some Muslims would even consider building a mosque there would be a permanent reminder of the acts of terrorists, who carried out their crime in the name of Islam, he added.Despite the power of the 9/11 memories, other Muslim struggles in the West have brought far greater public outcry in the Middle East — such as Switzerland's ban on new minaret construction and the growing European moves to outlaw burqas and other Islamic coverings.
There is indifference, complained Sheik Fawzi el-Zefzaf, a member of Egypt's Islamic Scholars Association. The Arab and Muslim worlds should be supporting the imam, he said, referring to Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, whose Cordoba Initiative is behind plans for the $100 million, 13-story project about two blocks from where the Twin Towers once stood.Rauf plans to travel Tuesday to Qatar — home of the influential Al-Jazeera television network — as part of a State Department-funded trip that began last week in Bahrain. Rauf has avoided any extensive comments of the New York project. Instead, he has stuck closely to less-volatile subjects such as battling extremism and Islam's compatibility with the U.S. Constitution and other Western values of freedom and open debate.In an interview with Bahrain's Al Wasat newspaper published Monday, Rauf said he was trying to reach out to Islamic scholars to urge Muslims worldwide to become more effective members of their communities and have complete nationalism — apparently meaning integration with local laws and standards.
He stressed that Muslims can remain faithful as well as actively engaged in the affairs of the countries where they live.I see that every religious community faces challenges, but the real challenge lies in keeping true to the core values of the faith and how to express these values in a specific time and place, the imam was quoted as saying.But Rauf's refusal to publicly answer questions about the New York mosque on his 15-day Mideast trip stands in stark counterpoint to the scenes Sunday near Ground Zero.Hundreds of demonstrators squared off — sometimes in nose-to-nose confrontations. No mosque, no way, some chanted. Others replied with cries: We say no to racist fear! Rauf's wife, Daisy Khan, said the rage against the project is like a metastasized anti-Semitism.Fear is back, with a vengeance, wrote James Zogby, president of the Arab American Institute in a commentary published in The National, which is supported by Abu Dhabi's government. It rules the street and we have every right to be concerned. What is needed now is are strong voices appealing to our better selves.Others in the Mideast media and Web chat rooms have chewed over whether President Barack Obama — and the Democrats by extension — will pay a political price for his stance that Muslims have the right to build the center at the site. Obama, however, has not commented on whether he thinks the plan should move forward.
Obama's election was widely welcomed across the Middle East, but his popularity has suffered over perceptions he has failed to take a harder line with Israel and expanded the war in Afghanistan. Lebanese political affairs analyst, Salim Nasser, wrote in the pan-Arab daily Al Hayat that the firestorm over the mosque plans is a political bomb that will end up wounding Obama and his party. Two professors at Al-Azhar, Sunni Islam's leading scholarly institution, stated in a widely read editorial in the Egyptian daily Al-Masry Al-Youm, that the real damage has been to the international perception of Islam since the New York battles can only end up reinforcing the memory of 9/11.From Kuwait, Egyptian publisher Ahmed el-Adly said Muslims' image in the West has been ravaged time and again after 9/11 and other jihad-inspired attacks in London, Madrid and elsewhere. He wondered if the New York mosque proposal is the right goal at the right time. No need to rock the boat, he said. Associated Press writers Sarah El Deeb in Cairo and Bassem Mroue in Beirut contributed to this report. (This version CORRECTS that el-Adly's comments were made in an interview).
Gaza Mall sparks debate over Israeli blockade By BEN HUBBARD, Associated Press Writer – Mon Aug 23, 11:49 am ET
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip – Palestinians in this blockaded territory can now buy $80 bottles of perfume, Turkish-made suits and Israeli yogurt at the new Gaza Mall. But with only two floors of shops connected by a broken elevator and a staircase, Gaza's first shopping center is a far cry from the sprawling luxury malls famous elsewhere in the Middle East.Nevertheless, for the war-battered residents of the impoverished coastal strip, it is a symbol of pride and normalcy. But the mall has become more than just a modest attempt at a shopper's paradise. Since its opening last month, it has become the focus of an argument over how bad things really are in Gaza.Israel has pointed to photos of the mall's toy displays, supermarket and racks of clothes as proof that Gazan suffering has been exaggerated, amid claims of a humanitarian crisis and a crippling lack of building materials because of an Egyptian-Israeli blockade of the territory.This clearly belies all the moaning about the human catastrophe in Gaza, said Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor.Occupying the first two floors of an existing Gaza office tower, the shopping center features a fried chicken restaurant — now closed during the day for the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan — and a supermarket on the ground floor. The upstairs has a toy store, a perfume and accessories shop and clothing stores.
If they have the cash, shoppers can now buy Pringles chips, Israeli yogurt, Turkish-made suits and $80 bottles of perfume. But Gazans maintain that the mall doesn't change the fact that the coastal strip sufferes from rampant unemployment, poor utilities and the border closures that keep people locked in.People say there are no problems because Gaza has mayonnaise and ketchup, said Gaza dentist Samir Ziara, 59, while browsing the mall's supermarket. If you lock someone in a room but take care of all of his basic needs, is that enough to make him happy? Local media heavily reported the mall's festive opening last month. Hamas Social Affairs Minister Ahmed al-Kurd cut the ribbon. Other Hamas officials also attended, though Hamas and mall administrators denied any official connection.Many Israelis, however, took the news as proof that life in Gaza wasn't as bad as Palestinians, media outlets and the United Nations often claim.Images from the new mall make one wonder about the humanitarian crisis all these international aid ships are sailing to, wrote Jacob Shrybman on the Ynet Israeli news website.Similarly, Israel's Government Press Office sent a sarcastic e-mail to foreign correspondents in May suggesting that while they cover alleged humanitarian difficulties in Gaza they also visit a recently opened Olympic-size swimming pool and the Roots Club, a luxury restaurant. We have been told the beef stroganoff and cream of spinach soup are highly recommended, read the e-mail.Mall manager Saladin Abu Abdu brushed off the criticisms and played down the mall's importance.It has no excess or luxury, he said. The only thing special here is that we collect everything under one roof. That's what you can't find elsewhere.The economy in the impoverished territory has been in decline since Hamas militants overran the strip in 2007 and Israel and Egypt responded with a strict blockade. Most of Gaza's merchandise was then smuggled in through tunnels under the Egyptian border.Then a deadly Israeli raid on a flotilla seeking to break the blockade in May drew widespread international criticism, and Israel loosened restrictions on consumer goods — many of which can now be bought at the new mall.
Mall administrators, however, say about 80 percent of the goods on the shelves are still coming through the smuggling tunnels.The shopping center has its own generator, exempting it from the frequent power outages in most Gaza homes and is also air conditioned, although a recent visitor found the interior only slightly less stifling than the sticky, Mediterranean heat outside.Pushing a cart piled high with glassware, diapers, toilet paper, shampoo, chocolate, a food processor and a dish rack, Osama Saleh, 35, said Gaza now had more goods than he'd seen before. They are easing the blockade a bit, but the crisis is more than that, he said, adding that few Gazans had the cash to shop like him. The unemployment here is unbelievable.
About one-third of Gaza's work force is currently jobless, and 80 percent of the population depends on food aid. While consumer goods enter, Israel still bans exports and many raw materials that could allow Gaza's factories to reopen. Israel says those problems are due to the refusal of Hamas — whose charter calls for Israel's destruction — to engage with the Jewish state. It's something new and nice, said Ziara, the dentist, pushing a cart holding Israeli yogurt, a bucket of laundry detergent, a hunk of cheese and a bottle of corn oil. Ziara said his practice affords him a comfortable life but that being stuck in Gaza is emotionally taxing. He can't visit his two brothers who live in Saudi Arabia, he said, and hasn't seen his 22-year-old son since he left to study in France three years ago. It's pretty small for a mall, said Saleh, who was born in Gaza, but having lived for 18 years in Miami, Fla. had seen bigger. I'm used to the huge ones, but by Gaza standards it's nice.
Israel police: Former PM Olmert should stand trial
Mon Aug 23, 10:06 am ET
JERUSALEM – Israeli police have recommended that former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert stand trial on corruption charges for his role in a real estate deal during his time as Jerusalem mayor a decade ago.Police said on Monday that Olmert is suspected of fraud, breach of trust and taking bribes to promote an apartment project in the city.
Olmert has denied any wrongdoing but stepped down last year to battle the charges. His spokesman, Amir Dan, calls the allegations baseless.A police recommendation is standard practice in Israel and usually the first step before an indictment.Olmert is currently on trial on separate charges of accepting illicit funds from an American supporter and double-billing Jewish groups for trips abroad, also before he became prime minister.
Israeli PM aims to surprise sceptics by Steve Weizman – Sun Aug 22, 10:49 am ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday he wanted to surprise the sceptics by reaching a settlement with the Palestinians at revived US-sponsored direct peace talks next month.I know there is a lot of doubt after the 17 years which have passed since the start of the Oslo (peace) process, Netanyahu told reporters at a weekly cabinet meeting.We are seeking to surprise the critics and the sceptics, but in order to do this we need a real partner on the Palestinian side. It is possible to succeed with a hand extended in peace, but only if someone on the other side likewise extends one.Netanyahu and Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas have accepted a US invitation to relaunch direct peace negotiations in Washington on September 2 following a 20-month hiatus.It will be the latest in a series of attempts since secret talks in the Norwegian capital produced a 1993 Declaration of Principles on autonomy with the goal of a peace agreement which has yet to materialise.US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's announcement on Friday of yet another relaunch was welcomed by Netanyahu.I welcome the US invitation to start direct talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority without preconditions... The achievement of a peace agreement between us and the Palestinian Authority is a difficult thing, but it is possible.Israeli media commentators on Sunday did not share Netanyahu's enthusiasm.
We've seen this movie before, columnist Nahum Barnea wrote in the mass-circulation Yediot Aharonot. And we've seen it again and again and again. It's hard to believe that this time it will have a happy ending.A string of interim agreements since the 1993 Oslo accords gave the Palestinians limited autonomy pending a final-status settlement on an independent state have failed to bear fruit.Top-level talks in 2000 between then Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat at the US presidential retreat of Camp David, triggering a second intifada, or uprising.In 2003, the Quartet of the United States, Russia, the European Union and United Nations produced the roadmap blueprint for peace, aiming to resolve the conflict by 2005. The opening phase only has been implemented.In November 2007, the peace process was relaunched amid fanfare in Annapolis, near Washington, but talks ground to a halt again when Israel launched a major assault on the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip in December 2008.The free distribution daily Israel Hayom, which supports Netanyahu, also had reservations.The festive dinner at the White House will be impressive, wrote Zalman Shoval, a former Israeli ambassador to Washington and Netanyahu confidant.One can only hope that the fate of the process it will be launching will not be the same as that (started) at another ceremony on the White House lawn 17 years ago, when Arafat and then Israeli premier Yitzhak Rabin shook hands.Netanyahu told reporters on Sunday that a settlement must safeguard Israel's national interests, foremostly security.Security, recognition of the national state of the Jewish people and the end of the conflict. There are the three components that will ensure us a real and lasting peace agreement, he said.
The Palestine Liberation Organisation has accepted the US invitation while the Islamist Hamas rulers of the Gaza Strip have rejected the planned talks. Nevertheless chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat has warned that if Israel pursues its settlement activities in the occupied West Bank and annexed Arab east Jerusalem, the negotiations will founder. If settlements continue after September 26... negotiations will not continue, he said on Sunday -- in reference to a 10-month Israeli moratorium on West Bank construction announced in November.
Lebanon aid trip to Gaza delayed
Sun Aug 22, 9:17 am ET
TRIPOLI, Lebanon (AFP) – A Lebanese aid ship for Gaza was postponed on Sunday to await a green light from a third country as a transit point for the mission to the Israeli-blockaded Palestinian territory.The Mariam, a Bolivian-flagged cargo ship, was to have left from Tripoli in north Lebanon later the same day for Cyprus on the first leg of a crossing to Gaza despite an Israeli warning it could use force to keep the blockade intact.The trip has not been cancelled but delayed, one of the organisers, Samar al-Hajj, told a news conference in Tripoli, as efforts continued to secure authorisation from another state in the region to dock before heading for Gaza.Lebanon and Israel remain technically at war and have no diplomatic ties or maritime links, barring the Mariam's direct departure from a Lebanese port for Israeli-controlled waters.The Mariam, renamed in honour of the Virgin Mary, plans to carry aid to Gaza in a bid to break Israel's four-year siege of Gaza with more than 50 Lebanese and foreign women activists on board.Cyprus has denied the Mariam permission to dock or use its waters and the ship has been trying to negotiate with Greece, Yasser Kashlak, another of the organisers, told reporters.Contacts are under way with Athens to receive the ship but so far we have not received a reply," he said.
Kashlak said he would give Greece until Friday to reply after which the mission would go ahead whatever the outcome. We will then have one plan left, to fly the United Nations flag and leave for Palestine, he said.But Lebanon has said it will not allow the Mariam, which has a male crew and would also carry journalists, to head for any port with which it does not have maritime links.Israel has been putting pressure on Cyprus and Greece not to cooperate with the Mariam, according to Kashlak. I hope that Greece will not bow to the pressure like Cyprus did, he said.
