WikiLeaks shows Netanyahu supports land swaps By JOSEF FEDERMAN and DAN PERRY, Associated Press – Tue Nov 30, 2:33 pm ET
JERUSALEM – A throwaway line in the mountain of Wikileaks memos may hold the key to a major riddle: Is Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu prepared to go the distance for peace with the Palestinians? In a February 2009 memo that reflects the delicate machinery of diplomacy at work, a senior U.S. diplomat assessed the newly elected leader was not only willing to cede West Bank land but also territory in Israel itself.Netanyahu said this week that he believes secrecy is essential for negotiations to succeed. And in 20 months in office, including a short-lived round of negotiations with Palestinians, he has revealed very little about his vision for peace.But the newly leaked memo indicates the head of a government dominated by nationalist and religious politicians opposed to broad pullouts from occupied land may be willing to go much further than commonly believed.With hard-liners accusing him of abandoning his ideals, Netanyahu's office on Tuesday downplayed the leaked document and said he was already on record as favoring territorial concessions for peace.WikiLeaks began publishing more than 250,000 leaked U.S. embassy cables over the weekend — and on Tuesday, Israeli media zeroed in on a confidential Feb. 26, 2009memo.
In the memo, dated two weeks after elections that landed Netanyahu in office, a senior American diplomat said that during a meeting a few days before Netanyahu expressed support for the concept of land swaps, and emphasized that he did not want to govern the West Bank and Gaza but rather to stop attacks from being launched from there.Two seemingly innocuous words — land swaps — speak diplomatic volumes: They are understood to refer to Israel ceding land inside its recognized territory in exchange for being allowed to keep small parts of the West Bank where there are large concentrations of Jewish settlers.This concept suggests a willingness to cede the vast majority of the Palestinian area occupied in 1967, and it was a key element of a proposal made two years ago by Netanyahu's predecessor Ehud Olmert. Olmert says he offered the Palestinians some 95 percent of the West Bank with land swaps compensating them fully, in terms of land mass, for the remainder.Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has also endorsed the concept of land swaps — but he never embraced the Olmert offer. Olmert was hounded out of office soon after by a financial scandal and replaced by Netanyahu.Asked on Monday whether he would be willing to duplicate the Olmert offer under the right circumstances, Netanyahu demurred.I can say that I will tell that to (Abbas) and to our American interlocutors when we actually engage in the final stages of a final settlement negotiation,he said.That's how I negotiate.Netanyahu noted that the ability to negotiate under a cloak of secrecy was critical to Israel's ability to reach a peace deal with Egypt in 1979. Had the Israeli public known that Prime Minister Menachem Begin was preparing to cede the entire Sinai desert, he suggested resistance might have scuttled the agreement.That could explain why Netanyahu might agree to land swaps in private conversations only.In public, he had been an outspoken critic of Olmert's offer. But after taking office, his positions gradually started to erode.In mid-2009, Netanyahu endorsed the concept of forming an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel — something he had opposed for virtually his whole public career. A year ago, he agreed to a 10-month moratorium on settlement-building, which has since expired. In September, he opened peace talks with the Palestinians aimed at forging an agreement within a year, but they quickly stalled over Israel's refusal to extend the settlement moratorium.
The challenge negotiators face is great.
Netanyahu says Israel must retain a security presence in parts of the West Bank and keep east Jerusalem — home to sensitive Jewish, Muslim and Christian holy sites — as an integral part of its capital. Both demands are rejected by the Palestinians, who seek all of the West Bank and east Jerusalem, both captured by Israel in 1967. Closing the gaps depends largely on Netanyahu moving still further toward the Palestinians — and the report by U.S. diplomat Luis G. Moreno suggested this is not outside the realm of possibility.Netanyahu now faces unrest in his governing coalition, where pro-settlement hard-liners are pressuring him not to cave in to the American demands to renew the settlement curbs.Danny Danon, a lawmaker from Netanyahu's Likud party, said members had met over the leaked memo and want to prevent more concessions.If the prime minister is trying to appease Obama, he risks losing the support he has within the Likud,he said.Danon and his hardline cohorts may have reason to fear, given Netanyahu's own words a day before: Transparency is fundamental to our society, and it's usually essential — but there are a few areas, including diplomacy, where it isn't essential.
Netanyahu said no peace with right of return: WikiLeaks
– Mon Nov 29, 1:14 pm ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – The Palestinians will not be a partner for peace until they drop demands for the right of return, Benjamin Netanyahu said two years before being elected premier, leaked US cables showed on Monday.And a withdrawal by Israeli forces to the pre-1967 borders would only encourage radical Islamic elements, he said during talks with senior US officials in April 2007 when he was leader of the opposition.Details of his remarks were catalogued in a diplomatic cable sent by the then US ambassador to Israel Richard H. Jones, which was one of hundreds of secret documents released by WikiLeaks late on Sunday.Netanyahu told the officials that Israel would not have a partner for peace until the Palestinians dropped their demand for refugees to return to homes they either left or were forced out of in the war which accompanied Israel's creation in 1948.Netanyahu noted that he thought dropping the 'right of return' was the acid test of Arab intentions and insisted that he would never allow a single Palestinian refugee to return to Israel, the leaked cable said.Israel will only have a peace partner when the Palestinians drop the right of return,it quoted him as saying, noting Israel's rejection of the so-called Arab peace initiative because it kept the option for the right of return open.
Asked whether Israel could accept case-by-case exceptions, Netanyahu insisted not one refugee could ever return. Israel, after all, was not asking for the right of Jews to return to Baghdad or Cairo.He also ruled out a return to the pre-1967 borders, saying those lines were indefensible and that such a move would serve only to encourage Islamic radicals in the region.Netanyahu stated that a return to the 1967 borders and dividing Jerusalem was not a solution since further withdrawals would only whet the appetite of radical Islam, it said.The 1967 borders were not the solution since Israel was the only force blocking radical Islam's agenda of overrunning Jordan and Saudi Arabia.The issue of refugees is one of the thorniest elements of the conflict, with the Palestinians demanding that Israel recognise the right of return of refugees who, with their descendants, now number 4.7 million people.Israel rejects the demand, saying they should be accommodated within a Palestinian state.
US memos: Iran armed Hezbollah through ambulances By BASSEM MROUE, Associated Press – Mon Nov 29, 12:42 pm ET
BEIRUT – Iranian Red Crescent ambulances were used to smuggle weapons to Lebanon's militant Hezbollah group during its 2006 war with Israel, according to newly leaked U.S. diplomatic memos, which say the IRC shipments of medical supplies served also to facilitate weapons shipments.According to one of the documents, a person whose name was not published had seen missiles in the planes destined for Lebanon when delivering medical supplies to the plane. The plane was allegedly half full prior to the arrival of any medical supplies, according to the memo.Hezbollah and Israel fought a 34-day war that killed 1,200 Lebanese and 160 Israelis.The more than 250,000 classified State Department documents were released Sunday by online whistleblower WikiLeaks.A Hezbollah spokesman declined to comment, saying he had yet not read the document.Iran, whose ties to Hezbollah date back nearly 30 years, allegedly funds the militant group, sending millions of dollars a year, and is suspected of supplying much of its arsenal.Paul Conneally, a spokesman for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, said the Geneva-based body took the allegations against one of its members very seriously.We will of course discuss it with the Iranian Red Crescent, but for now they remain allegations which are unsubstantiated to the best of our knowledge, and based on a source who is not named, Conneally told The Associated Press.Conneally said the Iranian Red Crescent had been contacted by Britain's Guardian newspaper ahead of the publication of the memo. They denied those allegations vociferously,he said.
The IFRC, which represents 186 national societies and is a separate organization from the International Committee of the Red Cross, relies heavily on its status as a neutral organization.We have very strict rules and regulations on the use of our emblem, said Conneally. It is the integrity of the use of the emblem which we depend on for access to humanitarian situations around the world.Conneally said the IFRC hadn't previously been contacted by U.S. officials before the memo was leaked.It was most definitely news to us.During the monthlong conflict in Lebanon, Hezbollah fired nearly 4,000 rockets at northern Israel, including several medium-range missiles that for the first time hit Israel's third-largest city, Haifa. Israeli weaponry, including warplanes, destroyed areas in southern and eastern Lebanon and Hezbollah's stronghold of Dahiyeh in southern Beirut.The New York Times, which along with several European publications was provided advanced access to the documents, reported that they describe the United States' failure to prevent Syria from supplying arms to Hezbollah.It said a week after Syrian President Bashar Assad promised a top State Department official that he would not send new arms to Hezbollah, the United States complained that it had information that Syria was providing increasingly sophisticated weapons to the group.Syria, like Iran, is one of Hezbollah's strongest backers and much of the militant group's weapons are reportedly smuggled through Syria's long border. Damascus is also Iran's closest ally in the Arab world.Associated Press Writer Frank Jordans in Geneva contributed to this report.
Israel could wage new war on Lebanon: Hezbollah chief
– Sun Nov 28, 4:38 pm ET
BEIRUT (AFP) – Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah warned on Sunday that Israel could wage a new war on Lebanon after the publication of indictments by a UN-backed tribunal probing the murder of ex-premier Rafiq Hariri.The Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) could be a cover for a new Israeli war, Nasrallah said in a speech on closed-circuit television during a ceremony paying tribute to Hezbollah students.In Israel they have begun to celebrate the fact that the indictment will implicate Hezbollah, said Nasrallah, who believes that Israel and its American ally are pulling the strings of the tribunal.He urged the Lebanese to unite and protect the country ahead of the results of the UN probe amid mounting tensions between his Iran- and Syria-backed group and supporters of Hariri's son and current Western-backed Prime Minister Saad Hariri.What we fear, in light of the Israeli-American plot, is that if we wait until the indictment is published to begin to close ranks and unite... it will be too late, Nasrallah said.It is widely believed in Lebanon's political circles that the UN-backed tribunal investigating Rafiq Hariri's 2005 assassination could publish its indictments before the end of the year, although no date has been set.On Monday the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation aired a documentary citing unidentified sources saying that UN investigators had evidence that points overwhelmingly to the involvement of members of Hezbollah in the murder.
And on Wednesday Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu convened his inner Forum of Seven ministers on concerns that Hezbollah could attempt a coup in Lebanon in the face of a UN probe, Israeli media reported.Nasrallah has already warned against any attempt to target his party and said on November 11 that Hezbollah would cut off the hand of anyone who tried to arrest any of its partisans over the Hariri assassination.Israel fought a devastating war against Hezbollah in the summer of 2006 in which more than 1,200 people in Lebanon, mainly civilians, and 160 Israelis, mainly soldiers, were killed.
German president on official visit to Israel
– Sat Nov 27, 2:03 pm ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – Christian Wulff, Germany's first head of state to be born after World War II, arrived on Saturday on his first official visit to Israel and the Palestinian territories, the German embassy in Tel Aviv said.During his three-day visit, Wulff who flew into Tel Aviv will meet his Israeli counterpart Shimon Peres, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas.Wulff, 51, was elected in June and is Germany's fifth president to pay an official visit to Israel.His predecessor Horst Koehler in 2005 laid a wreath at Jerusalem's Yad Vashem memorial to the six million Jews killed in the Nazi Holocaust and also addressed the Knesset, the Israeli parliament.Wulff will also visit the Holocaust memorial during his trip.In this official visit, I see a sign of our responsibility towards the existence of Israel and the very relationship between our two countries,Wulff said in an official statement before leaving Germany.He also linked responsibility towards Israel to the fight against anti-Semitism.A quarter of a century ago, Richard von Weizsaecker became the first German president to visit Israel in 1985.
In March 2008, German Chancellor Angela Merkel visited 60 years after the Jewish state was founded in the wake of the Holocaust, also laying a wreath at Yad Vashem.The Holocaust fills us Germans with shame, Merkel, the first German chancellor born after World War II, told the Knesset during her visit.I bow before the victims, I bow before the survivors, and before all those who helped them so they could survive.Several Israeli lawmakers stayed away from the chamber, however, in protest at the chancellor speaking in German.The two countries set up full diplomatic relations in 1965 and Germany is now one of Israel's closest partners in Europe.
Syria says lack of peace in Mideast hurts development
– Sat Nov 27, 8:13 am ET
DAMASCUS (AFP) – Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said on Saturday the absence of peace in the Middle East harms the region's economic development, following talks with the visiting Indian president.The absence of peace in our region due to Israel's policies... raises tensions and undermines economic development and prosperity, Assad said at a news conference with visiting President Pratibha Patil.
He also expressed the hope that Syria-India relations will aid international efforts to help put an end to the suffering of the Palestinian people.Assad reiterated that key ally Iran and all (other) countries have a right to nuclear energy for peaceful means.But he stressed that the Middle East must be free of weapons of mass destruction -- a presumed reference to Israel which is widely believed to be the region's sole if undeclared nuclear-armed power.Patil arrived in Damascus on Friday after visiting the United Arab Emirates.Assad said he discussed with Patil ways of bolstering ties with emerging markets in India, namely in the sectors of information technology, pharmaceuticals and textiles.
Israel mulls rail link to West Bank settlement
– Fri Nov 26, 7:28 am ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – Israel is considering building a rail link to the sprawling Jewish settlement of Ariel, which lies deep inside the occupied West Bank, a transport ministry spokesman told AFP on Friday.The spokesman stressed that it was only one of a number of projects under consideration but the right-wing Maariv daily said three million shekels (800,000 dollars) had been allocated for a feasibility study.The proposed rail line would link the town of Rosh Ha Ayin, east of Tel Aviv, with Ariel and also serve Barkan, another settlement.The idea was first mooted a few months ago by Transport Minister Israel Katz of the right-wing Likud party of hawkish Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.No operational decision has been taken at this stage, the ministry spokesman told AFP. It's just one among a number of proposals.Although Ariel lies 17 kilometres (11 miles) from the 1967 border between Israel and the West Bank, and cuts a deep indentation into the territory, successive Israeli prime ministers have insisted on keeping the settlement in any peace deal with the Palestinians.With a population of 18,000 and a higher education college, it is one of the largest Jewish settlements in the West Bank.
Israeli settlement watchdog Peace Now reported earlier this month that a private developer was poised to begin work on 800 new homes in Ariel, despite US pressure for a freeze on new settlement construction to rescue moribund peace talks with the Palestinians.The Palestinians see the settlements as a major threat to the establishment of a viable state, and they view the freezing of settlement activity as a crucial test of Israel's intentions.Peace Now spokeswoman Hagit Ofran said the proposed new neighbourhood in Ariel would encircle the Palestinian town of Salfit just to the south and described it as a grave provocation.There is no demand for housing now in Ariel,she said.
Hariri visits Iran to lobby for stability
By Mariam Karouny – Fri Nov 26, 4:39 am ET
BEIRUT (Reuters) – Lebanon's Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri visits Iran on Saturday, seeking its help to prevent political tensions turning violent if a U.N.-backed tribunal indicts Hezbollah members for killing his father.Western diplomats have said that the tribunal could indict members of Hezbollah, which is backed by Iran and Syria, by early next year for the 2005 bombing which killed former premier Rafik al-Hariri and 21 others.Lebanese politicians fear the indictments could prompt confrontation and possible violence between the Shi'ite Hezbollah, which has denied any involvement in Hariri's killing, and allies of the Sunni prime minister.
Lebanese officials hope a recent initiative by the leaders of Saudi Arabia and Syria, who back rival camps in Lebanon, will help prevent any escalation. Iran's endorsement of the Saudi-Syrian efforts is vital for their success.Hariri's visit ... is a piece in the regional movement toward (accomplishing) the deal, Lebanese analyst Oussam Safa said, adding it will give Hariri direct access to Iran without having to go through Tehran's allies -- Hezbollah or Syria.It will help Hariri to get Iran's support in calming Hezbollah's reaction if the indictment is issued, he said.Hariri's visit follows a trip to Lebanon last month by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who stressed support for all Lebanese but also made a high profile tour of Hezbollah strongholds which highlighted the influence of Tehran's ally.Tensions over the investigation have already paralyzed Hariri's unity government, which includes Hezbollah ministers.Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah has urged all Lebanese to boycott the tribunal and vowed to block the arrest of any of his members. He has also called on Hariri to repudiate the tribunal, which he described as an Israeli project.
FEARS OF VIOLENCE
A 2008 political crisis led to street fighting between Hezbollah and supporters of Hariri, who is backed by the West and Saudi Arabia, and analysts warn that indictments against Hezbollah could spark worse violence.A joint visit to Beirut in July by Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad helped ease the discord, without reaching solution on avoiding future conflict.The framework of the Saudi-Syrian initiative is in place and its roadmap is there. Now the discussion is in its details, said Okab Sakr, a parliamentarian close to Hariri, adding the initiative will ensure both justice and stability.Sakr gave no details of the initiative, which is being kept confidential until it was finalized, but said Iran was satisfied with it.If Iran objects it, then it will stop but actually there is an Iranian content.But Iran's support comes at a price.If Iran is to help in containing Hezbollah's reaction after the indictment it must take something in return and that is Hariri disavowing the indictment, Safa said.Saad Hariri has maintained support for the tribunal, leading to a standoff with Hezbollah which has left Lebanon with a weakened government unable to push through economic reforms.
The country's 2010 budget has been stuck in parliament since June with no sign it will pass this year. Lebanese officials said that they were optimistic that the Saudi-Syrian initiative would find the solution but it was on pause until Saudi King Abdullah returns from medical treatment.It is still in the work and hopefully it will be concluded after the king comes back from America, a Lebanese official who declined to be named said.(Editing by Samia Nakhoul)
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Thursday, November 25, 2010
TURKEY-DON'T ATTACK LEBANON ISRAEL
Turkey won't be silent if Israel strikes Lebanon
NOV 25 AMERICAN THANKSGIVING 2010
BEIRUT (AFP) – Turkey will not remain silent if Israel attacks Lebanon or Gaza, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said in Beirut on Thursday, as ties between the longtime allies remained at an all-time low.Does (Israel) think it can enter Lebanon with the most modern aircraft and tanks to kill women and children, and destroy schools and hospitals, and then expect us to remain silent?" Erdogan said at a conference organised by the Union of Arab Banks.Does it think it can use the most modern weapons, phosphorus munitions and cluster bombs to kill children in Gaza and then expect us to remain silent? We will not be silent and we will support justice by all means available to us.Turkey was once Israel's closest military and diplomatic ally in the Middle East but ties began to deteriorate when Ankara criticised Israel's December 2008 to January 2009 offensive against Gaza.Relations then nosedived on May 31, 2010 when Israeli naval commandos stormed a Turkish-registered protest ship, the Mavi Marmara, part of a flotilla attempting to break the Israeli blockade of the Palestinian territory.
Nine Turkish activists were killed in the operation.Erdogan has said his country will not begin to restore relations with Israel until it apologises for its savage attack on the vessel.Thursday was the final day of the Turkish premier's two-day visit to Lebanon, during which he inaugurated a burns treatment centre in Sidon, a major southern coastal city.South Lebanon was badly hit during the Hezbollah militia's deadly 2006 war with Israel.
Israeli troops raze mosque, buildings in West Bank
– Thu Nov 25, 7:09 am ET
KHIRBET YARZA, Palestinian Territories (AFP) – Israeli troops razed a mosque and more than 10 other structures in two areas of the occupied West Bank on Thursday, Palestinians sources said.
Most of the demolition activity took place in the village of Khirbet Yarza in the northern Jordan Valley, where residents said troops had razed a very old mosque and its much-larger extension, which was built last year.They also said troops had levelled more than 10 buildings used for sheep.The army confirmed knocking down what it described as eight temporary structures which had been built inside a military firing zone.During the morning, the security forces and the Civil Administration destroyed eight temporary structures and the frame of another structure, which were built without the required permits inside a firing zone endangering the lives of the residents, said a statement from COGAT, the defence ministry unit which acts as a link between the army and the Palestinians.At the opposite end of the West Bank, Israeli troops destroyed a building which was home to 18 people in the southern town of Yatta, the family and municipal officials told AFP.Khirbet Yarza is located in Area C of the West Bank, which is under full Israeli control and where all construction and planning issues come under the jurisdiction of the Israeli Civil Administration.Figures from the Israeli NGO Bimkom show that around 95 percent of applications for a building permit are rejected, with the Civil Administration only granting around 12 permits a year.UN figures show that in 2009, Israel destroyed 180 Palestinian structures in Area C, including 56 residential buildings.