Kashlak was referring to an aid flotilla caught up in a deadly Israeli naval commando raid on May 31 with which Cypriot authorities refused to cooperate.On Saturday, Transport Minister Ghazi Aridi said Lebanese authorities will not authorise the Mariam to leave for the Gaza Strip unless the legal conditions are met.
Rima Farah, the aid mission's spokeswoman, told AFP on Saturday that contacts were also under way with Turkey.Israel came under international censure over its seizure of a six-ship aid fleet bound for the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip when Israeli commandos shot dead nine Turkish activists in a clash on the lead boat.Israel has warned it could use force again to stop the new aid boat to Gaza.
Broken dreams, broken pledges in Gaza
by Steve Weizman – Sat Aug 21, 10:08 pm ET
KIBBUTZ KARMIYYA, Israel (AFP) – Dana Chetrit, her husband Alain and their two young children in August 2005 reluctantly left their home in the northern Gaza settlement of Elei Sinai, never to return.They were among 8,000 Israeli settlers evicted by their own government from 21 settlements in Gaza, in a move heralded as ending 38 years of Israeli occupation and as bringing closer an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.To Chetrit, a 36-year-old art teacher, the pullout brought broken dreams, broken promises and a broken marriage.It has not brought a golden age for the Gaza Strip's 1.5 million Palestinians either.Today the coastal territory is run by the militant Islamist movement Hamas while Israel has an iron grip on its airspace and sea lanes, maintaining a total blockade on both while tightly restricting land access.Gazans are no longer admitted to neighbouring Israel, cutting off a job market which used to employ around 20,000 of them every day, and are rarely allowed to export any produce. As a result Gaza unemployment has climbed to about 40 percent and is expected to continue rising, while the United Nations says 80 percent of the population depend on food aid.Still, Gazans say, life today is better than it was when Israeli troops were present everywhere.
My God, I hope those days never return, said Fadi Zindah, 26, who had the settlement of Dugit as his neighbour, 250 meters (yards) from his home in the northern Gaza Strip.We could not leave the house before nine in the morning or after the sunset call to prayer, he said. If we looked out of the window at night, the soldiers would fire immediately, so we had to keep them closed.Mubarak al-Sawarka, 32, who lives between what were once Dugit and Elei Sinai, says he had to show a written permit from the Israeli military to leave home in the morning and return in the evening, with passage allowed only at specific hours.Our life was a big, dangerous prison during the days of the settlements, he said.Five years since soldiers ordered settler Dana Chetrit out of her home, she is still living in temporary accommodation at the Karmiya kibbutz just across the border in Israel.Her marriage collapsed under the strain of the move.As a 22-year-old newly-wed in 1996, she had found her ideal home in the small settlement of Elei Sinai, just inside the Gaza Strip and about five kilometers (three miles) from where she now lives.It was our first home, it was the home we had been looking for, she said. We wanted to live in a communal community, it was cheap, there were other young couples there, everyone was like us.
The idyll was shattered in October 2001 when Hamas gunmen cut through the settlement's perimeter fence and shot dead a 19-year-old girl and her 20-year-old boyfriend.Another 15 Israelis were wounded before the attackers were shot dead in a gun battle with soldiers. Chetrit said the incident only strengthened her attachment to the settlement and her commitment to her neighbours. But in 2004, then Prime Minister Ariel Sharon announced the withdrawal of Israeli troops and settlers from Gaza. On August 18, 2005, the Chetrits were turfed out of their home.The violence, however, followed them across the border to the small kibbutz collective farm, where she and the boys now live in a five-roomed prefabricated house.
Gaza militants regularly fire rockets across the border.
In February 2006, a Qassam rocket, produced in the workshops of the Palestinian territory, thudded into a neighbour's house, destroying it and blowing a toddler out of the playpen in which he had been sitting. The injured child recovered but the traumatised parents moved out the same day.Rockets had fallen before but this was a direct hit, Chetrit said. If you had seen the house, you would have been amazed that anybody could come out of it alive.In a separate attack, a rocket fell on the kibbutz football pitch, injuring two people, she said, adding that there were plenty of near misses as well. Of around 50 families from Elei Sinai who were initially housed at Karmiya, only about 20 remain today, some driven out by fear of more rockets. Chetrit, who has been promised land on which to build a home in the nearby village of Talme Yafe, said the bureaucratic wheels are turning very slowly. We haven't yet received a plot, she said. By the time we get building permits ... it could be another four or five years.She is not going to move again until she has a permanent home. Qassams or no Qassams, I'm not leaving again ... I can't see myself packing up again and moving house, she said.
CANADAS LOONEY LEFT AGAINST ISRAEL NOW
MINDY HAS GOT IT CORRECT,THESE LOONEY LEFT NUTCASES HATE ISRAEL AND NOW EVEN CANADA IS GETTING INVOLVED.HOW SHAMEFUL CANADA GOING AGAINST ISRAEL,GODS CHOSEN PEOPLE.SHAME ON US IN CANADA.
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Loony Left's flotilla way off course
By MINDELLE JACOBS, QMI Agency TORONTO SUN
Once again, the loony Left is jumping at the chance to demonize Israel, this time with a ridiculous plan to organize a Canadian flotilla to try to break Israel’s blockade of terrorist-run Gaza.Where were these assorted peaceniks and naive social activists over the years as thousands of rockets were fired into Israel by Hamas and Hezbollah thugs? Where was the comfort for the families of all the Israelis killed, injured or maimed for life by neighbouring genocidal cheerleaders? How many peaceniks made common cause with the truly vulnerable by hunkering down with Israelis in bomb shelters to experience what it’s like to be under constant attack?
The incredible irony of the Turkish ship that tried to break the Israeli blockade of Gaza earlier this year is that the people in Gaza aren’t starving. They’re ruled by terrorists but they don’t have to eat tree bark and weeds to stay alive.Not like, say, the North Koreans, many of whom are literally starving to death. Theoretically, at least, the people in Gaza can vote Hamas out if they want to lead more normal lives. Not so with the poor North Koreans, who have been stuck with a dysfunctional dynasty of lunatic dictators, the latest being eternal president Kim Jong-il.Where’s the flotilla to save the oppressed North Koreans? Why isn’t the Canadian Union of Postal Workers, which is so gung-ho about a Canadian boat heading to Gaza, organizing a campaign to send food to North Korea? One wonders, too, when we’ll see a protester-packed flotilla on its way to Darfur to demonstrate against the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of tribal minorities by bloodthirsty militias backed by the racist Sudanese government. I await the cries of dismay from the loony Left over the terrible violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where untold thousands of women have been raped.
So worried are the peaceniks about the fate of Gazans that they apparently haven’t given a thought to the terrible persecution of the Kurds by Turkey over the years. A Turkish ship bound for Gaza to help the poor Palestinians was a cause celebre. But, for years, there has been a curious silence about how badly Turkey has treated its minority Kurds.Tens of thousands of Kurds have been killed and hundreds of thousands illegally displaced over the years as Turkey fought to repress the Kurds. Many other Kurdish activists simply disappeared without a trace.The criminalization of opinion remains a key obstacle to the protection of human rights in Turkey,Human Rights Watch observed in its 2010 world report.Der Spiegel recently published a story saying German experts believe Turkish forces used banned chemical weapons in the killing of eight Kurdish rebels in 2009. Why is there no outrage from peace activists about this? When will the Canadian Union of Postal Workers be organizing a
letter-writing campaign to Turkey’s leaders to demand an explanation?
Lastly, why has the loony Left expressed no concern about how badly the Palestinians are treated in Lebanon, where they have largely been kept in refugee camps for 60 years and denied good jobs? The Palestinians there can’t expand existing camps or build new ones. Where’s the flotilla for them? There’s no flotilla because it’s a very hypocritical world, notes Aurel Braun, an international relations prof at the University of Toronto. The (Gaza) flotillas are not about food. They’re not about supplies. They’re about delegitimizing Israel.What else can we expect? It’s the loony Left.mindy.jacobs@sunmedia.ca
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Loony Left's flotilla way off course
By MINDELLE JACOBS, QMI Agency TORONTO SUN
Once again, the loony Left is jumping at the chance to demonize Israel, this time with a ridiculous plan to organize a Canadian flotilla to try to break Israel’s blockade of terrorist-run Gaza.Where were these assorted peaceniks and naive social activists over the years as thousands of rockets were fired into Israel by Hamas and Hezbollah thugs? Where was the comfort for the families of all the Israelis killed, injured or maimed for life by neighbouring genocidal cheerleaders? How many peaceniks made common cause with the truly vulnerable by hunkering down with Israelis in bomb shelters to experience what it’s like to be under constant attack?
The incredible irony of the Turkish ship that tried to break the Israeli blockade of Gaza earlier this year is that the people in Gaza aren’t starving. They’re ruled by terrorists but they don’t have to eat tree bark and weeds to stay alive.Not like, say, the North Koreans, many of whom are literally starving to death. Theoretically, at least, the people in Gaza can vote Hamas out if they want to lead more normal lives. Not so with the poor North Koreans, who have been stuck with a dysfunctional dynasty of lunatic dictators, the latest being eternal president Kim Jong-il.Where’s the flotilla to save the oppressed North Koreans? Why isn’t the Canadian Union of Postal Workers, which is so gung-ho about a Canadian boat heading to Gaza, organizing a campaign to send food to North Korea? One wonders, too, when we’ll see a protester-packed flotilla on its way to Darfur to demonstrate against the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of tribal minorities by bloodthirsty militias backed by the racist Sudanese government. I await the cries of dismay from the loony Left over the terrible violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where untold thousands of women have been raped.
So worried are the peaceniks about the fate of Gazans that they apparently haven’t given a thought to the terrible persecution of the Kurds by Turkey over the years. A Turkish ship bound for Gaza to help the poor Palestinians was a cause celebre. But, for years, there has been a curious silence about how badly Turkey has treated its minority Kurds.Tens of thousands of Kurds have been killed and hundreds of thousands illegally displaced over the years as Turkey fought to repress the Kurds. Many other Kurdish activists simply disappeared without a trace.The criminalization of opinion remains a key obstacle to the protection of human rights in Turkey,Human Rights Watch observed in its 2010 world report.Der Spiegel recently published a story saying German experts believe Turkish forces used banned chemical weapons in the killing of eight Kurdish rebels in 2009. Why is there no outrage from peace activists about this? When will the Canadian Union of Postal Workers be organizing a
letter-writing campaign to Turkey’s leaders to demand an explanation?
Lastly, why has the loony Left expressed no concern about how badly the Palestinians are treated in Lebanon, where they have largely been kept in refugee camps for 60 years and denied good jobs? The Palestinians there can’t expand existing camps or build new ones. Where’s the flotilla for them? There’s no flotilla because it’s a very hypocritical world, notes Aurel Braun, an international relations prof at the University of Toronto. The (Gaza) flotillas are not about food. They’re not about supplies. They’re about delegitimizing Israel.What else can we expect? It’s the loony Left.mindy.jacobs@sunmedia.ca
Saturday, August 21, 2010
DELAY TO REBELLION SHIP OF WOMEN
NOW WHEN THE TREATY TALKS START JORDAN AND EGYPT ARE INVITED WITH THE ISRAEL-PALESTINIAN TALKS.
LAST DAYS LEADERS
KING OF THE NORTH - RUSSIA
KING OF THE SOUTH - EGYPT
KING OF THE EAST - CHINA
KING OF THE WEST - EUROPEAN UNION(REVIVED ROMAN RULER)
Iran starts to fuel up first nuclear power plant By Katya Golubkova and Ramin Mostafavi 12:34PM AUG 21,10
BUSHEHR, Iran (Reuters) – Iran began fuelling its first nuclear power plant on Saturday, a potent symbol of its growing regional sway and rejection of international sanctions designed to prevent it building a nuclear bomb.Iranian television showed live pictures of Iran's nuclear chief Ali Akbar Salehi and his Russian counterpart watching a fuel rod assembly being prepared for insertion into the reactor near the Gulf city of Bushehr.Despite all the pressures, sanctions and hardships imposed by Western nations, we are now witnessing the start-up of the largest symbol of Iran's peaceful nuclear activities, Salehi told a news conference afterwards.Iranian officials said it would take two to three months before the plant starts producing electricity and would generate 1,000 megawatts, a small proportion of the nation's 41,000 megawatt electricity demand recorded last month.Russia designed, built and will supply fuel for Bushehr, taking back spent rods which could be used to make weapons-grade plutonium in order to ease nuclear proliferation concerns.Saturday's ceremony comes after decades of delays building the plant, work on which was initially started by German company Siemens in the 1970s, before Iran's Islamic Revolution.
The United States criticized Moscow earlier this year for pushing ahead with Bushehr given persistent Iranian defiance over its nuclear program.But U.S. State Department spokesman Darby Holladay said on Saturday Washington did not view the Bushehr reactor as a nuclear proliferation risk, partly because of Russia's role in providing nuclear fuel and taking it back when it is spent.Russia's support for Bushehr underscores that Iran does not need an indigenous enrichment capability if its intentions are purely peaceful, Holladay said.Moscow supported the latest U.N. Security Council resolution in June which imposed a fourth round of sanctions and called for Iran to stop uranium enrichment which, some countries fear, could lead it to obtain nuclear weapons.The construction of the nuclear plant at Bushehr is a clear example showing that any country, if it abides by existing international legislation and provides effective, open interaction with the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency), should have the opportunity to access peaceful use of the atom, Sergei Kiriyenko, head of Russian state nuclear corporation Rosatom, told the news conference.The Vienna-based IAEA said the agency regularly inspected Bushehr. The Agency is taking the appropriate verification measures in line with its established safeguards procedures, spokesman Ayhan Evrensel said.