Palestinian official: Western Wall not Jewish By Diaa Hadid, Associated Press – Wed Nov 24, 2:40 pm ET
JERUSALEM – An official Palestinian report claiming that a key Jewish holy site — Jerusalem's Western Wall — has no religious significance to Jews evoked an angry response from Israelis Wednesday, threatening to further inflame tensions over the disputed city.Decades of archaeology have shown that the Western Wall, the holiest place where Jews can pray, was a retaining wall of the compound where the two biblical Jewish Temples stood 20 centuries ago. The Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, Islam's third-holiest site, is built atop the ruins.The latest claim about the Temples, echoing positions taken in the past by Palestinian leaders including the late Yasser Arafat, underlined the deeply held, conflicting beliefs that must be untangled if a peace accord is to be reached between Israel and the Palestinians.Al-Mutawakil Taha, deputy minister of information in the Western-backed Palestinian Authority that rules the West Bank, told The Associated Press on Wednesday that his five-page study published on a Palestinian government website reflected the official Palestinian position.Part of the report disputes that the Western Wall was a retaining wall of the Temple compound, discarding centuries of documentation and archaeology.
This wall has never been a part of what is called the Jewish Temple, the report claimed. However, it was Islamic tolerance which allowed the Jews to stand before it and cry over its loss.The report concludes that since Jews have no claim to the area, it is holy Muslim territory and must be part of Palestinian Jerusalem.Both sides say the clashing narratives are political. Israel captured east Jerusalem in the 1967 Mideast war and annexed it. Palestinians claim east Jerusalem, including the Old City, as the capital of their future state.Of course it's a political position, Taha said.Taha said he wrote the report after Israeli officials on Sunday approved a five-year renovation plan for the Western Wall area.Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev described the report as incitement by denying the historic Jewish connection to Jerusalem.
Einat Wilf, a legislator from the moderate Israeli Labor Party, a part of the governing coalition, said Palestinians are stupidly trying again and again to somehow create an alternative reality in which the Jewish people are a strangers in this land.After Israel seized control of east Jerusalem, it cleared away shacks built next to the Western Wall and built a wide, open plaza there.In contrast, Israel turned over administration of the hilltop itself, with the Al-Aqsa Mosque and Dome of the Rock shrine, to the Muslim Supreme Council, or Waqf, while Israel maintained overall security control.Plans that won preliminary approval in earlier, failed peace negotiations envisioned dividing Jerusalem along ethnic lines — leaving Israel in control of Jewish neighborhoods while Arab sections would be part of the Palestinian state — but no formula emerged for the disputed hilltop.
Report: Clinton and Obama Pulled Bait and Switch on Netanyahu
by Maayana Miskin NOV 24,10
As Israel waits for a letter clarifying America's guarantees in exchange for a proposed building ban for Jewish residents of Judea and Samaria, a diplomatic source has come forward saying that no such letter is on its way. United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton misled Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, and contrary to reports, the U.S. does not guarantee an end to the freeze, the source said.The source, a senior diplomat with inside knowledge of Netanyahu's recent meetings in Washington, said Clinton made commitments when talking to Netanyahu, but later slipped out of them by claiming that she had not been speaking on behalf of U.S. President Obama – who, she said in the end, did not give his approval.When Netanyahu called the State Department to clarify America's position, officials expressed surprise at his surprise, the source continued. While Clinton made promises, Netanyahu knew from the beginning that Obama has the final word, they allegedly said.
Clinton had told Netanyahu that the proposed construction freeze would last for three months, and that it would end regardless of whether or not there was progress in talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. After that, she said, America would not push for a third building freeze.However, according to the diplomat, U.S. leaders have since said that the building ban for Jews in Judea and Samaria would only end if Israel and the PA reached an agreement on the borders of a proposed PA state.Several other American promises have been called into question as well. While it was initially reported that Israel would receive F-35 fighter jets in exchange for the freeze, Israeli ministers later clarified that the jets are part of a separate package, and that Israel will pay for them in full. It was also suggested that the construction ban would not apply to Jews living in Jerusalem; however, U.S. officials later stated that it would apply to all Jews living east of the 1949 armistice line, including those in Israel's capital city.If America does not openly declare that a second construction freeze would end in three months with or without a deal with the PA, Netanyahu is unlikely to get the cabinet's support for the new construction ban. Ministers in Shas and within Netanyahu's own Likud party have already stated that they would vote against the proposal without a U.S. promise.
Netanyahu previously made the unprecedented step of unconditionally freezing construction for Jews in Judea and Samaria for 10 months, in an attempt to bring the PA to the negotiating table. PA leaders reluctantly agreed to talk just as the 10-month freeze reached its conclusion, but left the talks again when the freeze ended.
(IsraelNationalNews.com)
Iran's Parliament Planned to Oust Ahmadinejad
by Gil Ronen NOV 24,10
Iran's parliament planned to impeach President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad but refrained from doing so following the intervention of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Wall Street Journal reported. Four members of Tehran's parliament launched a petition to hold a debate on Ahmadinejad's impeachment, conservative Iranian newspapers said.The papers reported Monday that legislators started a move to collect the 74 signatures needed to hold an open debate on the president's impeachment. Forty lawmakers have already signed the motion.This is the first time in the history of the Islamic Republic that parliament has discussed impeachment of a president. However, the move needs Khamenei's support in order to succeed – and it does not appear to have it at this time.In a report discussed in parliament Monday, four lawmakers voiced unprecedentedly harsh criticism of Ahmadinejad, accusing him of breaking the law and acting without the approval of the legislature. The Iranian president was charged with illegally importing gasoline and oil, failing to provide budgetary transparency and withdrawing millions of dollars from Iran's foreign reserve fund without getting parliament's approval, WSJ reported.
The moves against Ahmadinejad are a manifestation of domestic unrest over his plans to gradually eliminate subsidies for fuel, food and utilities, a move that is expected to drive up inflation. The opposition to Ahmadinejad is described as politically conservative, while Ahmadinejad himself is an ultraconservative– as is Khamenei.U.S. officials Monday said they are following the political struggle in Tehran and believe that they are caused, in part, by the sanctions imposed on the Iranians by the US, the United Nations and the European Union.However, observers noted that Ahmadinejad's opponents, too, favor Iran's nuclear weapons program, and that even if Ahmadinejad is toppled, the program is likely to continue.Parag Khanna, Director of the Global Governance Initiative at the New America Foundation, predicts that the next Iranian revolution is very close, in an interview with Globes. Khanna, who was an adviser to U.S. President Barack Obama, said that there are many underground tremors in Iran, that will lead to a change in the power structure in the next few years.Regarding the Islamic Republic's nuclear arms program, Khanna estimated at 50% the chances that the West will be able to check the Iranian program before it reaches the point of no return. He is not sure if this will happen through military or diplomatic means, but says – I have hunch that we will succeed in stopping them.(IsraelNationalNews.com)
Abbas Plans PLO Office in Jerusalem
by Maayana Miskin NOV 24,10
Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas said Tuesday that while the PLO has built a new office in Ramallah, north of Jerusalem, it does not plan to stay in the city. Ultimately, the PLO will return to Jerusalem, he said.His remarks were made during a ceremony opening the new Ramallah headquarters.Abbas recalled a visit to PLO headquarters in Jerusalem prior to the Six Day War of 1967 in which the city was reunited. The PLO had centers in Judea and Samaria during the 19-year period in which the region was under Jordanian occupation, from which it launched frequent terrorist attacks on Israeli civilians.The PA Chairman joined PA negotiator Saeb Erekat in condemning Israel for passing the Referendum Law, which will allow Israelis to vote on whether or not to cede land in Jerusalem or the Golan for the sake of a peace treaty. This step puts obstacles in the way of the political process, he said.The PA claims all land east of the 1949 armistice line, including much of Jerusalem, as part of a future Arab state.Israeli activists in Jerusalem have charged that the PA is attempting a de facto annexation of parts of Israel's capital city. The PA has claimed credit for paving roads and planting trees in Arab neighborhoods, and recently reported that it had invested two million shekels in Arab schools.(IsraelNationalNews.com)
Fatah meets for talks on Israel, Hamas
– Wed Nov 24, 8:10 am ET
RAMALLAH, Palestinian Territories (AFP) – Senior members of Fatah, the party of Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas, met on Wednesday to discuss issues ranging from peace talks with Israel to reconciliation with Hamas.The representatives from Fatah's Revolutionary Council gathered in the West Bank city of Ramallah from early morning for a day of talks on domestic and international political affairs.Abbas was during the day expected to deliver a very important address on the developments in the political situation, the reconciliation process and the internal situation of the movement, council member Hussein al-Sheikh told AFP. He said Fatah's efforts to reconcile with Hamas would be discussed and would show the Islamist group was to blame for the failure to reach a deal on a government of national unity.The bitter divisions between Fatah and Hamas go back to the start of limited Palestinian self-rule in the 1990s, when Fatah strongmen cracked down on the Islamist militant group.
Their divisions boiled over in June 2007 when Hamas -- which had won a parliamentary election a year earlier -- drove Abbas's loyalists from Gaza in a week of bloody clashes, seizing control of the impoverished territory.All attempts at reconciliation, most of them mediated by Egypt, have failed, with Fatah and Hamas accusing each other of undermining trust by persecuting political rivals in the territory under its control.The last round took place in Damascus earlier this month, but ended without agreement, and the two sides said they would meet again after Eid al-Adha, which ended on Friday.In a sign of the continuing divisions, the Revolutionary Council's deputy secretary-general Sabri Saidam slammed Hamas's decision to stop members of the Revolutionary Council in Gaza from coming to take part in the meeting.In response, Taher al-Nunu, a spokesman for the Hamas government in Gaza, said they would allow them to leave in return for the release of a Hamas member arrested in Nablus.The council members would be allowed to attend in exchange for a symbolic gesture, the release of Tamam Abu Su'ud as a positive message to our people in the context of reconciliation efforts and national dialogue,Nunu said.By refusing to release Abu Su'ud, Fatah bears sole responsibility for the restriction of movement of its leaders, he added.
NOV 25 AMERICAN THANKSGIVING 2010
BEIRUT (AFP) – Turkey will not remain silent if Israel attacks Lebanon or Gaza, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said in Beirut on Thursday, as ties between the longtime allies remained at an all-time low.Does (Israel) think it can enter Lebanon with the most modern aircraft and tanks to kill women and children, and destroy schools and hospitals, and then expect us to remain silent?" Erdogan said at a conference organised by the Union of Arab Banks.Does it think it can use the most modern weapons, phosphorus munitions and cluster bombs to kill children in Gaza and then expect us to remain silent? We will not be silent and we will support justice by all means available to us.Turkey was once Israel's closest military and diplomatic ally in the Middle East but ties began to deteriorate when Ankara criticised Israel's December 2008 to January 2009 offensive against Gaza.Relations then nosedived on May 31, 2010 when Israeli naval commandos stormed a Turkish-registered protest ship, the Mavi Marmara, part of a flotilla attempting to break the Israeli blockade of the Palestinian territory.
Nine Turkish activists were killed in the operation.Erdogan has said his country will not begin to restore relations with Israel until it apologises for its savage attack on the vessel.Thursday was the final day of the Turkish premier's two-day visit to Lebanon, during which he inaugurated a burns treatment centre in Sidon, a major southern coastal city.South Lebanon was badly hit during the Hezbollah militia's deadly 2006 war with Israel.
Israeli troops raze mosque, buildings in West Bank
– Thu Nov 25, 7:09 am ET
KHIRBET YARZA, Palestinian Territories (AFP) – Israeli troops razed a mosque and more than 10 other structures in two areas of the occupied West Bank on Thursday, Palestinians sources said.
Most of the demolition activity took place in the village of Khirbet Yarza in the northern Jordan Valley, where residents said troops had razed a very old mosque and its much-larger extension, which was built last year.They also said troops had levelled more than 10 buildings used for sheep.The army confirmed knocking down what it described as eight temporary structures which had been built inside a military firing zone.During the morning, the security forces and the Civil Administration destroyed eight temporary structures and the frame of another structure, which were built without the required permits inside a firing zone endangering the lives of the residents, said a statement from COGAT, the defence ministry unit which acts as a link between the army and the Palestinians.At the opposite end of the West Bank, Israeli troops destroyed a building which was home to 18 people in the southern town of Yatta, the family and municipal officials told AFP.Khirbet Yarza is located in Area C of the West Bank, which is under full Israeli control and where all construction and planning issues come under the jurisdiction of the Israeli Civil Administration.Figures from the Israeli NGO Bimkom show that around 95 percent of applications for a building permit are rejected, with the Civil Administration only granting around 12 permits a year.UN figures show that in 2009, Israel destroyed 180 Palestinian structures in Area C, including 56 residential buildings.
Palestinian official: Western Wall not Jewish By Diaa Hadid, Associated Press – Wed Nov 24, 2:40 pm ET
JERUSALEM – An official Palestinian report claiming that a key Jewish holy site — Jerusalem's Western Wall — has no religious significance to Jews evoked an angry response from Israelis Wednesday, threatening to further inflame tensions over the disputed city.Decades of archaeology have shown that the Western Wall, the holiest place where Jews can pray, was a retaining wall of the compound where the two biblical Jewish Temples stood 20 centuries ago. The Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, Islam's third-holiest site, is built atop the ruins.The latest claim about the Temples, echoing positions taken in the past by Palestinian leaders including the late Yasser Arafat, underlined the deeply held, conflicting beliefs that must be untangled if a peace accord is to be reached between Israel and the Palestinians.Al-Mutawakil Taha, deputy minister of information in the Western-backed Palestinian Authority that rules the West Bank, told The Associated Press on Wednesday that his five-page study published on a Palestinian government website reflected the official Palestinian position.Part of the report disputes that the Western Wall was a retaining wall of the Temple compound, discarding centuries of documentation and archaeology.
This wall has never been a part of what is called the Jewish Temple, the report claimed. However, it was Islamic tolerance which allowed the Jews to stand before it and cry over its loss.The report concludes that since Jews have no claim to the area, it is holy Muslim territory and must be part of Palestinian Jerusalem.Both sides say the clashing narratives are political. Israel captured east Jerusalem in the 1967 Mideast war and annexed it. Palestinians claim east Jerusalem, including the Old City, as the capital of their future state.Of course it's a political position, Taha said.Taha said he wrote the report after Israeli officials on Sunday approved a five-year renovation plan for the Western Wall area.Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev described the report as incitement by denying the historic Jewish connection to Jerusalem.
Einat Wilf, a legislator from the moderate Israeli Labor Party, a part of the governing coalition, said Palestinians are stupidly trying again and again to somehow create an alternative reality in which the Jewish people are a strangers in this land.After Israel seized control of east Jerusalem, it cleared away shacks built next to the Western Wall and built a wide, open plaza there.In contrast, Israel turned over administration of the hilltop itself, with the Al-Aqsa Mosque and Dome of the Rock shrine, to the Muslim Supreme Council, or Waqf, while Israel maintained overall security control.Plans that won preliminary approval in earlier, failed peace negotiations envisioned dividing Jerusalem along ethnic lines — leaving Israel in control of Jewish neighborhoods while Arab sections would be part of the Palestinian state — but no formula emerged for the disputed hilltop.
Report: Clinton and Obama Pulled Bait and Switch on Netanyahu
by Maayana Miskin NOV 24,10
As Israel waits for a letter clarifying America's guarantees in exchange for a proposed building ban for Jewish residents of Judea and Samaria, a diplomatic source has come forward saying that no such letter is on its way. United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton misled Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, and contrary to reports, the U.S. does not guarantee an end to the freeze, the source said.The source, a senior diplomat with inside knowledge of Netanyahu's recent meetings in Washington, said Clinton made commitments when talking to Netanyahu, but later slipped out of them by claiming that she had not been speaking on behalf of U.S. President Obama – who, she said in the end, did not give his approval.When Netanyahu called the State Department to clarify America's position, officials expressed surprise at his surprise, the source continued. While Clinton made promises, Netanyahu knew from the beginning that Obama has the final word, they allegedly said.
Clinton had told Netanyahu that the proposed construction freeze would last for three months, and that it would end regardless of whether or not there was progress in talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. After that, she said, America would not push for a third building freeze.However, according to the diplomat, U.S. leaders have since said that the building ban for Jews in Judea and Samaria would only end if Israel and the PA reached an agreement on the borders of a proposed PA state.Several other American promises have been called into question as well. While it was initially reported that Israel would receive F-35 fighter jets in exchange for the freeze, Israeli ministers later clarified that the jets are part of a separate package, and that Israel will pay for them in full. It was also suggested that the construction ban would not apply to Jews living in Jerusalem; however, U.S. officials later stated that it would apply to all Jews living east of the 1949 armistice line, including those in Israel's capital city.If America does not openly declare that a second construction freeze would end in three months with or without a deal with the PA, Netanyahu is unlikely to get the cabinet's support for the new construction ban. Ministers in Shas and within Netanyahu's own Likud party have already stated that they would vote against the proposal without a U.S. promise.
Netanyahu previously made the unprecedented step of unconditionally freezing construction for Jews in Judea and Samaria for 10 months, in an attempt to bring the PA to the negotiating table. PA leaders reluctantly agreed to talk just as the 10-month freeze reached its conclusion, but left the talks again when the freeze ended.
(IsraelNationalNews.com)
Iran's Parliament Planned to Oust Ahmadinejad
by Gil Ronen NOV 24,10
Iran's parliament planned to impeach President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad but refrained from doing so following the intervention of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Wall Street Journal reported. Four members of Tehran's parliament launched a petition to hold a debate on Ahmadinejad's impeachment, conservative Iranian newspapers said.The papers reported Monday that legislators started a move to collect the 74 signatures needed to hold an open debate on the president's impeachment. Forty lawmakers have already signed the motion.This is the first time in the history of the Islamic Republic that parliament has discussed impeachment of a president. However, the move needs Khamenei's support in order to succeed – and it does not appear to have it at this time.In a report discussed in parliament Monday, four lawmakers voiced unprecedentedly harsh criticism of Ahmadinejad, accusing him of breaking the law and acting without the approval of the legislature. The Iranian president was charged with illegally importing gasoline and oil, failing to provide budgetary transparency and withdrawing millions of dollars from Iran's foreign reserve fund without getting parliament's approval, WSJ reported.