CONCERN
The fuelling of Bushehr is a milestone in Iran's path to harness technology which it says will reduce consumption of its abundant fossil fuels, allowing it to export more oil and gas and to prepare for the day when the minerals riches dry up.Iran's neighbors, some of whom are also seeking nuclear power, are wary of Tehran's nuclear ambitions and its growing influence in the region, notably in Iraq where fellow Shi'ites now dominate and Lebanon, where it is a backer of Hezbollah.While most nuclear analysts say Bushehr does not add to any proliferation risk, many countries remain deeply concerned about Iran's uranium enrichment.It disclosed the existence of a second enrichment plant only last year and announced in February it was enriching uranium to a level of 20 percent, from about 3.5 percent previously, taking it closer to weapons-grade levels and well above what is needed to fuel a power plant.Iran, which says its nuclear program is entirely peaceful, said it needed to enrich to that level as a deal with major world power and the IAEA to supply special fuel for a medical reactor in Tehran had fallen apart. Israel, widely assumed to be the only Middle East country to have nuclear weapons, has said a nuclear-armed Iran would be a threat to its existence, raising concerns Israel could attack Iran's nuclear sites. However, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad dismissed the prospect of an Israeli strike. I rule out any such attack because the Israeli entity is too weak to do so,he told Al Jazeera on Thursday. Iran's response will be so strong and decisive that it will make the attackers regret their decision to hit our installations.(Writing by Robin Pomeroy; Editing by Charles Dick)
Probable delay hits Lebanon all-women aid ship to Gaza
AUG 21,10
BEIRUT (AFP) – A Lebanese aid ship aiming to reach Gaza in defiance of Israel will probably be delayed, organisers said Saturday, on the eve of its planned departure, after Cyprus denied use of its waters and ports.The Mariam, a Bolivian-flagged cargo ship renamed for the all-women aid operation, was to have set off from the northern Lebanese port of Tripoli on Sunday night, headed for Cyprus on the first leg of a crossing to Gaza.But Rima Farah, spokeswoman for the group, told AFP the mission could not go ahead without the green light from the Cypriot authorities.We are continuing our contacts with countries such as Turkey and Greece for them to allow us to dock. Pending their reply, the project will probably be delayed, she conceded.
Farah said a new date would be announced once the organisers had the green light from a third country.Israel came under international censure over its May 31 seizure of a six-ship aid fleet bound for the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip when Israeli commandos shot dead nine Turkish activists in a clash on the lead boat.On Friday, Israel said it could use force again to stop the new aid boat to Gaza, even as a Lebanese minister said Beirut refused to bow to warnings against authorising the mission to the blockaded Palestinian territory.In a letter to UN chief Ban Ki-moon, Israel's UN Ambassador Gabriela Shalev said the stated intention of the Mariam was to violate the existing naval blockade of Gaza.Israel also had information that another vessel, the Naji al-Ali, plans to leave from Lebanon with the aim of violating the blockade, she said.Israel reserves its right under international law to use all necessary means to prevent these ships from violating the aforementioned naval blockade, Shalev warned.She said such confrontational actions by the organisers, as well as those that offer their consent, is deeply troubling, also charging that the organisers had suspected links to Lebanon's Shiite militant group Hezbollah.But Lebanon's Transport Minister Ghazi Aridi said his country would not respond to the wishes or requests of Israel. We will continue to exercise our sovereignty and make the decisions we find appropriate,he said.
The Mariam, renamed in honour of the Virgin Mary, plans to carry aid to Gaza in a bid to break Israel's four-year siege with more than 50 Lebanese and foreign women activists on board.However, the Cyprus government has said it was keeping in place a ban on ships sailing from the island to the Gaza Strip.The organisers of the Mariam are due to hold a news conference at 11:00 am local time (0800 GMT) on Sunday.The Naji al-Ali, another Lebanese boat organised by journalists, has also announced it would sail to Gaza via Cyprus but has not yet received clearance from Lebanese authorities.
Mideast talks should not be wasted: UN chief
AUG 21,10
UNITED NATIONS (AFP) – UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Saturday said the upcoming talks in Washington between Israel and the Palestinians are a chance for peace that must not be wasted.Ban welcomes the decision by both Israeli Prime Minister (Benjamin) Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority president Mahmud Abbas to begin direct negotiations, following the statement of the Quartet and at the invitation of the US government, the United Nations said in a statement.He believes that negotiations are the only way for the parties to resolve all final status issues and he calls upon both sides to show leadership courage, and responsibility to realize the aspirations of both peoples.We should all be aware that this is an opportunity that must not be wasted, the statement read.In the first direct talks in 20 months, Netanyahu and Abbas will meet face-to-face in Washington on September 2 with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.Those negotiations will come a day after Netanyahu and Abbas meet separately with US President Barack Obama, Clinton announced Friday.Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Jordan's King Abdullah II have also been invited for bilateral talks with Obama on September 1.Backed by the diplomatic Quartet -- the United States, Russia, the United Nations and European Union -- the parties will relaunch direct negotiations to resolve all final status issues, which we believe can be completed within one year, Clinton said.Ban added that the opportunity must be seized so that the hope of a better future for the people of the region to live in peace, security and freedom can be fully realized.
Egypt's Mubarak accepts invite for Mideast talks
Sat Aug 21, 8:04 am ET
CAIRO (AFP) – Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak accepted an invitation to attend the start of direct peace talks between Israeli and Palestinian leaders in Washington next month, a newspaper reported on Saturday.President Mubarak welcomed the Quartet's statement and confirmed his acceptance of President Barack Obama's invitation to participate in the launch of direct talks at the beginning of September, the official Al-Ahram reported.On Friday, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton invited Mubarak and Jordanian King Abdullah II to the launch of the first direct talks between Palestinian and Israeli leaders since December 2008.Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas had refused face-to-face talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu but accepted the invitation after key powers reiterated a call for an end to Israel's occupation of Palestinian lands it conquered in 1967.The Quartet of the United States, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations said the negotiations for a Palestinian state alongside Israel could be completed in a year.
Germany urges fast results from Mideast talks
Sat Aug 21, 7:50 am ET
BERLIN (AFP) – German Chancellor Angela Merkel called Saturday for quick results from Israelis and Palestinians after the newly-announced resumption of direct talks between the two over reaching peace in the region.Possible solutions on unresolved questions have already been floated in previous talks and now the task is to prove the capacity for necessary compromise, Merkel's spokesman Steffen Seibert said in a statement.Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas will resume direct peace talks on September 2 -- the first in 20 months.The diplomatic Quartet of the United States, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations who are backing the talks said the negotiations for a Palestinian state alongside Israel could be completed in a year.Merkel also welcomed the role played by US Middle East envoy George Mitchell, who has shuttled between both sides for months. She encouraged him to continue tirelessly on the same path.
Peace this time? Israel, Palestinians to talk By ANNE GEARAN and MATTHEW LEE, Associated Press Writers – Sat Aug 21, 2:48 am ET
WASHINGTON – Plunging into the Mideast peacemaker's role that has defeated so many U.S. leaders, President Barack Obama on Friday invited Israel and the Palestinians to try anew in face-to-face talks for a historic agreement to establish an independent Palestinian state and secure peace for Israel.Negotiations shelved two years ago will resume Sept. 2 in Washington, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said. Obama will host Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas for dinner the night before.The goal: a deal in a year's time on the toughest issues that have sunk previous negotiations, including the borders of a new Palestinian state and the fate of disputed Jerusalem, claimed as a holy capital by both peoples.There have been difficulties in the past, there will be difficulties ahead, Clinton said. Without a doubt, we will hit more obstacles.Indeed, soon after Clinton's announcement the militant Hamas movement that controls the Gaza Strip, which along with the West Bank is supposed to be part of an eventual Palestinian state, rejected the talks, saying they were based on empty promises.Winning agreement to at least restart the direct talks makes good on an Obama campaign promise to confront the festering conflict early in his presidency, instead of deferring the peace broker's role as former President George W. Bush did.
Bringing the two sides to Washington for a symbolic handshake also will saddle Obama with one of the world's most intractable problems just when many other things, from a jobless recovery to probable midterm election losses, are not going well.This is the Pottery Barn rule for Obama. He owns this now, said Aaron David Miller, a scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center who advised presidents during two decades of attempts at a Mideast settlement.The breakthrough after a nearly two-year hiatus in face-to-face negotiations brings the two sides back to where they were when the last direct talks began in November 2007, near the end of the Bush administration. Those talks broke down after Israel's 2008 military operation in Gaza, followed by Netanyahu's election last year on a much tougher platform than his predecessor.
Friday's announcement came after months of shuttle diplomacy by the Obama administration's Mideast envoy, former Sen. George Mitchell. It also followed a period of chilly U.S. relations with Netanyahu, primarily over expansion of Jewish housing on disputed land.Under the agreement, Obama will hold separate discussions with Netanyahu and Abbas on Sept. 1 and then host the dinner, which will also be attended by Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak and Jordan's King Abdullah II.Egypt and Jordan already have peace deals with Israel and will play a crucial support role in the new talks. Also invited is former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, the special representative of the Quartet of Mideast peacemakers — the U.S., the U.N., the European Union and Russia.On Sept. 2, Clinton will bring Abbas and Netanyahu together for the first formal round of direct talks since December 2008. At that point the parties will decide where and when to hold later rounds as well as lay out what is to be discussed. U.S. officials have said following rounds are likely to be held in Egypt.In a choreographed sequence of events, Clinton's announcement came as the Quartet simultaneously issued a statement backing direct talks and Netanyahu's office quickly accepted the proposal.Reaching an agreement is a difficult challenge but is possible, it said. We are coming to the talks with a genuine desire to reach a peace agreement between the two peoples that will protect Israel's national security interests, foremost of which is security.Abbas enters the talks politically weaker than when he negotiated with Netanyahu's predecessor, Ehud Olmert, in 2007 and 2008.
A formal statement from Abbas' office accepting the invitation was expected late Friday. Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said he hoped the Quartet and others would work diligently to ensure the one-year timeframe was achieved and would press Israel to end provocative acts.We hope that the Israeli government would refrain from settlement activities, incursions, siege, closures and provocative acts like demolishing of homes, deporting people from Jerusalem in order to give this peace process the chance it deserves, he said. But in Gaza, Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri rejected the invitation.We ... consider this invitation and the promises included in it empty, and it's a new attempt to deceive the Palestinian people and international public opinion, he said. Abbas' Palestinians had been balking at direct talks, saying not until Israel froze the construction of Jewish settlements.Israel had rejected that, saying it amounted to placing conditions on the negotiations, and had been demanding a separate invitation from the U.S. A temporary freeze on Israeli settlement activity in the West Bank is to expire on Sept. 26.Mitchell said the United States would step in when talks hit rough patches, offering proposals to bridge gaps as necessary and appropriate.We will be active participants,he said. It is not clear whether the United States would eventually draft its own peace plan or remain primarily a referee. Also unclear is whether Obama would convene his own high-stakes peace summit, in the mold of Camp David meetings that succeeded, under Jimmy Carter, and failed, under Bill Clinton.
Palestinians warn new settlement will derail talks
By Mohammed Assadi – Fri Aug 20, 7:10 pm ET
RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) – Palestinian leaders on Friday accepted a U.S. invitation for face-to-face peace talks with Israel but said they would withdraw if it resumed Jewish settlement building on occupied land.The chief Palestinian negotiator said the Palestinians would pull out of the talks, due to start on September 2, if the Israeli government announced any new settlement building on land where the Palestinians aim to found their state.If the Israeli government decides to announce new tenders on September 26, then we won't be able to continue with the talks, Saeb Erekat said after a meeting of the Palestine Liberation Organisation's (PLO) executive committee in Ramallah.He was referring to the date when a 10-month, Israeli freeze on settlement building in the West Bank is due to end. His comments reflected the immediate challenges facing the U.S. effort to revive the two-decade-old Middle East peace process.Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu heads a coalition government that backs Jewish settlement on land captured by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war. A majority of his seven-member inner cabinet opposes extending the settlement moratorium.
A minority is seeking some compromise that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas might be able to swallow.The PLO executive committee accepted the U.S. invitation to begin direct talks during an emergency meeting in Ramallah. We hope that the Israeli government will choose peace not settlements, will choose reconciliation and not the continuation of occupation, Erekat said.Israel already had accepted the invitation issued earlier on Friday by the United States for a start to direct negotiations between Netanyahu and Abbas.Abbas had sought a full halt to Israeli settlement building before any direct negotiations. He also had demanded a clear agenda for the talks -- demands which Palestinian critics said he failed to secure.Now they go to direct talks with neither, Palestinian political commentator Hany al-Masri told Reuters.It damages the credibility of the president and the leadership,he said.This will help Hamas, he added. Hamas is an Islamist group that seized control of the Gaza Strip in 2007. It is listed as a terrorist group by Western powers and is opposed to Abbas's strategy of seeking a negotiated peace deal with Israel, to which it is deeply hostile.