The moves against Ahmadinejad are a manifestation of domestic unrest over his plans to gradually eliminate subsidies for fuel, food and utilities, a move that is expected to drive up inflation. The opposition to Ahmadinejad is described as politically conservative, while Ahmadinejad himself is an ultraconservative– as is Khamenei.U.S. officials Monday said they are following the political struggle in Tehran and believe that they are caused, in part, by the sanctions imposed on the Iranians by the US, the United Nations and the European Union.However, observers noted that Ahmadinejad's opponents, too, favor Iran's nuclear weapons program, and that even if Ahmadinejad is toppled, the program is likely to continue.Parag Khanna, Director of the Global Governance Initiative at the New America Foundation, predicts that the next Iranian revolution is very close, in an interview with Globes. Khanna, who was an adviser to U.S. President Barack Obama, said that there are many underground tremors in Iran, that will lead to a change in the power structure in the next few years.Regarding the Islamic Republic's nuclear arms program, Khanna estimated at 50% the chances that the West will be able to check the Iranian program before it reaches the point of no return. He is not sure if this will happen through military or diplomatic means, but says – I have hunch that we will succeed in stopping them.(IsraelNationalNews.com)
Abbas Plans PLO Office in Jerusalem
by Maayana Miskin NOV 24,10
Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas said Tuesday that while the PLO has built a new office in Ramallah, north of Jerusalem, it does not plan to stay in the city. Ultimately, the PLO will return to Jerusalem, he said.His remarks were made during a ceremony opening the new Ramallah headquarters.Abbas recalled a visit to PLO headquarters in Jerusalem prior to the Six Day War of 1967 in which the city was reunited. The PLO had centers in Judea and Samaria during the 19-year period in which the region was under Jordanian occupation, from which it launched frequent terrorist attacks on Israeli civilians.The PA Chairman joined PA negotiator Saeb Erekat in condemning Israel for passing the Referendum Law, which will allow Israelis to vote on whether or not to cede land in Jerusalem or the Golan for the sake of a peace treaty. This step puts obstacles in the way of the political process, he said.The PA claims all land east of the 1949 armistice line, including much of Jerusalem, as part of a future Arab state.Israeli activists in Jerusalem have charged that the PA is attempting a de facto annexation of parts of Israel's capital city. The PA has claimed credit for paving roads and planting trees in Arab neighborhoods, and recently reported that it had invested two million shekels in Arab schools.(IsraelNationalNews.com)
Fatah meets for talks on Israel, Hamas
– Wed Nov 24, 8:10 am ET
RAMALLAH, Palestinian Territories (AFP) – Senior members of Fatah, the party of Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas, met on Wednesday to discuss issues ranging from peace talks with Israel to reconciliation with Hamas.The representatives from Fatah's Revolutionary Council gathered in the West Bank city of Ramallah from early morning for a day of talks on domestic and international political affairs.Abbas was during the day expected to deliver a very important address on the developments in the political situation, the reconciliation process and the internal situation of the movement, council member Hussein al-Sheikh told AFP. He said Fatah's efforts to reconcile with Hamas would be discussed and would show the Islamist group was to blame for the failure to reach a deal on a government of national unity.The bitter divisions between Fatah and Hamas go back to the start of limited Palestinian self-rule in the 1990s, when Fatah strongmen cracked down on the Islamist militant group.
Their divisions boiled over in June 2007 when Hamas -- which had won a parliamentary election a year earlier -- drove Abbas's loyalists from Gaza in a week of bloody clashes, seizing control of the impoverished territory.All attempts at reconciliation, most of them mediated by Egypt, have failed, with Fatah and Hamas accusing each other of undermining trust by persecuting political rivals in the territory under its control.The last round took place in Damascus earlier this month, but ended without agreement, and the two sides said they would meet again after Eid al-Adha, which ended on Friday.In a sign of the continuing divisions, the Revolutionary Council's deputy secretary-general Sabri Saidam slammed Hamas's decision to stop members of the Revolutionary Council in Gaza from coming to take part in the meeting.In response, Taher al-Nunu, a spokesman for the Hamas government in Gaza, said they would allow them to leave in return for the release of a Hamas member arrested in Nablus.The council members would be allowed to attend in exchange for a symbolic gesture, the release of Tamam Abu Su'ud as a positive message to our people in the context of reconciliation efforts and national dialogue,Nunu said.By refusing to release Abu Su'ud, Fatah bears sole responsibility for the restriction of movement of its leaders, he added.
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
MUSLIMS CONDEMN ISRAEL REFERENDUM LAW
Palestinians, Syria condemn Israel referendum law
by Sara Hussein – Tue Nov 23, 4:11 pm ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – Palestinian and Syrian officials on Tuesday condemned a new Israeli law mandating a national referendum ahead of any withdrawal from annexed east Jerusalem or the Golan Heights.Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat said the bill, passed by Israel's parliament late on Monday night, makes a mockery of international law, which is not subject to the whims of Israeli public opinion.In Damascus, the foreign ministry said Syria totally rejects this Israeli measure which changes nothing to the fact that the Golan is Syrian territory and cannot be part of any negotiations.The legislation, which was backed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, passed with 65 Knesset members in favour and 33 against, and no abstentions.It requires any government signing a peace agreement that cedes territory in east Jerusalem or the Golan, or any other sovereign territory within Israel itself, to secure either approval of parliament or hold a national referendum.
It would not affect territorial concessions within the West Bank or the Gaza Strip, which Israel has not annexed.But Erakat said Israel had no right to put any future territorial concessions to a public vote.Ending the occupation of our land is not and cannot be dependent on any sort of referendum, he said.Under international law there is a clear and absolute obligation on Israel to withdraw not only from east Jerusalem and the Golan Heights, but from all of the territories that it has occupied since 1967.For his part, Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas said in the West Bank city of Ramallah the move was a half measure aimed at blocking a political settlement and all roads leading to peace.Speaking after meeting visiting Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini, he said the government should consult the Israeli people with a view to reaching a final settlement of the Palestinian question and all other pending issues.East Jerusalem was annexed shortly after the 1967 Six-Day war, while the Golan Heights plateau was formally annexed in 1981. Both were captured in the conflict.Any pullout from mainly Arab east Jerusalem would only occur as part of a peace deal, but talks between Israel and the Palestinians are currently suspended because of a dispute over Jewish settlement building.The Palestinians have said they could seek international recognition for a unilateral declaration of statehood if peace talks are not relaunched soon, and Erakat said the referendum law brought new urgency to the proposal.The international community's answer to this bill should be a worldwide recognition of the Palestinian state on the 1967 borders, with east Jerusalem as its capital.Syria and Israel remain technically at war, and there are no official peace talks between the two countries at present.This law is addressed to those who still have illusions concerning the current Israeli government and who believe that it seeks peace, the Syrian foreign ministry said.The legislation also drew condemnation within Israel, with Defence Minister Ehud Barak saying it could serve as propaganda fodder for Israel's foes.
I'm not sure this law was needed or urgent and could be made use of by Israel's enemies, letting them claim Israel is opposed to peace by shackling itself to avoid progressing on the peace process, Barak told a conference Tuesday. However, other domestic reaction to the legislation was largely focused on what it meant for the country's political system, with several observers arguing it weakened the Knesset and Israel's legislative process.Ariella Ringel-Hoffman, writing in Yediot Aharonot daily, warned that a referendum was not a process that enhances the decision-making process.This is a process that detracts and diminishes the responsibility of the political establishment, it diffuses it and decentralizes it in a bad way, she wrote.This is still a tool that undermines the status of the government, its right and its obligation to conduct negotiations, to make the best agreements possible and to make decisions.The Syrian media slammed the legislation, saying it was a sign that Israel had no interest in making peace.Al-Baas, the paper of Syria's ruling Baath party, called the law a new aggressive measure that reflects Israel' disdain for Arab rights and its rejection of international resolutions stipulating the withdrawal from Arab territory occupied in 1967.
Israeli parliament approves referendum-for-peace law
By Allyn Fisher-Ilan - Mon Nov 22, 7:39 pm ET
JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel's parliament approved on Monday a measure backed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu which could require a referendum on potential land-for-peace deals concluded with Arab neighbors.Critics argued the bill, which was passed after a seven-hour debate by a vote of 65 to 33, could further complicate U.S.-backed talks with the Palestinians, stalled for weeks over the issue of Jewish settlement building.But some analysts saw the legislation as a way for Netanyahu to build a cogent legislative framework for approval of any future peace deal.Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian negotiator, denounced the measure as a mockery of international law and urged nations to respond by recognizing Palestinian statehood on all West Bank land Israel occupied in a 1967 war.The Israeli law calls for putting any treaty involving a withdrawal from Israeli-annexed land to a public vote, in the event that Israel's parliament has not approved the deal in question by a two-thirds majority.It would cover any agreements involving a pullback from occupied land Israel has already annexed -- East Jerusalem, or the Golan Heights captured from Syria.Palestinians want East Jerusalem as capital of a future state in the West Bank, but Israel sees it as a part of its undivided capital, and it could prove difficult to win Israeli public backing to relinquish even parts of the holy city.Palestinian leaders have also said they would seek to hold a referendum on any deal with Israel. Trying to get an agreement with the Jewish state approved by a majority in Hamas-ruled Gaza or the Palestinian diaspora may also prove difficult.
While the Israeli measure would not apply to the West Bank, Netanyahu's political allies have said they would seek to apply it to accords over that territory as well.
NETANYAHU PLUGS BILL
Netanyahu's allies lobbied for votes among squabbling coalition partners, including the left-of-center Labour party, most of whose ministers were absent from the vote.
In a statement, Netanyahu praised the decision to hold a referendum within 90 days of a parliamentary vote on a treaty as destined to reduce controversies and tensions.
Netanyahu also said in his statement he thought Israelis would support any peace agreement that answers national interests and Israeli security needs.Erekat said Israel was obliged to withdraw from occupied land regardless of how its public voted, calling the parliamentary decision Israel's attempt to veil its oppression of the Palestinian people as an exercise of Israeli democracy.Despite Palestinian anger, some Israeli analysts saw a referendum as giving Netanyahu greater maneuverability to overcome far-right opponents of yielding West Bank land which they see as a biblical birthright.They noted how the Israeli public overwhelmingly rallied behind past prime ministers to support peace agreements in 1979 with Egypt and a 1994 deal with Jordan, despite the territorial concessions they entailed.