QUARTET STATEMENT
U.S. Middle East envoy George Mitchell said on Friday that the parties would determine the terms of reference and basis for negotiations when they met.Abbas, by far the weaker party, has said he had faced unprecedented international pressure to agree to direct talks.His credibility has been damaged by the failure of past talks and he was reluctant to enter more negotiations with an Israeli leader he believes is unwilling to make the Palestinians a peace deal they can accept.The Palestinians said they had accepted a resumption of direct talks based on a statement issued on Friday by the Middle East Quartet -- the United States, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations.That text reiterated a commitment to earlier Quartet statements, including one which called on Israel to freeze all settlement activity. However, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, inviting the parties to start the talks in Washington, made no mention of the statement.Neither did a statement issued by Netanyahu's office in which he accepted the U.S. invitation. Netanyahu had said there should be no preconditions for peace talks. Clinton, in her statement, also said there should be no preconditions. We confirmed our opposition to accepting Hillary Clinton's invitation,said Tayser Khaled, a member of the PLO executive committee representing the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine.It was provocative and amounted to submission to Israeli conditions,he said. (Additional reporting by Ali Sawafta; Writing by Tom Perry; Editing by Michael Roddy)
Israel urges Lebanon to block ships to Gaza By EDITH M. LEDERER, Associated Press Writer – Fri Aug 20, 5:09 pm ET
UNITED NATIONS – Israel urged Lebanon and the international community on Friday to prevent ships from sailing to Gaza from the Lebanese port of Tripoli to break Israel's blockade of the Hamas-ruled Palestinian territory.Israel's U.N. Ambassador Gabriela Shalev said in letters to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and the Security Council that her country reserves the right under international law to use all necessary means to prevent the ships from violating the naval blockade.Shalev said a group of individuals with suspected ties to the Hezbollah terrorist organization has announced that the vessel Mariam will depart from Tripoli on Sunday en route to Gaza via a port in Cyprus, possibly via Turkish-controlled northern Cyprus.Israel's U.N. spokeswoman said the organizers also are expected to send other vessels to try to break the blockade.In Tripoli, activist Samar al-Hajj said the Mariam will be carrying medicine and that all the passengers will be women activists.
Al-Hajj said Lebanon's president, prime minister and parliament speaker refused to meet with her, which appeared to signal the government's lack of support for the venture.A deadly Israeli commando raid on a Turkish ship trying to bring aid to Gaza on May 31 killed nine activists and focused international attention on Israel's blockade of Gaza, imposed after the Islamist militant and anti-Israel Hamas violently overran the Palestinian territory in June 2007.Under growing pressure to open Gaza's borders, Israel decided to let in most consumer goods — in addition to food and medicine — but military and military-related material remain banned, and Gazans are still unable to travel or to export goods.Shalev said the organizers attempting to break the blockade are aware of the internationally recognized and unimpeded channels to ensure delivery of aid to Gaza.However, the organizers — similar to previous attempts by others — seek to incite a confrontation and raise tension in our region, she said.Furthermore, it cannot be ruled out that these vessels carry weapons or individuals with violent intentions.Shalev noted the state of hostility between Israel and Lebanon, and the ongoing armed conflict between Israel and Hezbollah.She called on the Lebanese government to demonstrate responsibility and to prevent these boats from departing to the Gaza Strip ... (which) will prevent any possible escalation. She also urged the international community to exert its influence to prevent the vessels' departure and discourage their citizens from taking part.Shalev sent similar letters in late July about two other ships, Junia and Julia, reportedly bound for Gaza with humanitarian aid.
Israel's Netanyahu accepts U.S. peace talks invite
Fri Aug 20, 12:45 pm ET
JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday accepted a U.S. invitation to direct peace talks with Palestinians, his office said.We are coming to the talks with a genuine desire to reach a peace agreement between the two peoples that will protect Israel's national security interests, foremost of which is security, a statement said.Reaching a deal would be possible but hard, it added.Talks had stalled before an Israeli offensive on Palestinian-run Gaza in late 2008.Israel had said it was ready for direct talks provided there are no preconditions but Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas had wanted a clear agenda, which the Jewish state said amounted to preconditions.
The statement said Netanyahu welcomed the U.S. invitation of the United States to begin direct negotiations without preconditions.Netanyahu has been calling for direct negotiations for the past year and a half, it said. The Israeli leader was pleased with the American clarification that the talks would be without preconditions.Israel wanted serious and comprehensive talks, it said.Reaching an agreement is a difficult challenge but is possible.Netanyahu spokesman Mark Regev told CNN news that Israel does not want talks for the sake of talks.We know that the issues on the table are tough.. we don't want negotiations just to drag on.The first thing Israel wanted was to know it going to be accepted as legitimate part of the region. If Arab states continue to say Israel is illegitimate then I'd ask them what kind of peace they are offering us.The second core issue was security, he said. Israel, which has been the target of rocket attacks from Gaza, would be seeking ironclad agreements on security in peace treaty.All these issues will be on the table. All these issues are open to negotiation,the Israeli spokesman said.
A look at previous Israeli-Palestinian peace talks
By The Associated Press The Associated Press – Fri Aug 20, 11:43 am ET
A look at previous rounds of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks and how they fared:
_Sept. 13, 1993, The White House, Washington:
The two sides sign the Oslo accord, negotiated in secret meetings shepherded by Norwegian academics and lower-level officials. The deal includes mutual recognition between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization and allows for creation of a Palestinian autonomy government in the West Bank and Gaza. The fate of Jerusalem, Jewish settlements and Palestinian refugees is left for final status talks. The historic handshake between Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, President Bill Clinton between them, ushers in era of direct peace talks.
_Oct. 15-23, 1998, Wye River Conference Centers, Queenstown, Maryland:
Clinton, Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu participate. Israel agrees to hand over an additional 13 percent of the West Bank, bringing Palestinian control to about 40 percent, release Palestinian prisoners and lift trade restrictions. Palestinians agree to arrest militants, give up some guns and annul a clause in their charter that negated Israel's right to exist. However, Israel releases mostly car thieves instead of political prisoners and Arafat does not reduce forces or confiscate arms.
_July 11-25, 2000, Camp David, Thurmont, Maryland:
Clinton meets with Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak after the deadline for interim accords expires. Israel offers a Palestinian state in Gaza and most of the West Bank, with a Jerusalem foothold. But disagreements remain, including a demand by Arafat for a right to resettle Palestinian refugees in Israel. The effort fails as fighting erupts two months later and continues for several years, killing thousands in Palestinian suicide bombings in Israeli cities and Israeli military operations in the West Bank and Gaza.
_Jun. 4, 2003, Aqaba, Jordan:
President George W. Bush, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas participate. The parties begin a three-phase process toward a final deal under the internationally backed road map peace plan of June 2002. The talks break down because neither side meets their obligations under the first stage: Israel did not halt settlement construction and the Palestinians did not clamp down on militants. A new wave of Palestinian suicide bombings and Israeli targeted killings of Hamas leaders also derails talks.
_Nov. 27, 2007, U.S. Naval Academy, Annapolis, Maryland:
Bush, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert participate. Direct negotiations resume with the aim of establishing an independent Palestinian state based on the road map. Olmert and Abbas hold a long series of direct talks. The last round breaks down in late 2008, reportedly when the sides were close to an agreement. Shortly afterward, Israel launches its bruising military offensive against Hamas rocket launchers in the Gaza Strip.
_May 2010: Indirect, U.S.-mediated talks are launched.
_Aug. 20, 2010: Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton announces resumption of direct peace talks.
Text of a statement issued by Mideast Quartet By The Associated Press – Fri Aug 20, 11:19 am ET
Here is the full text of a statement issued Friday by the Mideast Quartet — the United States, the European Union, Russia and the United Nations:The representatives of the Quartet reaffirm their strong support for direct negotiations between the Israelis and the Palestinians to resolve all final status issues.The Quartet reaffirms its full commitment to its previous statements, including in Trieste on 26 June 2009, in New York on 24 September 2009, and its statement in Moscow on 19 March 2010 which provides that direct, bilateral negotiations that resolve all final status issues should 'lead to a settlement, negotiated between the parties, that ends the occupation which began in 1967 and results in the emergence of an independent, democratic, and viable Palestinian state living side by side in peace and security with Israel and its other neighbors.The Quartet expresses its determination to support the parties throughout the negotiations, which can be completed within one year, and the implementation of an agreement.The Quartet again calls on both sides to observe calm and restraint, and to refrain from provocative actions and inflammatory rhetoric.
Welcoming the result of the Arab Peace Initiative Committee in Cairo on July 29, the Quartet notes that success will require sustained regional and international support for the negotiations and the parallel process of Palestinian state-building and the pursuit of a just, lasting and comprehensive regional peace as envisaged in the Madrid terms of reference, Security Council resolutions and the Arab Peace Initiative.The Quartet Principals intend to meet with their colleagues from the Arab League in September in New York to review the situation.Accordingly, the Quartet calls on the Israelis and the Palestinians to join in launching direct negotiations on September 2 in Washington, D.C. to resolve all final status issues and fulfill the aspirations of both parties.
Four Israeli airstrikes on Gaza: Palestinians
Tue Aug 17, 6:25 pm ET
GAZA CITY, Palestinian Territories (AFP) – Israeli warplanes carried out four air strikes on the southern Gaza Strip late Tuesday that caused no injuries, Palestinian security sources and witnesses said.The raids struck targets near Rafah and north of Khan Yunis, near the border with Egypt, as well as targets near Zeitoun, east of Gaza City, and the Deir al-Balah refugee camp in the centre of the territory.An Israeli military spokeswoman told AFP that the air force had carried out four raids against the Gaza Strip targeting an arms workshop and three tunnels used for smuggling arms from Egypt.She added that the raids were in retaliation for a mortar shell fired Tuesday at Israel from the Gaza Strip.Two Israeli soldiers were slightly wounded on Tuesday by the mortar shell fired by Palestinian militants, the military said.On Monday an Islamic Jihad militant was killed and an Israeli soldier wounded in an exchange of fire.
Gaza's once vibrant tunnel trade caves in
By Nidal al-Mughrabi - Tue Aug 17, 7:19 am ET
RAFAH, Gaza Strip (Reuters) – Jamal al-Shatli scours Gaza's scruffy border area looking for a job where he once worked in the warren of tunnels used by smugglers to outwit Israeli controls and sneak in goods from neighboring Egypt.While Israeli air strikes and Egyptian bombs hurt the once-flourishing trade, they failed to close it down. But Israel's decision to let imports flow more freely to Gaza has put many tunnels out of business and many workers out of a job.I jumped from one tunnel shaft to another looking for a job but they all turned me down, said Shatli, a father of three.He used to earn up to 120 shekels a day ($32) down the tunnel shafts, making him one of the best-paid workers in the coastal Palestinian territory, home to 1.5 million people.There is no other work, the 42-year-old said.Shopkeepers and Gaza consumers meanwhile have benefited from sometimes cheaper and higher quality goods.
Quite literally an underground economy, the tunnel business flourished after the Islamist group Hamas took control of Gaza in 2007, with Israel escalating its restrictions and preventing pretty much anything bar basic aid from getting in.Egypt imposed its own tight limitations, meaning that the only way for entrepreneurial Gazans to bring in anything from cars to chocolate was to sink tunnels under the border and set up smuggling networks, which became emblematic of local life.At one stage an estimated 2,500-3,000 tunnels snaked their way under the border line, but the network was severely damaged by Israeli air strikes during a three-week offensive in late 2008 launched to respond to Palestinian rocket attacks.Locals say there are now just 50 operational tunnels, with only 10 working at any one time and dozens of others mothballed because Palestinian merchants are more willing to buy their goods from Israel rather than from the smugglers.
STEEL AND CEMENT
Some young men slept in the shade in the once bustling area, waiting for a call to work, while a lucky few were busy pulling out a covert consignment of steel for construction work.Tunnel workers only bring stuff that is still banned by Israel, especially steel and cement, said Mohammed Abdel-Qader, who has worked in the tunnels for the past two years.Israel now allows more food, different kinds of it, juice, electrical equipment and even fridges, therefore merchants shifted their business to the old regular way and abandoned tunnels, he added.Israel relaxed its restrictions in June in the wake of its raid to halt a blockade-running flotilla from reaching Gaza in a military operation that killed nine activists and drew widespread international condemnation.It has maintained its ban on some 3,000 items, such as building materials, arguing that these could be used by Hamas, which refuses to recognize Israel, to carry out rocket attacks.But anything not specifically barred can now be brought in.I sleep, then I wake up, eat and sleep. These days it is Ramadan, I wake up only to sleep again with my phone next to me awaiting that call,said 23-year-old Bassam, a former tunnel hand. He has joined the mass ranks of unemployed in a territory with a jobless rate put at up to 60 percent.