Orit Galili-Zucker, a political scientist at Bar-Ilan University near Tel Aviv, thought the advantages of a referendum may outweigh the disadvantages. Netanyahu could use it as a way to win wider support for a deal.Others thought it may help perpetuate diplomatic stalemate.Tamir Sheafer, a political scientist at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, said he thought right-wing Israeli politicians had orchestrated a tactical maneuver aimed at making it even more difficult to advance in the negotiations.(Additional reporting by Mohammed Assadi in Ramallah)(Editing by Douglas Hamilton and David Stamp)
Israel says Italy key in brokering Lebanon village pullout
– Mon Nov 22, 2:00 pm ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday that Italian mediation had been key to Israel's acceptance of a plan to withdraw its forces from a disputed village on the Lebanese border.Netanyahu singled out the role of Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini, who was in Israel on a four-day tour of the region aimed at pushing forward the stalled Middle East peace process.We would not have managed to reach a solution on the problem without the involvement of Italy and you personally overseeing the issue, Netanyahu's office quoted the premier as telling Frattini in a meeting.Israel's cabinet last week accepted a plan to withdraw Israeli soldiers from the northern part of the village of Ghajar and to hand over control to United Nations peacekeepers.If the plan goes ahead, the troops, who have been in Ghajar since the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah, would redeploy south of the blue line unofficial frontier between Israel and Lebanon.Following the pullback decision, responsibility for the sector will be handed to UNIFIL (UN Interim Force in Lebanon), whose troops will redeploy around the village's northern perimeter but not inside it.Italy plays a leading role in UNIFIL, with the largest contingent of ground troops.
The UN ruled that north Ghajar lies in Lebanon and the rest lies in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, but Israel took over the Lebanese side too during its devastating 2006 war with Shiite militant group Hezbollah.Netanyahu said he was determined Hezbollah not take over the northern part of the village, but it was unclear with what means.It's my intention to withdraw from the northern part of the village and establish there a regime that will prevent a vacuum that would allow Hezbollah to take over, Netanyahu said.We still have not finished putting together a solution, he said.The village, with 2,200 residents, lies on the borders of Lebanon, Syria and the Golan Heights, which Israel seized from Syria in the 1967 Middle East war and annexed in 1981 in a move not recognised by the international community.
Frattini, who arrived on Monday, met with Netanyahu and opposition leader Tzipi Livni. He was expected to meet Palestinian leaders, including president Mahmud Abbas, in the West Bank on Tuesday before travelling to the Gaza Strip.
Hezbollah members behind Hariri's killing: CBC News
– Mon Nov 22, 11:16 am ET
BEIRUT (Reuters) – U.N.-backed investigators have found that members of Hezbollah were behind the assassination in 2005 of Lebanese prime minister Rafik al-Hariri, Canadian public broadcaster CBC News has reported citing inquiry sources and documents.It said evidence gathered by Lebanese police and later by UN-backed investigators points overwhelmingly to the fact that the assassins were from Hezbollah.Hezbollah, which is part of a unity government led by Hariri's son Saad has repeatedly denied any involvement in the killing. Its leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said this month he will not allow the arrest of any of the group's members.
Hezbollah said on Monday it had no comment on the CBC News report. U.N spokesman Farhan Haq said the U.N. was aware of the report but was not commenting for now.
Hezbollah and Western diplomats say that an expected indictment against members of the group could come late this year or early next. Lebanese politicians fear a crisis, and possible relapse into violence, if that proves to be the case.CBC News said on Sunday it had obtained mobile telephone and other telecommunications evidence which is at the core of the case.It said that in 2007 the investigators asked a British firm to analyze telephone calls made in Lebanon in 2005.What the British analyst showed them (the U.N. investigators) was nothing less than the hit squad that had carried out the murder, or at least the phones they had been carrying at the time, CBC News said.
TELECOM AGENTS
Lebanon had charged two employees at state-run mobile phone firm Alfa with spying for Israel in the past few months. They were arrested as part of a wider espionage investigation which lead to more than 50 arrests since April last year.The arrests prompted debate on how deeply Israel had infiltrated Lebanon's telecoms and security sectors.Hezbollah suggested Israel could have used telecom agents to manipulate evidence such as telephone records to implicate the group in Hariri's killing.
Hezbollah, which fought a war with Israel in 2006, has accused the tribunal of being an Israeli tool and said its investigators are sending information to Israel.The investigation had first implicated Syrian and Lebanese officials, although it later held back from giving details of its findings. Saad Hariri had blamed Syria for killing his father but later said he was wrong to accuse Syria and that the charge was politically motivated.Hariri's assassination plunged Lebanon into its worst crisis since the 1975-90 civil war. Sunni-Shi'ite tensions threatened to boil over into a civil war.The CBC News report is close to one published by German magazine Der Spiegel in 2009 in which it cited information it had obtained saying that investigators believed Hezbollah was behind Hariri's killing.The German magazine also said Lebanese investigators had found a link between eight cell phones used in the area at the time of the attack and a network of 20 other phones believed to belong to Hezbollah's operative arm.
Netanyahu: no promise to reach border deal during new freeze
by Gavin Rabinowitz – Sun Nov 21, 2:25 pm ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, facing mounting opposition, said on Sunday that a planned new 90-day settlement freeze was not aimed at talks to define the borders of a Palestinian state.There is no agreement that we will reach an agreement on borders within 90 days. There is no such demand and no such commitment, Netanyahu's office quoted him as telling members of his hardline Likud party.Netanyahu was seeking to calm mounting opposition within his own party to the fresh three-month ban on West Bank settlement building on a day when thousands of settlers gathered in Jerusalem to protest the move.The deal with Washington, which has not been finalised, would see Israel granted a package of security and diplomatic incentives in return for implementing a new partial halt to building in the occupied West Bank.Many commentators believe the three-month freeze is designed to allow the Palestinians to return to peace talks that would specifically focus on the borders of a future Palestinian state.Israel aims to continue construction in large settlement blocs that would become part of the Jewish state after expected territorial swaps under any peace settlement.But Netanyahu said a resumption of talks would focus on all final-status issues.There will not be separate talks on borders but on all the core issues. We intend to enter serious discussions on all issues, he said, according to the statement.But his apparent willingness to enter a new moratorium has enraged settlers and their supporters.
Sunday's demonstration, which drew mostly teenage settlers, was timed to coincide with Israel's weekly cabinet meeting.A sea of banners and placards urged ministers to Vote against, while others addressed Netanyahu, saying: Yes you can! Say No,in a twist on US President Barack Obama's successful 2008 election campaign slogan.
Renewal of the freeze is the start of the uprooting, said another, alluding to fears that a peace deal with the Palestinians will see the removal of Jewish settlements.
Scores of schools in settlements across the West Bank observed a one-day protest strike on Sunday, freeing up thousands of students to attend the demonstration against the potential new moratorium.Organisers said several thousand demonstrators had showed up, while police spokesman Mickey Rosenfeld told AFP the number was more than 5,000.Later on Sunday, several dozen protesters blocked the main road into Jerusalem, sitting on the ground and causing huge tailbacks, an AFP correspondent said.
However, a resumption of negotiations does not appear imminent.The deal with the Americans was worked out in talks with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton earlier this month, but has not yet been finalised with Israel demanding the agreements in writing.Washington has said it is willing to put the understandings in writing, but their failure to produce a document after more than two weeks indicates that disagreements remain.We have still not yet received the written understandings from the Americans,Netanyahu told party members who largely oppose the new moratorium. If we get a written commitment, I will bring it to the cabinet and I'm sure the ministers will approve it because it is what's good for Israel, the prime minister said.Another hitch was the insistence by the Palestinians that the new freeze on settlements include annexed east Jerusalem, which the previous moratorium did not and which Israel has refused to do.
If it does not encompass Jerusalem -- in other words, if there is not a complete freeze on settlement in all the Palestinian territories including Jerusalem -- we will not accept it, Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas told reporters in Cairo after meeting Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak on Sunday.US-sponsored direct peace negotiations resumed on September 2 but collapsed three weeks later with the expiry of a 10-month Israeli partial ban on West Bank settlement building.The Palestinians have refused to rejoin the peace talks until a new moratorium is imposed.
Israel to invest $23m in Western Wall plaza
– Sun Nov 21, 11:50 am ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – Israel's cabinet on Sunday backed plans to invest millions of shekels in a five-year project to develop the Western Wall plaza, in a project branded by the Palestinians as illegal.The plans to improve access to both the Wall and to nearby archaeological sites were outlined in a statement from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office, which said it would invest 85 million shekels (23 million dollars, 17 million euros) in the project.But the announcement drew an angry response from the office of Palestinian prime minister Salam Fayyad, which said Israel had no right to make changes on the ground in occupied east Jerusalem.
Construction work in the Old City, particularly around the Western Wall which backs onto the Al-Aqsa mosque compound housing Islam's third holiest site, is one of the most contentious issues in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and has a history of triggering unrest.The aim of the plan is to improve access for millions of visitors to the site and also to the archaeological sites, and to upgrade the infrastructure and the transport infrastructure in the area, the Israeli statement said.The goal of the plan is to preserve, and improve accessibility to, archaeological findings, it said, mentioning improved access for private cars, public transport and emergency vehicles, as well as improving disabled access.The 2011-2015 plan follows on from a project first approved in 2004, the results of which led to huge growth in the number of annual visitors to the Western Wall, rising from two million to eight million in 2009, the statement said.It was not immediately clear how the development project would change the appearance of the vast Western Wall plaza, which covers some 20,000 square metres (215,200 square feet).The Western Wall is the most important heritage site for the people of Israel, and we are committed to developing and preserve it so it will continue to be the focal point and a source of inspiration for millions of visitors and tourists, both old and young, from Israel and abroad,Netanyahu was quoted as saying in the statement.
But Ghassan Khatib, a spokesman for the Palestinian Authority, slammed the project as illegal,accusing Israel of trying to create facts on the ground in the city's eastern sector, which the Palestinians want as capital of their future state.It is illegal because what they want to do is in an occupied area and they have no right to make any change in occupied areas, especially in (east) Jerusalem,he said.Such a project would only block attempts to reach any peaceful solution because any solution with Israel must include (east) Jerusalem, Khatib said.The international community must put pressure on Israel to stop any project which aims to make any changes on the ground in (east) Jerusalem.Construction or renovation projects in and around the Old City are deeply controversial and have often sparked violence in the past.In 1996, more than 80 people were killed in three days of riots during Netanyahu's first term of office when he authorised the opening of a new entrance to an archaeological tunnel near the holy sites.Huge protests also erupted when Israel began repair work on a damaged stone ramp leading to the Al-Aqsa mosque compound, enraging Muslims around the world.Last month, planners revealed they were mulling the first new gate into the Old City in more than 100 years as part of a broader plan to improve access and intensify the tourist profile of the Western Wall.The gate would take the form of an underground tunnel under the Old City's southern walls and lead to a multi-storey car park in the Jewish quarter. Each year, more than eight million people visit the Western Wall, Israel's biggest tourist attraction which is revered by Jews as the last remnant of the Second Temple. Above the wall is the area known to Muslims as the Haram al-Sharif or Noble Sanctuary, which houses the Al-Aqsa mosque compound, the third holiest site in Islam.Israel considers Jerusalem to be its eternal and indivisible capital, a claim not recognised by the international community.