GUARANTEED GOODS ON SHELVES
Inside Abu Goma's store in Gaza, new Israeli-imported electrical tools and equipment take pride of place on the shelves, with three-year warranties on offer. Now I can guarantee to repair and replace items. Goods brought through tunnels cannot be guaranteed, he said. Better still, many of the goods brought through Israeli crossings are cheaper than those smuggled from Egypt. An Israeli-imported DVD player sells for 190 shekels ($50) while an Egyptian device, of lower quality, costs 270 shekels ($70). When customers enter my store they ask for Israeli goods. Good, clean and guaranteed items,Abu Goma said.Although many of the tunnel workers bemoan their new reality, they also admit their trade was hard and dangerous.Dozens of Gazans have died inside tunnels that caved in or collapsed because of Israeli and Egyptian raids.People die, they die of hunger too, said Abdel-Qader, who needed the tunnel work to help support his 14-member family squeezed into a shabby, three-room apartment.But Bassam said fear of deaths in Israeli air strikes or Egyptian security sweeps had persuaded many of his colleagues they were better out of the tunnel business.Egyptian police used to warn tunnel owners before they detonated explosives. They used to give us several hours to flee, but now they blow it all of a sudden and many people have died that way,Bassam said. (Editing by Crispian Balmer and Jon Hemming)
Two Israeli soldiers wounded by Gaza fire: military
Tue Aug 17, 5:50 am ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – Two Israeli soldiers were lightly wounded on Tuesday by mortar shells fired by Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip, the military said.In response, troops opened fire towards the source of the projectiles.The attack occurred in the same area where troops shot dead a Palestinian militant late on Monday, the army said, without specifying exactly where the shooting occurred.The victim, a 19-year-old member of the Islamic Jihad militant group, was part of a team of fighters who were trying to plant an explosive device near the border fence, the army said.One soldier was wounded when the Palestinians opened fire, it said.
Overnight, militants fired four rockets into southern Israel, the army said, noting 115 rockets and mortars have been fired from Gaza since the beginning of 2010.In December 2008 Israel launched a vast offensive in Gaza to stamp out persistent rocket fire on southern Israel. The 22-day operation left more than 1,400 and 13 Israelis dead.
Israeli PM urges patience on new Palestinian talks By ELENA BECATOROS, Associated Press Writer – Mon Aug 16, 3:37 pm ET
ATHENS, Greece – The Israeli prime minister said Monday that patience was needed in restarting direct negotiations with the Palestinians, but that launching the talks would not take years or even months.Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was speaking during a visit to Greece, which for years has sought an active role in Middle East negotiations. Netanyahu showed no sign, however, of backing down from his insistence that there be no preconditions, such as a timeline or agenda, before direct talks can begin — a demand of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.The Israeli-Palestinian negotiations — aimed ultimately at establishing a permanent status for the Palestinians — broke down in December 2008. Since then, the international Quartet of Mideast mediators — the U.S., the U.N., the European Union and Russia — has been seeking ways to reconcile the two sides' demands for restarting the talks.For the past year and a half I've been trying to have direct meetings without a predetermined agenda with the Palestinian Authority, Netanyahu said during a joint news conference with Papandreou in Athens.We have to have patience, he said in Hebrew, with the comments translated into Greek. "Of course we won't need to wait for many months or many years. I believe that with some patience you will see results.Asked whether Cairo or Washington would be a good venue, Netanyahu indicated the talks could be held anywhere.We can go to Cairo, we can go to Washington, we can go to any place we can in order to give flesh and bones to this initiative, he said. I hope everything will have a positive development.At U.N. headquarters in New York, deputy spokesman Farhan Haq said the Quartet members have been in contact with each other on a possible statement.
It's possible that there could be something this week,he said. That would depend on agreement among the Quartet partners.Netanyahu was in Athens on a two-day visit — the first by an Israeli prime minister to Greece — and planned Tuesday to visit a nearby island with Papandreou. The two leaders on Monday discussed tourism, military issues, renewable energy and water resources.On Sunday, Papandreou spoke by phone with Abbas, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Amr Moussa, secretary general of the Arab League. A Greek government official said on condition of anonymity that Papandreou wanted to hear the Arab leaders' opinions on the Middle East peace process, including the push for a resumption of direct talks. Papandreou had lobbied for a role in Mideast negotiations during his previous tenure as foreign minister nearly a decade ago.The Israeli prime minister said there was a coalition of countries seeking peace.It's a much broader coalition than meets the eye ... it includes Arab countries and Israel, many more Arab countries than people normally understand, it includes Greece and other well-meaning countries in the region, he told reporters.We hope that it will facilitate the progress in the direct talks, which I hope to resume with the Palestinians without preconditions, but to move, definitely to move. And I think this is the desire of all those who want stability and peace and security in the Middle East, and I add also prosperity.
The visit comes as relations between Israel and Turkey, Greece's traditional rival, have soured since an Israeli commando raid in May on an international flotilla trying to bust Israel's blockade of Gaza. Nine Turkish activists were killed in the raid on the flotilla, in which Greek activists were also participating.But both Netanyahu and Papandreou insisted that improving Greek-Israeli ties had nothing to do with Israel's deteriorating relations with Turkey.Security was tight for Netanyahu's trip, with increased patrols in the city center and all cars and pedestrians kept well away from any areas he was visiting, including the Jewish Museum and the Acropolis.A few hundred mainly left-wing and pro-Palestinian activists held a peaceful demonstration to protest Netanyahu's visit, marching to the Israeli Embassy which was surrounded by riot police. Stopping briefly outside Netanyahu's hotel, they displayed banners reading Zionist murderer get out, and Sever all ties with Israel.About 200 people took part in a separate peaceful protest in central Athens.Associated Press writers Aisha Mohammed in Jerusalem, Nicholas Paphitis in Athens and Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations contributed to this report.
Hamas leader: Ground zero mosque must be built
Mon Aug 16, 6:31 am ET
NEW YORK – A Hamas leader says Muslims have to build a mosque near ground zero.
Mahmoud al-Zahar said Muslims have to build everywhere so that followers can pray, just like Christians and Jews build their places of worship.Al-Zahar spoke Sunday on Aaron Klein Investigative Radio on WABC-AM. He is a co-founder of Hamas and its chief on the Gaza Strip.Sen. Chuck Schumer says Al-Zahar's comments don't carry any weight because Hamas is a terrorist organization. Schumer hasn't taken a stand on the mosque.Rep. Peter King, who opposes the mosque, says he won't respond to Hamas.
The mosque is a project of the Cordoba Initiative, an advocacy group that promotes improved relations between Islam and the West. It didn't respond to Al-Zahar's comments.Information from: New York Post, http://www.nypost.com
LAST DAYS LEADERS
KING OF THE NORTH - RUSSIA
KING OF THE SOUTH - EGYPT
KING OF THE EAST - CHINA
KING OF THE WEST - EUROPEAN UNION(REVIVED ROMAN RULER)
Iran starts to fuel up first nuclear power plant By Katya Golubkova and Ramin Mostafavi 12:34PM AUG 21,10
BUSHEHR, Iran (Reuters) – Iran began fuelling its first nuclear power plant on Saturday, a potent symbol of its growing regional sway and rejection of international sanctions designed to prevent it building a nuclear bomb.Iranian television showed live pictures of Iran's nuclear chief Ali Akbar Salehi and his Russian counterpart watching a fuel rod assembly being prepared for insertion into the reactor near the Gulf city of Bushehr.Despite all the pressures, sanctions and hardships imposed by Western nations, we are now witnessing the start-up of the largest symbol of Iran's peaceful nuclear activities, Salehi told a news conference afterwards.Iranian officials said it would take two to three months before the plant starts producing electricity and would generate 1,000 megawatts, a small proportion of the nation's 41,000 megawatt electricity demand recorded last month.Russia designed, built and will supply fuel for Bushehr, taking back spent rods which could be used to make weapons-grade plutonium in order to ease nuclear proliferation concerns.Saturday's ceremony comes after decades of delays building the plant, work on which was initially started by German company Siemens in the 1970s, before Iran's Islamic Revolution.
The United States criticized Moscow earlier this year for pushing ahead with Bushehr given persistent Iranian defiance over its nuclear program.But U.S. State Department spokesman Darby Holladay said on Saturday Washington did not view the Bushehr reactor as a nuclear proliferation risk, partly because of Russia's role in providing nuclear fuel and taking it back when it is spent.Russia's support for Bushehr underscores that Iran does not need an indigenous enrichment capability if its intentions are purely peaceful, Holladay said.Moscow supported the latest U.N. Security Council resolution in June which imposed a fourth round of sanctions and called for Iran to stop uranium enrichment which, some countries fear, could lead it to obtain nuclear weapons.The construction of the nuclear plant at Bushehr is a clear example showing that any country, if it abides by existing international legislation and provides effective, open interaction with the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency), should have the opportunity to access peaceful use of the atom, Sergei Kiriyenko, head of Russian state nuclear corporation Rosatom, told the news conference.The Vienna-based IAEA said the agency regularly inspected Bushehr. The Agency is taking the appropriate verification measures in line with its established safeguards procedures, spokesman Ayhan Evrensel said.
CONCERN
The fuelling of Bushehr is a milestone in Iran's path to harness technology which it says will reduce consumption of its abundant fossil fuels, allowing it to export more oil and gas and to prepare for the day when the minerals riches dry up.Iran's neighbors, some of whom are also seeking nuclear power, are wary of Tehran's nuclear ambitions and its growing influence in the region, notably in Iraq where fellow Shi'ites now dominate and Lebanon, where it is a backer of Hezbollah.While most nuclear analysts say Bushehr does not add to any proliferation risk, many countries remain deeply concerned about Iran's uranium enrichment.It disclosed the existence of a second enrichment plant only last year and announced in February it was enriching uranium to a level of 20 percent, from about 3.5 percent previously, taking it closer to weapons-grade levels and well above what is needed to fuel a power plant.Iran, which says its nuclear program is entirely peaceful, said it needed to enrich to that level as a deal with major world power and the IAEA to supply special fuel for a medical reactor in Tehran had fallen apart. Israel, widely assumed to be the only Middle East country to have nuclear weapons, has said a nuclear-armed Iran would be a threat to its existence, raising concerns Israel could attack Iran's nuclear sites. However, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad dismissed the prospect of an Israeli strike. I rule out any such attack because the Israeli entity is too weak to do so,he told Al Jazeera on Thursday. Iran's response will be so strong and decisive that it will make the attackers regret their decision to hit our installations.(Writing by Robin Pomeroy; Editing by Charles Dick)
Probable delay hits Lebanon all-women aid ship to Gaza
AUG 21,10
BEIRUT (AFP) – A Lebanese aid ship aiming to reach Gaza in defiance of Israel will probably be delayed, organisers said Saturday, on the eve of its planned departure, after Cyprus denied use of its waters and ports.The Mariam, a Bolivian-flagged cargo ship renamed for the all-women aid operation, was to have set off from the northern Lebanese port of Tripoli on Sunday night, headed for Cyprus on the first leg of a crossing to Gaza.But Rima Farah, spokeswoman for the group, told AFP the mission could not go ahead without the green light from the Cypriot authorities.We are continuing our contacts with countries such as Turkey and Greece for them to allow us to dock. Pending their reply, the project will probably be delayed, she conceded.
Farah said a new date would be announced once the organisers had the green light from a third country.Israel came under international censure over its May 31 seizure of a six-ship aid fleet bound for the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip when Israeli commandos shot dead nine Turkish activists in a clash on the lead boat.On Friday, Israel said it could use force again to stop the new aid boat to Gaza, even as a Lebanese minister said Beirut refused to bow to warnings against authorising the mission to the blockaded Palestinian territory.In a letter to UN chief Ban Ki-moon, Israel's UN Ambassador Gabriela Shalev said the stated intention of the Mariam was to violate the existing naval blockade of Gaza.Israel also had information that another vessel, the Naji al-Ali, plans to leave from Lebanon with the aim of violating the blockade, she said.Israel reserves its right under international law to use all necessary means to prevent these ships from violating the aforementioned naval blockade, Shalev warned.She said such confrontational actions by the organisers, as well as those that offer their consent, is deeply troubling, also charging that the organisers had suspected links to Lebanon's Shiite militant group Hezbollah.But Lebanon's Transport Minister Ghazi Aridi said his country would not respond to the wishes or requests of Israel. We will continue to exercise our sovereignty and make the decisions we find appropriate,he said.
The Mariam, renamed in honour of the Virgin Mary, plans to carry aid to Gaza in a bid to break Israel's four-year siege with more than 50 Lebanese and foreign women activists on board.However, the Cyprus government has said it was keeping in place a ban on ships sailing from the island to the Gaza Strip.The organisers of the Mariam are due to hold a news conference at 11:00 am local time (0800 GMT) on Sunday.The Naji al-Ali, another Lebanese boat organised by journalists, has also announced it would sail to Gaza via Cyprus but has not yet received clearance from Lebanese authorities.
Mideast talks should not be wasted: UN chief
AUG 21,10
UNITED NATIONS (AFP) – UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Saturday said the upcoming talks in Washington between Israel and the Palestinians are a chance for peace that must not be wasted.Ban welcomes the decision by both Israeli Prime Minister (Benjamin) Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority president Mahmud Abbas to begin direct negotiations, following the statement of the Quartet and at the invitation of the US government, the United Nations said in a statement.He believes that negotiations are the only way for the parties to resolve all final status issues and he calls upon both sides to show leadership courage, and responsibility to realize the aspirations of both peoples.We should all be aware that this is an opportunity that must not be wasted, the statement read.In the first direct talks in 20 months, Netanyahu and Abbas will meet face-to-face in Washington on September 2 with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.Those negotiations will come a day after Netanyahu and Abbas meet separately with US President Barack Obama, Clinton announced Friday.Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Jordan's King Abdullah II have also been invited for bilateral talks with Obama on September 1.Backed by the diplomatic Quartet -- the United States, Russia, the United Nations and European Union -- the parties will relaunch direct negotiations to resolve all final status issues, which we believe can be completed within one year, Clinton said.Ban added that the opportunity must be seized so that the hope of a better future for the people of the region to live in peace, security and freedom can be fully realized.
Egypt's Mubarak accepts invite for Mideast talks
Sat Aug 21, 8:04 am ET
CAIRO (AFP) – Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak accepted an invitation to attend the start of direct peace talks between Israeli and Palestinian leaders in Washington next month, a newspaper reported on Saturday.President Mubarak welcomed the Quartet's statement and confirmed his acceptance of President Barack Obama's invitation to participate in the launch of direct talks at the beginning of September, the official Al-Ahram reported.On Friday, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton invited Mubarak and Jordanian King Abdullah II to the launch of the first direct talks between Palestinian and Israeli leaders since December 2008.Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas had refused face-to-face talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu but accepted the invitation after key powers reiterated a call for an end to Israel's occupation of Palestinian lands it conquered in 1967.The Quartet of the United States, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations said the negotiations for a Palestinian state alongside Israel could be completed in a year.
Germany urges fast results from Mideast talks
Sat Aug 21, 7:50 am ET
BERLIN (AFP) – German Chancellor Angela Merkel called Saturday for quick results from Israelis and Palestinians after the newly-announced resumption of direct talks between the two over reaching peace in the region.Possible solutions on unresolved questions have already been floated in previous talks and now the task is to prove the capacity for necessary compromise, Merkel's spokesman Steffen Seibert said in a statement.Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas will resume direct peace talks on September 2 -- the first in 20 months.The diplomatic Quartet of the United States, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations who are backing the talks said the negotiations for a Palestinian state alongside Israel could be completed in a year.Merkel also welcomed the role played by US Middle East envoy George Mitchell, who has shuttled between both sides for months. She encouraged him to continue tirelessly on the same path.
Peace this time? Israel, Palestinians to talk By ANNE GEARAN and MATTHEW LEE, Associated Press Writers – Sat Aug 21, 2:48 am ET
WASHINGTON – Plunging into the Mideast peacemaker's role that has defeated so many U.S. leaders, President Barack Obama on Friday invited Israel and the Palestinians to try anew in face-to-face talks for a historic agreement to establish an independent Palestinian state and secure peace for Israel.Negotiations shelved two years ago will resume Sept. 2 in Washington, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said. Obama will host Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas for dinner the night before.The goal: a deal in a year's time on the toughest issues that have sunk previous negotiations, including the borders of a new Palestinian state and the fate of disputed Jerusalem, claimed as a holy capital by both peoples.There have been difficulties in the past, there will be difficulties ahead, Clinton said. Without a doubt, we will hit more obstacles.Indeed, soon after Clinton's announcement the militant Hamas movement that controls the Gaza Strip, which along with the West Bank is supposed to be part of an eventual Palestinian state, rejected the talks, saying they were based on empty promises.Winning agreement to at least restart the direct talks makes good on an Obama campaign promise to confront the festering conflict early in his presidency, instead of deferring the peace broker's role as former President George W. Bush did.
Bringing the two sides to Washington for a symbolic handshake also will saddle Obama with one of the world's most intractable problems just when many other things, from a jobless recovery to probable midterm election losses, are not going well.This is the Pottery Barn rule for Obama. He owns this now, said Aaron David Miller, a scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center who advised presidents during two decades of attempts at a Mideast settlement.The breakthrough after a nearly two-year hiatus in face-to-face negotiations brings the two sides back to where they were when the last direct talks began in November 2007, near the end of the Bush administration. Those talks broke down after Israel's 2008 military operation in Gaza, followed by Netanyahu's election last year on a much tougher platform than his predecessor.
Friday's announcement came after months of shuttle diplomacy by the Obama administration's Mideast envoy, former Sen. George Mitchell. It also followed a period of chilly U.S. relations with Netanyahu, primarily over expansion of Jewish housing on disputed land.Under the agreement, Obama will hold separate discussions with Netanyahu and Abbas on Sept. 1 and then host the dinner, which will also be attended by Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak and Jordan's King Abdullah II.Egypt and Jordan already have peace deals with Israel and will play a crucial support role in the new talks. Also invited is former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, the special representative of the Quartet of Mideast peacemakers — the U.S., the U.N., the European Union and Russia.On Sept. 2, Clinton will bring Abbas and Netanyahu together for the first formal round of direct talks since December 2008. At that point the parties will decide where and when to hold later rounds as well as lay out what is to be discussed. U.S. officials have said following rounds are likely to be held in Egypt.In a choreographed sequence of events, Clinton's announcement came as the Quartet simultaneously issued a statement backing direct talks and Netanyahu's office quickly accepted the proposal.Reaching an agreement is a difficult challenge but is possible, it said. We are coming to the talks with a genuine desire to reach a peace agreement between the two peoples that will protect Israel's national security interests, foremost of which is security.Abbas enters the talks politically weaker than when he negotiated with Netanyahu's predecessor, Ehud Olmert, in 2007 and 2008.
A formal statement from Abbas' office accepting the invitation was expected late Friday. Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said he hoped the Quartet and others would work diligently to ensure the one-year timeframe was achieved and would press Israel to end provocative acts.We hope that the Israeli government would refrain from settlement activities, incursions, siege, closures and provocative acts like demolishing of homes, deporting people from Jerusalem in order to give this peace process the chance it deserves, he said. But in Gaza, Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri rejected the invitation.We ... consider this invitation and the promises included in it empty, and it's a new attempt to deceive the Palestinian people and international public opinion, he said. Abbas' Palestinians had been balking at direct talks, saying not until Israel froze the construction of Jewish settlements.Israel had rejected that, saying it amounted to placing conditions on the negotiations, and had been demanding a separate invitation from the U.S. A temporary freeze on Israeli settlement activity in the West Bank is to expire on Sept. 26.Mitchell said the United States would step in when talks hit rough patches, offering proposals to bridge gaps as necessary and appropriate.We will be active participants,he said. It is not clear whether the United States would eventually draft its own peace plan or remain primarily a referee. Also unclear is whether Obama would convene his own high-stakes peace summit, in the mold of Camp David meetings that succeeded, under Jimmy Carter, and failed, under Bill Clinton.
Palestinians warn new settlement will derail talks
By Mohammed Assadi – Fri Aug 20, 7:10 pm ET
RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) – Palestinian leaders on Friday accepted a U.S. invitation for face-to-face peace talks with Israel but said they would withdraw if it resumed Jewish settlement building on occupied land.The chief Palestinian negotiator said the Palestinians would pull out of the talks, due to start on September 2, if the Israeli government announced any new settlement building on land where the Palestinians aim to found their state.If the Israeli government decides to announce new tenders on September 26, then we won't be able to continue with the talks, Saeb Erekat said after a meeting of the Palestine Liberation Organisation's (PLO) executive committee in Ramallah.He was referring to the date when a 10-month, Israeli freeze on settlement building in the West Bank is due to end. His comments reflected the immediate challenges facing the U.S. effort to revive the two-decade-old Middle East peace process.Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu heads a coalition government that backs Jewish settlement on land captured by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war. A majority of his seven-member inner cabinet opposes extending the settlement moratorium.
A minority is seeking some compromise that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas might be able to swallow.The PLO executive committee accepted the U.S. invitation to begin direct talks during an emergency meeting in Ramallah. We hope that the Israeli government will choose peace not settlements, will choose reconciliation and not the continuation of occupation, Erekat said.Israel already had accepted the invitation issued earlier on Friday by the United States for a start to direct negotiations between Netanyahu and Abbas.Abbas had sought a full halt to Israeli settlement building before any direct negotiations. He also had demanded a clear agenda for the talks -- demands which Palestinian critics said he failed to secure.Now they go to direct talks with neither, Palestinian political commentator Hany al-Masri told Reuters.It damages the credibility of the president and the leadership,he said.This will help Hamas, he added. Hamas is an Islamist group that seized control of the Gaza Strip in 2007. It is listed as a terrorist group by Western powers and is opposed to Abbas's strategy of seeking a negotiated peace deal with Israel, to which it is deeply hostile.
QUARTET STATEMENT
U.S. Middle East envoy George Mitchell said on Friday that the parties would determine the terms of reference and basis for negotiations when they met.Abbas, by far the weaker party, has said he had faced unprecedented international pressure to agree to direct talks.His credibility has been damaged by the failure of past talks and he was reluctant to enter more negotiations with an Israeli leader he believes is unwilling to make the Palestinians a peace deal they can accept.The Palestinians said they had accepted a resumption of direct talks based on a statement issued on Friday by the Middle East Quartet -- the United States, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations.That text reiterated a commitment to earlier Quartet statements, including one which called on Israel to freeze all settlement activity. However, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, inviting the parties to start the talks in Washington, made no mention of the statement.Neither did a statement issued by Netanyahu's office in which he accepted the U.S. invitation. Netanyahu had said there should be no preconditions for peace talks. Clinton, in her statement, also said there should be no preconditions. We confirmed our opposition to accepting Hillary Clinton's invitation,said Tayser Khaled, a member of the PLO executive committee representing the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine.It was provocative and amounted to submission to Israeli conditions,he said. (Additional reporting by Ali Sawafta; Writing by Tom Perry; Editing by Michael Roddy)
Israel urges Lebanon to block ships to Gaza By EDITH M. LEDERER, Associated Press Writer – Fri Aug 20, 5:09 pm ET
UNITED NATIONS – Israel urged Lebanon and the international community on Friday to prevent ships from sailing to Gaza from the Lebanese port of Tripoli to break Israel's blockade of the Hamas-ruled Palestinian territory.Israel's U.N. Ambassador Gabriela Shalev said in letters to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and the Security Council that her country reserves the right under international law to use all necessary means to prevent the ships from violating the naval blockade.Shalev said a group of individuals with suspected ties to the Hezbollah terrorist organization has announced that the vessel Mariam will depart from Tripoli on Sunday en route to Gaza via a port in Cyprus, possibly via Turkish-controlled northern Cyprus.Israel's U.N. spokeswoman said the organizers also are expected to send other vessels to try to break the blockade.In Tripoli, activist Samar al-Hajj said the Mariam will be carrying medicine and that all the passengers will be women activists.
Al-Hajj said Lebanon's president, prime minister and parliament speaker refused to meet with her, which appeared to signal the government's lack of support for the venture.A deadly Israeli commando raid on a Turkish ship trying to bring aid to Gaza on May 31 killed nine activists and focused international attention on Israel's blockade of Gaza, imposed after the Islamist militant and anti-Israel Hamas violently overran the Palestinian territory in June 2007.Under growing pressure to open Gaza's borders, Israel decided to let in most consumer goods — in addition to food and medicine — but military and military-related material remain banned, and Gazans are still unable to travel or to export goods.Shalev said the organizers attempting to break the blockade are aware of the internationally recognized and unimpeded channels to ensure delivery of aid to Gaza.However, the organizers — similar to previous attempts by others — seek to incite a confrontation and raise tension in our region, she said.Furthermore, it cannot be ruled out that these vessels carry weapons or individuals with violent intentions.Shalev noted the state of hostility between Israel and Lebanon, and the ongoing armed conflict between Israel and Hezbollah.She called on the Lebanese government to demonstrate responsibility and to prevent these boats from departing to the Gaza Strip ... (which) will prevent any possible escalation. She also urged the international community to exert its influence to prevent the vessels' departure and discourage their citizens from taking part.Shalev sent similar letters in late July about two other ships, Junia and Julia, reportedly bound for Gaza with humanitarian aid.
Israel's Netanyahu accepts U.S. peace talks invite
Fri Aug 20, 12:45 pm ET
JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday accepted a U.S. invitation to direct peace talks with Palestinians, his office said.We are coming to the talks with a genuine desire to reach a peace agreement between the two peoples that will protect Israel's national security interests, foremost of which is security, a statement said.Reaching a deal would be possible but hard, it added.Talks had stalled before an Israeli offensive on Palestinian-run Gaza in late 2008.Israel had said it was ready for direct talks provided there are no preconditions but Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas had wanted a clear agenda, which the Jewish state said amounted to preconditions.