Abbas rejects settlement freeze that excludes Jerusalem
by Ines Bel Aiba – Sun Nov 21, 7:34 am ET
CAIRO (AFP) – Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas said on Sunday that he will not return to the negotiating table with Israel without a settlement freeze that includes annexed Arab east Jerusalem.The Palestinian leader also hit out at US efforts to persuade Israel to agree to a more limited freeze applying only to the rest of the occupied West Bank in return for a raft of political and security benefits, saying he wanted to have nothing to do with such deal-making.If it does not encompass Jerusalem, in other words if there is not a complete freeze on settlement in all the Palestinian territories including Jerusalem, we will not accept it, Abbas told reporters after talks with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.
If Israel wants to return to its settlement activities, then we can't go on. A settlement freeze must include all of the Palestinian territories and above all Jerusalem, Abbas said.Direct peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians resumed on September 2 but collapsed three weeks later with the expiry of a 10-month Israeli freeze on settlement building in the West Bank.Although that freeze did not apply directly to east Jerusalem, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu quietly held off approving projects there for most of its duration to avoid the political fallout.
But faced with opposition from hardliners in his cabinet to any new settlement freeze, Netanyahu has said repeatedly that no restrictions will apply to construction in east Jerusalem.In talks last week, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton put together a package of incentives to get Netanyahu to accept a one-off 90-day freeze, including an additional 20 F-35 fighter jets, worth three billion dollars, and a pledge to block any international efforts to impose a peace deal on Israel.But Abbas spoke out against the US diplomatic efforts.We told the Americans that we wanted nothing to do with their deal-making. We reject the idea of linking these bargains to the resumption of negotiations, he said.If the issue is a matter of weapons for one side or another, then we don't accept it.Abbas said there were still no firm proposals from Washington.So far nothing official has come out of the US administration, either to us or to the Israelis, that we can comment on, he said.
After talks with Abbas on Saturday, Arab League chief Amr Mussa said that as soon as the Palestinians received the US response, the bloc's follow-up committee would hold an emergency meeting to discuss its next step.The League has given Washington until the end of this month to rescue the peace talks.Abbas also held talks on Saturday with Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman, who has been brokering reconciliation talks between the Western-backed Palestinian leader's Fatah faction and the Islamist Hamas movement which controls Gaza.So far we have not reached an agreement with Hamas, Abbas said, accusing the movement of going back on some of its earlier bargaining positions.Despite all that... we will continue to hold a dialogue with Hamas at all levels until we restore Palestinian national unity,he added. The two factions have been at loggerheads since Hamas seized Gaza in June 2007, ousting forces loyal to the Palestinian president and effectively restricting his authority to the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
Hezbollah says its arms needed to resist Israel
– Sat Nov 20, 10:17 am ET
BEIRUT – Hezbollah's weapons are still necessary to defend the country despite Israel's decision to pull out of a disputed border village, a senior official with the group said Saturday.The comments of Hussein Khalil, the political adviser to Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, came three days after Israel announced its decision to withdraw from the northern half of Ghajar.When Israel ended its 18-year occupation of southern Lebanon in 2000, U.N. surveyors split the village between Lebanon and the Israeli-controlled Golan. Israel took back the village's northern half after its the 2006 war with Hezbollah.Khalil said that even if Israel pulled out the village, it is still occupying the disputed Chebaa Farms and Kfar Chouba Hills captured from Syria four decades ago.The resistance and its weapons are still a national need to liberate remaining occupied Lebanese territories especially Chebaa Farms and Kfar Chouba Hills, Khalil told reporters after meeting Christian leader Michel Aoun, a strong ally of Hezbollah.Israel seized Chebaa Farms and Kfar Chouba Hills from Syria in the 1967 Mideast war. Lebanon and Syria claim it is Lebanese territory. But a U.N.-drawn border between Israel and Lebanon marks it as Syrian land under Israeli occupation.Hezbollah cites the Israeli presence there as justification for its continuing armed resistance against Israel.Backed by Iran and Syria, the well equipped group is the strongest armed force in the country and fired some 4,000 rockets into Israel during the 34-day war in 2006.
Israel launches air raids in Gaza after rocket, mortar fire
by Mai Yaghi – Fri Nov 19, 5:57 pm ET
GAZA CITY (AFP) – Israeli warplanes struck targets in the Hamas-run Palestinian Gaza Strip on Friday, wounding six people after a rocket and mortar rounds were fired into Israel from the coastal enclave.The jets bombed three sites Friday afternoon and then later in the evening destroyed two smuggling tunnels from the southern Gaza town of Rafah to neighbouring Egypt, Palestinian officials and the Israeli army said.
The targeting of these terror-linked sites was in response to the firing of rockets at Israel's southern communities over the past two days, the military said.In a statement, it said 10 mortar rounds and a military-grade Grad-type rocket were fired into Israel from Gaza, causing no casualties.Adham Abu Selmiya, a spokesman for the Hamas-run medical services in Gaza, said four people were wounded in a strike that targeted a house east of the central town of Deir al-Balah.The injured, who included two women, were taken to Shuhada al-Aqsa hospital, he told AFP.A separate air strike on the southern town of Khan Yunis lightly wounded two people, one of them a child, Abu Selmiya added.There were no casualties reported in the night-time raid on Rafah.
The Israeli military said the strike near Deir al-Balah targeted two tunnels being dug towards the border with southern Israel, but had no details on the attack in Khan Yunis.Earlier on Friday, a Soviet-designed Grad rocket fired from Gaza damaged a tanker truck in an attack the Israeli military described as the first of its kind for several months.Grad-type rockets have a range of up to 40 kilometres (25 miles), about twice the distance of the home-made Qassam rockets normally used by Palestinian militants in Gaza.Israeli media reported that one of the mortar rounds fired at Israel was a white phosphorus bomb. Police could not immediately confirm the report, however Palestinian militants have fired such projectiles in the past.
Israel came under heavy criticism during the 22-day offensive it launched on Gaza in December 2008 for using these rounds and has since then changed its procedures for using phosphorus.Under international law, white phosphorus is banned for use near civilians, but is permitted for creating a smoke screen.Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman instructed Israel's ambassador at the United Nations to file a complaint over the use of phosphorus targeting Israeli civilians, media reports on Friday said.
This is another reminder to the international community that Israel's southern residents are forced to live in constant fear, the Haaretz daily quoted Lieberman as saying.An Islamist militant group, the Al-Nasser Brigades, claimed responsibility for Friday's mortar attack, saying it had fired six rounds in retaliation for the assassination by Israel.The statement was an apparent reference to an Israeli strike on Wednesday that killed Islam Yassin, 39, and his brother Mohammed, 20, both members of the Army of Islam, a radical group with an ideology similar to Al-Qaeda.
Separately on Friday, Israeli gunfire wounded a 22-year-old Palestinian near the border in northern Gaza as he collected gravel. About 70 Palestinians have been wounded and two killed while gathering building materials at the border since the end of the Gaza offensive in January 2009, emergency services spokesman Abu Selmiya said.The Israeli military confirmed it shot the man after he entered the border area and refused to withdraw when warning shots were fired.Israel cited persistent rocket fire from Gaza as its reason for launching Operation Cast Lead,the 2008 offensive that killed more than 1,400 Palestinians and 13 Israelis.Since the beginning of this year, more than 180 rockets and shells have been fired towards Israel from Gaza, according to the Israeli military.
by Sara Hussein – Tue Nov 23, 4:11 pm ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – Palestinian and Syrian officials on Tuesday condemned a new Israeli law mandating a national referendum ahead of any withdrawal from annexed east Jerusalem or the Golan Heights.Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat said the bill, passed by Israel's parliament late on Monday night, makes a mockery of international law, which is not subject to the whims of Israeli public opinion.In Damascus, the foreign ministry said Syria totally rejects this Israeli measure which changes nothing to the fact that the Golan is Syrian territory and cannot be part of any negotiations.The legislation, which was backed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, passed with 65 Knesset members in favour and 33 against, and no abstentions.It requires any government signing a peace agreement that cedes territory in east Jerusalem or the Golan, or any other sovereign territory within Israel itself, to secure either approval of parliament or hold a national referendum.
It would not affect territorial concessions within the West Bank or the Gaza Strip, which Israel has not annexed.But Erakat said Israel had no right to put any future territorial concessions to a public vote.Ending the occupation of our land is not and cannot be dependent on any sort of referendum, he said.Under international law there is a clear and absolute obligation on Israel to withdraw not only from east Jerusalem and the Golan Heights, but from all of the territories that it has occupied since 1967.For his part, Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas said in the West Bank city of Ramallah the move was a half measure aimed at blocking a political settlement and all roads leading to peace.Speaking after meeting visiting Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini, he said the government should consult the Israeli people with a view to reaching a final settlement of the Palestinian question and all other pending issues.East Jerusalem was annexed shortly after the 1967 Six-Day war, while the Golan Heights plateau was formally annexed in 1981. Both were captured in the conflict.Any pullout from mainly Arab east Jerusalem would only occur as part of a peace deal, but talks between Israel and the Palestinians are currently suspended because of a dispute over Jewish settlement building.The Palestinians have said they could seek international recognition for a unilateral declaration of statehood if peace talks are not relaunched soon, and Erakat said the referendum law brought new urgency to the proposal.The international community's answer to this bill should be a worldwide recognition of the Palestinian state on the 1967 borders, with east Jerusalem as its capital.Syria and Israel remain technically at war, and there are no official peace talks between the two countries at present.This law is addressed to those who still have illusions concerning the current Israeli government and who believe that it seeks peace, the Syrian foreign ministry said.The legislation also drew condemnation within Israel, with Defence Minister Ehud Barak saying it could serve as propaganda fodder for Israel's foes.