The statement said Netanyahu welcomed the U.S. invitation of the United States to begin direct negotiations without preconditions.Netanyahu has been calling for direct negotiations for the past year and a half, it said. The Israeli leader was pleased with the American clarification that the talks would be without preconditions.Israel wanted serious and comprehensive talks, it said.Reaching an agreement is a difficult challenge but is possible.Netanyahu spokesman Mark Regev told CNN news that Israel does not want talks for the sake of talks.We know that the issues on the table are tough.. we don't want negotiations just to drag on.The first thing Israel wanted was to know it going to be accepted as legitimate part of the region. If Arab states continue to say Israel is illegitimate then I'd ask them what kind of peace they are offering us.The second core issue was security, he said. Israel, which has been the target of rocket attacks from Gaza, would be seeking ironclad agreements on security in peace treaty.All these issues will be on the table. All these issues are open to negotiation,the Israeli spokesman said.
A look at previous Israeli-Palestinian peace talks
By The Associated Press The Associated Press – Fri Aug 20, 11:43 am ET
A look at previous rounds of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks and how they fared:
_Sept. 13, 1993, The White House, Washington:
The two sides sign the Oslo accord, negotiated in secret meetings shepherded by Norwegian academics and lower-level officials. The deal includes mutual recognition between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization and allows for creation of a Palestinian autonomy government in the West Bank and Gaza. The fate of Jerusalem, Jewish settlements and Palestinian refugees is left for final status talks. The historic handshake between Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, President Bill Clinton between them, ushers in era of direct peace talks.
_Oct. 15-23, 1998, Wye River Conference Centers, Queenstown, Maryland:
Clinton, Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu participate. Israel agrees to hand over an additional 13 percent of the West Bank, bringing Palestinian control to about 40 percent, release Palestinian prisoners and lift trade restrictions. Palestinians agree to arrest militants, give up some guns and annul a clause in their charter that negated Israel's right to exist. However, Israel releases mostly car thieves instead of political prisoners and Arafat does not reduce forces or confiscate arms.
_July 11-25, 2000, Camp David, Thurmont, Maryland:
Clinton meets with Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak after the deadline for interim accords expires. Israel offers a Palestinian state in Gaza and most of the West Bank, with a Jerusalem foothold. But disagreements remain, including a demand by Arafat for a right to resettle Palestinian refugees in Israel. The effort fails as fighting erupts two months later and continues for several years, killing thousands in Palestinian suicide bombings in Israeli cities and Israeli military operations in the West Bank and Gaza.
_Jun. 4, 2003, Aqaba, Jordan:
President George W. Bush, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas participate. The parties begin a three-phase process toward a final deal under the internationally backed road map peace plan of June 2002. The talks break down because neither side meets their obligations under the first stage: Israel did not halt settlement construction and the Palestinians did not clamp down on militants. A new wave of Palestinian suicide bombings and Israeli targeted killings of Hamas leaders also derails talks.
_Nov. 27, 2007, U.S. Naval Academy, Annapolis, Maryland:
Bush, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert participate. Direct negotiations resume with the aim of establishing an independent Palestinian state based on the road map. Olmert and Abbas hold a long series of direct talks. The last round breaks down in late 2008, reportedly when the sides were close to an agreement. Shortly afterward, Israel launches its bruising military offensive against Hamas rocket launchers in the Gaza Strip.
_May 2010: Indirect, U.S.-mediated talks are launched.
_Aug. 20, 2010: Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton announces resumption of direct peace talks.
Text of a statement issued by Mideast Quartet By The Associated Press – Fri Aug 20, 11:19 am ET
Here is the full text of a statement issued Friday by the Mideast Quartet — the United States, the European Union, Russia and the United Nations:The representatives of the Quartet reaffirm their strong support for direct negotiations between the Israelis and the Palestinians to resolve all final status issues.The Quartet reaffirms its full commitment to its previous statements, including in Trieste on 26 June 2009, in New York on 24 September 2009, and its statement in Moscow on 19 March 2010 which provides that direct, bilateral negotiations that resolve all final status issues should 'lead to a settlement, negotiated between the parties, that ends the occupation which began in 1967 and results in the emergence of an independent, democratic, and viable Palestinian state living side by side in peace and security with Israel and its other neighbors.The Quartet expresses its determination to support the parties throughout the negotiations, which can be completed within one year, and the implementation of an agreement.The Quartet again calls on both sides to observe calm and restraint, and to refrain from provocative actions and inflammatory rhetoric.
Welcoming the result of the Arab Peace Initiative Committee in Cairo on July 29, the Quartet notes that success will require sustained regional and international support for the negotiations and the parallel process of Palestinian state-building and the pursuit of a just, lasting and comprehensive regional peace as envisaged in the Madrid terms of reference, Security Council resolutions and the Arab Peace Initiative.The Quartet Principals intend to meet with their colleagues from the Arab League in September in New York to review the situation.Accordingly, the Quartet calls on the Israelis and the Palestinians to join in launching direct negotiations on September 2 in Washington, D.C. to resolve all final status issues and fulfill the aspirations of both parties.
Four Israeli airstrikes on Gaza: Palestinians
Tue Aug 17, 6:25 pm ET
GAZA CITY, Palestinian Territories (AFP) – Israeli warplanes carried out four air strikes on the southern Gaza Strip late Tuesday that caused no injuries, Palestinian security sources and witnesses said.The raids struck targets near Rafah and north of Khan Yunis, near the border with Egypt, as well as targets near Zeitoun, east of Gaza City, and the Deir al-Balah refugee camp in the centre of the territory.An Israeli military spokeswoman told AFP that the air force had carried out four raids against the Gaza Strip targeting an arms workshop and three tunnels used for smuggling arms from Egypt.She added that the raids were in retaliation for a mortar shell fired Tuesday at Israel from the Gaza Strip.Two Israeli soldiers were slightly wounded on Tuesday by the mortar shell fired by Palestinian militants, the military said.On Monday an Islamic Jihad militant was killed and an Israeli soldier wounded in an exchange of fire.
Gaza's once vibrant tunnel trade caves in
By Nidal al-Mughrabi - Tue Aug 17, 7:19 am ET
RAFAH, Gaza Strip (Reuters) – Jamal al-Shatli scours Gaza's scruffy border area looking for a job where he once worked in the warren of tunnels used by smugglers to outwit Israeli controls and sneak in goods from neighboring Egypt.While Israeli air strikes and Egyptian bombs hurt the once-flourishing trade, they failed to close it down. But Israel's decision to let imports flow more freely to Gaza has put many tunnels out of business and many workers out of a job.I jumped from one tunnel shaft to another looking for a job but they all turned me down, said Shatli, a father of three.He used to earn up to 120 shekels a day ($32) down the tunnel shafts, making him one of the best-paid workers in the coastal Palestinian territory, home to 1.5 million people.There is no other work, the 42-year-old said.Shopkeepers and Gaza consumers meanwhile have benefited from sometimes cheaper and higher quality goods.
Quite literally an underground economy, the tunnel business flourished after the Islamist group Hamas took control of Gaza in 2007, with Israel escalating its restrictions and preventing pretty much anything bar basic aid from getting in.Egypt imposed its own tight limitations, meaning that the only way for entrepreneurial Gazans to bring in anything from cars to chocolate was to sink tunnels under the border and set up smuggling networks, which became emblematic of local life.At one stage an estimated 2,500-3,000 tunnels snaked their way under the border line, but the network was severely damaged by Israeli air strikes during a three-week offensive in late 2008 launched to respond to Palestinian rocket attacks.Locals say there are now just 50 operational tunnels, with only 10 working at any one time and dozens of others mothballed because Palestinian merchants are more willing to buy their goods from Israel rather than from the smugglers.
STEEL AND CEMENT
Some young men slept in the shade in the once bustling area, waiting for a call to work, while a lucky few were busy pulling out a covert consignment of steel for construction work.Tunnel workers only bring stuff that is still banned by Israel, especially steel and cement, said Mohammed Abdel-Qader, who has worked in the tunnels for the past two years.Israel now allows more food, different kinds of it, juice, electrical equipment and even fridges, therefore merchants shifted their business to the old regular way and abandoned tunnels, he added.Israel relaxed its restrictions in June in the wake of its raid to halt a blockade-running flotilla from reaching Gaza in a military operation that killed nine activists and drew widespread international condemnation.It has maintained its ban on some 3,000 items, such as building materials, arguing that these could be used by Hamas, which refuses to recognize Israel, to carry out rocket attacks.But anything not specifically barred can now be brought in.I sleep, then I wake up, eat and sleep. These days it is Ramadan, I wake up only to sleep again with my phone next to me awaiting that call,said 23-year-old Bassam, a former tunnel hand. He has joined the mass ranks of unemployed in a territory with a jobless rate put at up to 60 percent.
GUARANTEED GOODS ON SHELVES
Inside Abu Goma's store in Gaza, new Israeli-imported electrical tools and equipment take pride of place on the shelves, with three-year warranties on offer. Now I can guarantee to repair and replace items. Goods brought through tunnels cannot be guaranteed, he said. Better still, many of the goods brought through Israeli crossings are cheaper than those smuggled from Egypt. An Israeli-imported DVD player sells for 190 shekels ($50) while an Egyptian device, of lower quality, costs 270 shekels ($70). When customers enter my store they ask for Israeli goods. Good, clean and guaranteed items,Abu Goma said.Although many of the tunnel workers bemoan their new reality, they also admit their trade was hard and dangerous.Dozens of Gazans have died inside tunnels that caved in or collapsed because of Israeli and Egyptian raids.People die, they die of hunger too, said Abdel-Qader, who needed the tunnel work to help support his 14-member family squeezed into a shabby, three-room apartment.But Bassam said fear of deaths in Israeli air strikes or Egyptian security sweeps had persuaded many of his colleagues they were better out of the tunnel business.Egyptian police used to warn tunnel owners before they detonated explosives. They used to give us several hours to flee, but now they blow it all of a sudden and many people have died that way,Bassam said. (Editing by Crispian Balmer and Jon Hemming)
Two Israeli soldiers wounded by Gaza fire: military
Tue Aug 17, 5:50 am ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – Two Israeli soldiers were lightly wounded on Tuesday by mortar shells fired by Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip, the military said.In response, troops opened fire towards the source of the projectiles.The attack occurred in the same area where troops shot dead a Palestinian militant late on Monday, the army said, without specifying exactly where the shooting occurred.The victim, a 19-year-old member of the Islamic Jihad militant group, was part of a team of fighters who were trying to plant an explosive device near the border fence, the army said.One soldier was wounded when the Palestinians opened fire, it said.
Overnight, militants fired four rockets into southern Israel, the army said, noting 115 rockets and mortars have been fired from Gaza since the beginning of 2010.In December 2008 Israel launched a vast offensive in Gaza to stamp out persistent rocket fire on southern Israel. The 22-day operation left more than 1,400 and 13 Israelis dead.
Israeli PM urges patience on new Palestinian talks By ELENA BECATOROS, Associated Press Writer – Mon Aug 16, 3:37 pm ET
ATHENS, Greece – The Israeli prime minister said Monday that patience was needed in restarting direct negotiations with the Palestinians, but that launching the talks would not take years or even months.Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was speaking during a visit to Greece, which for years has sought an active role in Middle East negotiations. Netanyahu showed no sign, however, of backing down from his insistence that there be no preconditions, such as a timeline or agenda, before direct talks can begin — a demand of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.The Israeli-Palestinian negotiations — aimed ultimately at establishing a permanent status for the Palestinians — broke down in December 2008. Since then, the international Quartet of Mideast mediators — the U.S., the U.N., the European Union and Russia — has been seeking ways to reconcile the two sides' demands for restarting the talks.For the past year and a half I've been trying to have direct meetings without a predetermined agenda with the Palestinian Authority, Netanyahu said during a joint news conference with Papandreou in Athens.We have to have patience, he said in Hebrew, with the comments translated into Greek. "Of course we won't need to wait for many months or many years. I believe that with some patience you will see results.Asked whether Cairo or Washington would be a good venue, Netanyahu indicated the talks could be held anywhere.We can go to Cairo, we can go to Washington, we can go to any place we can in order to give flesh and bones to this initiative, he said. I hope everything will have a positive development.At U.N. headquarters in New York, deputy spokesman Farhan Haq said the Quartet members have been in contact with each other on a possible statement.
It's possible that there could be something this week,he said. That would depend on agreement among the Quartet partners.Netanyahu was in Athens on a two-day visit — the first by an Israeli prime minister to Greece — and planned Tuesday to visit a nearby island with Papandreou. The two leaders on Monday discussed tourism, military issues, renewable energy and water resources.On Sunday, Papandreou spoke by phone with Abbas, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Amr Moussa, secretary general of the Arab League. A Greek government official said on condition of anonymity that Papandreou wanted to hear the Arab leaders' opinions on the Middle East peace process, including the push for a resumption of direct talks. Papandreou had lobbied for a role in Mideast negotiations during his previous tenure as foreign minister nearly a decade ago.The Israeli prime minister said there was a coalition of countries seeking peace.It's a much broader coalition than meets the eye ... it includes Arab countries and Israel, many more Arab countries than people normally understand, it includes Greece and other well-meaning countries in the region, he told reporters.We hope that it will facilitate the progress in the direct talks, which I hope to resume with the Palestinians without preconditions, but to move, definitely to move. And I think this is the desire of all those who want stability and peace and security in the Middle East, and I add also prosperity.
The visit comes as relations between Israel and Turkey, Greece's traditional rival, have soured since an Israeli commando raid in May on an international flotilla trying to bust Israel's blockade of Gaza. Nine Turkish activists were killed in the raid on the flotilla, in which Greek activists were also participating.But both Netanyahu and Papandreou insisted that improving Greek-Israeli ties had nothing to do with Israel's deteriorating relations with Turkey.Security was tight for Netanyahu's trip, with increased patrols in the city center and all cars and pedestrians kept well away from any areas he was visiting, including the Jewish Museum and the Acropolis.A few hundred mainly left-wing and pro-Palestinian activists held a peaceful demonstration to protest Netanyahu's visit, marching to the Israeli Embassy which was surrounded by riot police. Stopping briefly outside Netanyahu's hotel, they displayed banners reading Zionist murderer get out, and Sever all ties with Israel.About 200 people took part in a separate peaceful protest in central Athens.Associated Press writers Aisha Mohammed in Jerusalem, Nicholas Paphitis in Athens and Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations contributed to this report.
Hamas leader: Ground zero mosque must be built
Mon Aug 16, 6:31 am ET
NEW YORK – A Hamas leader says Muslims have to build a mosque near ground zero.
Mahmoud al-Zahar said Muslims have to build everywhere so that followers can pray, just like Christians and Jews build their places of worship.Al-Zahar spoke Sunday on Aaron Klein Investigative Radio on WABC-AM. He is a co-founder of Hamas and its chief on the Gaza Strip.Sen. Chuck Schumer says Al-Zahar's comments don't carry any weight because Hamas is a terrorist organization. Schumer hasn't taken a stand on the mosque.Rep. Peter King, who opposes the mosque, says he won't respond to Hamas.
The mosque is a project of the Cordoba Initiative, an advocacy group that promotes improved relations between Islam and the West. It didn't respond to Al-Zahar's comments.Information from: New York Post, http://www.nypost.com
Friday, August 20, 2010
TIME IS RUNNING OUT TO NUKE IRAN ISRAEL
AS THE AUG 21,10 DEADLINE FOR RUSSIA TO PUT THE RODS IN THE NUKE SITE IN IRAN,IRAN IS TESTING MISSLES FROM THE SITE TODAY-THROWING IT IN THE FACE OF ISRAEL AND AMERICA.IF ISRAEL IS GOING TO NUKE IRAN THEY GOT LESS THAN A DAY LEFT TO TAKE ACTION BEFORE THE RODS GO INTO THE NUKE REACTOR.GO ISRAEL PROTECT YOURSELVES FROM THESE RUTHLESS UNREPENTANT MURDERERS AND HATERS OF ISRAEL.THESE WELLBOY CHAOTIC DESTRUCTIVE THEOLOGY BELIEVERS THAT THEY MUST NUKE ISRAEL TO BRING THEIR MYTH WELLBOY FROM THE WELL TO RULE THE WHOLE EARTH WITH ISLAM.EVERYBODY IN THE WORLD UNDER ISLAM,SHARIA LAW AND FAKE WELLBOY MAUDIS RULE.
Military Strike Could Delay, Not Stop, Iran's Nuclear Program, Officials Say
By Judson Berger Published August 19, 2010 | FoxNews.com
In this Nov. 30, 2009, file photo released by the semi-official Iranian Students News Agency (ISNA), workers are shown at the Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant in Iran. (AP Photo)Editor's Note: As Russia helps Iran flip the switch this weekend on its first nuclear reactor, Tehran also takes a giant -- and dreaded -- step closer toward becoming a regional nuclear threat. FoxNews.com examines the military, diplomatic and political options and consequences of trying to stop Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's nuclear ambitions.
TOMORROW: Political and Diplomacy
As Iran, with Russia's help, gets ready to flip the switch on its first nuclear reactor, Washington is engaged in a frenzied debate over whether Israel should consider launching an air attack designed to cripple Tehran's nuclear capabilities.
But key military officials and analysts say Iran has already passed the point where a strike would deal its entire nuclear program a fatal blow. The country might be persuaded to abandon any efforts to build a bomb, they say, but -- like it or not -- Iran is going nuclear. And no number of Israeli F-16s is going to change that. We can't stop it. We can slow it down, Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., a member of the House Armed Services and Intelligence committees, told FoxNews.com. The Bushehr facility -- a power plant along the Persian Gulf that uses non-weapons-grade fissile material -- will be Iran's first functioning nuclear reactor; its Russian-provided fuel is expected to be loaded up starting this weekend.
But Bushehr is just one piece of a much larger puzzle.
Iran has a uranium-enrichment plant at Natanz and another at Qom, which Western allies blew the whistle on last year. Several facilities critical to the nuclear program are known to be scattered throughout the country, and others are believed to exist in unknown locations. Iran has committed to building more reactors and more enrichment facilities, and as long as it has nuclear physicists, the regime can continue to pursue its goals. Attacking Iran's nuclear program might be like Mickey Mouse chopping broomsticks in The Sorcerer's Apprentice. The program could be taken down -- but for how long? Smith, in urging caution toward the idea of a military strike, was echoing Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who said last year that an attack could buy time, but it would not halt the program. But that doesn't mean a strike is off the table, from either the United States or Israel. Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, stated plainly in an interview on Aug. 1 that the U.S. military has an attack plan for Iran. Richard Russell, who served 17 years as an analyst with the CIA and now teaches at National Defense University's Near East and South Asia Center for Strategic Studies, described the credible threat of a strike as potentially more potent than a strike itself. Right now, Russell said, the Iranians see the United States as bluffing, as they have since the Bush administration -- which puts pressure on Israel. The credible threat of a military strike, he said, helps prevent a peaceful energy program from turning into a weapons factory. That, and sanctions, which have already been imposed by the United States, United Nations and European Union. For now, the United States and Israel may still have time on their side. Iran needs to cross several hurdles before its nuclear program becomes a blatant international security threat, presuming the country does not comply with the kind of oversight on its current program that would satisfy the United States. It needs the fissile material, either from highly-enriched uranium or plutonium; it needs an actual bomb; and it needs a delivery system to carry it. U.S. officials have said over the past several months that Iran could have enough bomb-making material in a year and a weapon within two years. Estimates about Iran's intercontinental missile capability have varied widely.
The Iranians also need to want to do it. Smith said, based on intelligence he's seen and is free to talk about, the highest levels of the Iranian regime are conflicted about whether to cross the line and build a bomb. Russell said it's not too late, and that a combination of economic sanctions and military threats can persuade Iran to back off from developing a weapon. Smith, too, expressed hope that sanctions will compel Iran to keep its nuclear program peaceful. But others say there's little doubt that Iran's nuclear energy will soon go beyond feeding the country's electric grid. They wonder whether Iran is closer to a weapon than the West thinks, and they suggest drastic action may have to be taken to ensure the Iranians don't get the bomb, even if it doesn't halt the nuclear program. I personally think it will take the use of force against at least elements of the Iranian nuclear program to make this Iranian leadership think it's too costly to continue on this path, said Kori Schake, an associate professor at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and a former member of the National Security Council staff during the Bush administration.
She said the most credible estimate she's seen is that it would take five years for Iran to produce a deliverable nuclear weapon from the time Tehran decides to do so.
We don't know if they've chosen to do it. I personally believe they chose to do it a few years ago, and so the clock's ticking, she said. John Bolton, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations during the Bush administration, said it's only a matter of time before the Bushehr plant creates the plutonium needed to pave the way for weapons production. He's expressed concern that unless Israel strikes Bushehr before fuel is loaded, the radiation from an attack would render that possibility remote. The scenarios for an Iranian backlash and turmoil in the broader Middle East in the wake of a military strike are ghastly -- the specter of a new conflict comes as the last U.S. combat brigade in Iraq begins to pull out. And those scenarios are the basis for the extreme caution with which U.S. officials talk about a military option.
Nobody knows how bad it could get, said Steven Simon, a former director with the National Security Council and senior fellow with the Council on Foreign Relations.
Simon suggested the Israelis, who have previously knocked out reactors in Iraq and Syria before they went active, have greater reason to attack than the Americans. But he agreed that military action only delays, and doesn't stop, nuclear development -- including a nuclear weapon.They keep plugging away at it. They'll come up with something,Simon said.
Military Strike Could Delay, Not Stop, Iran's Nuclear Program, Officials Say
By Judson Berger Published August 19, 2010 | FoxNews.com
In this Nov. 30, 2009, file photo released by the semi-official Iranian Students News Agency (ISNA), workers are shown at the Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant in Iran. (AP Photo)Editor's Note: As Russia helps Iran flip the switch this weekend on its first nuclear reactor, Tehran also takes a giant -- and dreaded -- step closer toward becoming a regional nuclear threat. FoxNews.com examines the military, diplomatic and political options and consequences of trying to stop Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's nuclear ambitions.
TOMORROW: Political and Diplomacy
As Iran, with Russia's help, gets ready to flip the switch on its first nuclear reactor, Washington is engaged in a frenzied debate over whether Israel should consider launching an air attack designed to cripple Tehran's nuclear capabilities.
But key military officials and analysts say Iran has already passed the point where a strike would deal its entire nuclear program a fatal blow. The country might be persuaded to abandon any efforts to build a bomb, they say, but -- like it or not -- Iran is going nuclear. And no number of Israeli F-16s is going to change that. We can't stop it. We can slow it down, Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., a member of the House Armed Services and Intelligence committees, told FoxNews.com. The Bushehr facility -- a power plant along the Persian Gulf that uses non-weapons-grade fissile material -- will be Iran's first functioning nuclear reactor; its Russian-provided fuel is expected to be loaded up starting this weekend.
But Bushehr is just one piece of a much larger puzzle.
Iran has a uranium-enrichment plant at Natanz and another at Qom, which Western allies blew the whistle on last year. Several facilities critical to the nuclear program are known to be scattered throughout the country, and others are believed to exist in unknown locations. Iran has committed to building more reactors and more enrichment facilities, and as long as it has nuclear physicists, the regime can continue to pursue its goals. Attacking Iran's nuclear program might be like Mickey Mouse chopping broomsticks in The Sorcerer's Apprentice. The program could be taken down -- but for how long? Smith, in urging caution toward the idea of a military strike, was echoing Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who said last year that an attack could buy time, but it would not halt the program. But that doesn't mean a strike is off the table, from either the United States or Israel. Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, stated plainly in an interview on Aug. 1 that the U.S. military has an attack plan for Iran. Richard Russell, who served 17 years as an analyst with the CIA and now teaches at National Defense University's Near East and South Asia Center for Strategic Studies, described the credible threat of a strike as potentially more potent than a strike itself. Right now, Russell said, the Iranians see the United States as bluffing, as they have since the Bush administration -- which puts pressure on Israel. The credible threat of a military strike, he said, helps prevent a peaceful energy program from turning into a weapons factory. That, and sanctions, which have already been imposed by the United States, United Nations and European Union. For now, the United States and Israel may still have time on their side. Iran needs to cross several hurdles before its nuclear program becomes a blatant international security threat, presuming the country does not comply with the kind of oversight on its current program that would satisfy the United States. It needs the fissile material, either from highly-enriched uranium or plutonium; it needs an actual bomb; and it needs a delivery system to carry it. U.S. officials have said over the past several months that Iran could have enough bomb-making material in a year and a weapon within two years. Estimates about Iran's intercontinental missile capability have varied widely.
The Iranians also need to want to do it. Smith said, based on intelligence he's seen and is free to talk about, the highest levels of the Iranian regime are conflicted about whether to cross the line and build a bomb. Russell said it's not too late, and that a combination of economic sanctions and military threats can persuade Iran to back off from developing a weapon. Smith, too, expressed hope that sanctions will compel Iran to keep its nuclear program peaceful. But others say there's little doubt that Iran's nuclear energy will soon go beyond feeding the country's electric grid. They wonder whether Iran is closer to a weapon than the West thinks, and they suggest drastic action may have to be taken to ensure the Iranians don't get the bomb, even if it doesn't halt the nuclear program. I personally think it will take the use of force against at least elements of the Iranian nuclear program to make this Iranian leadership think it's too costly to continue on this path, said Kori Schake, an associate professor at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and a former member of the National Security Council staff during the Bush administration.
She said the most credible estimate she's seen is that it would take five years for Iran to produce a deliverable nuclear weapon from the time Tehran decides to do so.
We don't know if they've chosen to do it. I personally believe they chose to do it a few years ago, and so the clock's ticking, she said. John Bolton, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations during the Bush administration, said it's only a matter of time before the Bushehr plant creates the plutonium needed to pave the way for weapons production. He's expressed concern that unless Israel strikes Bushehr before fuel is loaded, the radiation from an attack would render that possibility remote. The scenarios for an Iranian backlash and turmoil in the broader Middle East in the wake of a military strike are ghastly -- the specter of a new conflict comes as the last U.S. combat brigade in Iraq begins to pull out. And those scenarios are the basis for the extreme caution with which U.S. officials talk about a military option.
Nobody knows how bad it could get, said Steven Simon, a former director with the National Security Council and senior fellow with the Council on Foreign Relations.
Simon suggested the Israelis, who have previously knocked out reactors in Iraq and Syria before they went active, have greater reason to attack than the Americans. But he agreed that military action only delays, and doesn't stop, nuclear development -- including a nuclear weapon.They keep plugging away at it. They'll come up with something,Simon said.
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