I'm not sure this law was needed or urgent and could be made use of by Israel's enemies, letting them claim Israel is opposed to peace by shackling itself to avoid progressing on the peace process, Barak told a conference Tuesday. However, other domestic reaction to the legislation was largely focused on what it meant for the country's political system, with several observers arguing it weakened the Knesset and Israel's legislative process.Ariella Ringel-Hoffman, writing in Yediot Aharonot daily, warned that a referendum was not a process that enhances the decision-making process.This is a process that detracts and diminishes the responsibility of the political establishment, it diffuses it and decentralizes it in a bad way, she wrote.This is still a tool that undermines the status of the government, its right and its obligation to conduct negotiations, to make the best agreements possible and to make decisions.The Syrian media slammed the legislation, saying it was a sign that Israel had no interest in making peace.Al-Baas, the paper of Syria's ruling Baath party, called the law a new aggressive measure that reflects Israel' disdain for Arab rights and its rejection of international resolutions stipulating the withdrawal from Arab territory occupied in 1967.
Israeli parliament approves referendum-for-peace law
By Allyn Fisher-Ilan - Mon Nov 22, 7:39 pm ET
JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel's parliament approved on Monday a measure backed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu which could require a referendum on potential land-for-peace deals concluded with Arab neighbors.Critics argued the bill, which was passed after a seven-hour debate by a vote of 65 to 33, could further complicate U.S.-backed talks with the Palestinians, stalled for weeks over the issue of Jewish settlement building.But some analysts saw the legislation as a way for Netanyahu to build a cogent legislative framework for approval of any future peace deal.Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian negotiator, denounced the measure as a mockery of international law and urged nations to respond by recognizing Palestinian statehood on all West Bank land Israel occupied in a 1967 war.The Israeli law calls for putting any treaty involving a withdrawal from Israeli-annexed land to a public vote, in the event that Israel's parliament has not approved the deal in question by a two-thirds majority.It would cover any agreements involving a pullback from occupied land Israel has already annexed -- East Jerusalem, or the Golan Heights captured from Syria.Palestinians want East Jerusalem as capital of a future state in the West Bank, but Israel sees it as a part of its undivided capital, and it could prove difficult to win Israeli public backing to relinquish even parts of the holy city.Palestinian leaders have also said they would seek to hold a referendum on any deal with Israel. Trying to get an agreement with the Jewish state approved by a majority in Hamas-ruled Gaza or the Palestinian diaspora may also prove difficult.
While the Israeli measure would not apply to the West Bank, Netanyahu's political allies have said they would seek to apply it to accords over that territory as well.
NETANYAHU PLUGS BILL
Netanyahu's allies lobbied for votes among squabbling coalition partners, including the left-of-center Labour party, most of whose ministers were absent from the vote.
In a statement, Netanyahu praised the decision to hold a referendum within 90 days of a parliamentary vote on a treaty as destined to reduce controversies and tensions.
Netanyahu also said in his statement he thought Israelis would support any peace agreement that answers national interests and Israeli security needs.Erekat said Israel was obliged to withdraw from occupied land regardless of how its public voted, calling the parliamentary decision Israel's attempt to veil its oppression of the Palestinian people as an exercise of Israeli democracy.Despite Palestinian anger, some Israeli analysts saw a referendum as giving Netanyahu greater maneuverability to overcome far-right opponents of yielding West Bank land which they see as a biblical birthright.They noted how the Israeli public overwhelmingly rallied behind past prime ministers to support peace agreements in 1979 with Egypt and a 1994 deal with Jordan, despite the territorial concessions they entailed.
Orit Galili-Zucker, a political scientist at Bar-Ilan University near Tel Aviv, thought the advantages of a referendum may outweigh the disadvantages. Netanyahu could use it as a way to win wider support for a deal.Others thought it may help perpetuate diplomatic stalemate.Tamir Sheafer, a political scientist at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, said he thought right-wing Israeli politicians had orchestrated a tactical maneuver aimed at making it even more difficult to advance in the negotiations.(Additional reporting by Mohammed Assadi in Ramallah)(Editing by Douglas Hamilton and David Stamp)
Israel says Italy key in brokering Lebanon village pullout
– Mon Nov 22, 2:00 pm ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday that Italian mediation had been key to Israel's acceptance of a plan to withdraw its forces from a disputed village on the Lebanese border.Netanyahu singled out the role of Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini, who was in Israel on a four-day tour of the region aimed at pushing forward the stalled Middle East peace process.We would not have managed to reach a solution on the problem without the involvement of Italy and you personally overseeing the issue, Netanyahu's office quoted the premier as telling Frattini in a meeting.Israel's cabinet last week accepted a plan to withdraw Israeli soldiers from the northern part of the village of Ghajar and to hand over control to United Nations peacekeepers.If the plan goes ahead, the troops, who have been in Ghajar since the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah, would redeploy south of the blue line unofficial frontier between Israel and Lebanon.Following the pullback decision, responsibility for the sector will be handed to UNIFIL (UN Interim Force in Lebanon), whose troops will redeploy around the village's northern perimeter but not inside it.Italy plays a leading role in UNIFIL, with the largest contingent of ground troops.
The UN ruled that north Ghajar lies in Lebanon and the rest lies in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, but Israel took over the Lebanese side too during its devastating 2006 war with Shiite militant group Hezbollah.Netanyahu said he was determined Hezbollah not take over the northern part of the village, but it was unclear with what means.It's my intention to withdraw from the northern part of the village and establish there a regime that will prevent a vacuum that would allow Hezbollah to take over, Netanyahu said.We still have not finished putting together a solution, he said.The village, with 2,200 residents, lies on the borders of Lebanon, Syria and the Golan Heights, which Israel seized from Syria in the 1967 Middle East war and annexed in 1981 in a move not recognised by the international community.
Frattini, who arrived on Monday, met with Netanyahu and opposition leader Tzipi Livni. He was expected to meet Palestinian leaders, including president Mahmud Abbas, in the West Bank on Tuesday before travelling to the Gaza Strip.
Hezbollah members behind Hariri's killing: CBC News
– Mon Nov 22, 11:16 am ET
BEIRUT (Reuters) – U.N.-backed investigators have found that members of Hezbollah were behind the assassination in 2005 of Lebanese prime minister Rafik al-Hariri, Canadian public broadcaster CBC News has reported citing inquiry sources and documents.It said evidence gathered by Lebanese police and later by UN-backed investigators points overwhelmingly to the fact that the assassins were from Hezbollah.Hezbollah, which is part of a unity government led by Hariri's son Saad has repeatedly denied any involvement in the killing. Its leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said this month he will not allow the arrest of any of the group's members.
Hezbollah said on Monday it had no comment on the CBC News report. U.N spokesman Farhan Haq said the U.N. was aware of the report but was not commenting for now.
Hezbollah and Western diplomats say that an expected indictment against members of the group could come late this year or early next. Lebanese politicians fear a crisis, and possible relapse into violence, if that proves to be the case.CBC News said on Sunday it had obtained mobile telephone and other telecommunications evidence which is at the core of the case.It said that in 2007 the investigators asked a British firm to analyze telephone calls made in Lebanon in 2005.What the British analyst showed them (the U.N. investigators) was nothing less than the hit squad that had carried out the murder, or at least the phones they had been carrying at the time, CBC News said.
TELECOM AGENTS
Lebanon had charged two employees at state-run mobile phone firm Alfa with spying for Israel in the past few months. They were arrested as part of a wider espionage investigation which lead to more than 50 arrests since April last year.The arrests prompted debate on how deeply Israel had infiltrated Lebanon's telecoms and security sectors.Hezbollah suggested Israel could have used telecom agents to manipulate evidence such as telephone records to implicate the group in Hariri's killing.
Hezbollah, which fought a war with Israel in 2006, has accused the tribunal of being an Israeli tool and said its investigators are sending information to Israel.The investigation had first implicated Syrian and Lebanese officials, although it later held back from giving details of its findings. Saad Hariri had blamed Syria for killing his father but later said he was wrong to accuse Syria and that the charge was politically motivated.Hariri's assassination plunged Lebanon into its worst crisis since the 1975-90 civil war. Sunni-Shi'ite tensions threatened to boil over into a civil war.The CBC News report is close to one published by German magazine Der Spiegel in 2009 in which it cited information it had obtained saying that investigators believed Hezbollah was behind Hariri's killing.The German magazine also said Lebanese investigators had found a link between eight cell phones used in the area at the time of the attack and a network of 20 other phones believed to belong to Hezbollah's operative arm.
Netanyahu: no promise to reach border deal during new freeze
by Gavin Rabinowitz – Sun Nov 21, 2:25 pm ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, facing mounting opposition, said on Sunday that a planned new 90-day settlement freeze was not aimed at talks to define the borders of a Palestinian state.There is no agreement that we will reach an agreement on borders within 90 days. There is no such demand and no such commitment, Netanyahu's office quoted him as telling members of his hardline Likud party.Netanyahu was seeking to calm mounting opposition within his own party to the fresh three-month ban on West Bank settlement building on a day when thousands of settlers gathered in Jerusalem to protest the move.The deal with Washington, which has not been finalised, would see Israel granted a package of security and diplomatic incentives in return for implementing a new partial halt to building in the occupied West Bank.Many commentators believe the three-month freeze is designed to allow the Palestinians to return to peace talks that would specifically focus on the borders of a future Palestinian state.Israel aims to continue construction in large settlement blocs that would become part of the Jewish state after expected territorial swaps under any peace settlement.But Netanyahu said a resumption of talks would focus on all final-status issues.There will not be separate talks on borders but on all the core issues. We intend to enter serious discussions on all issues, he said, according to the statement.But his apparent willingness to enter a new moratorium has enraged settlers and their supporters.
Sunday's demonstration, which drew mostly teenage settlers, was timed to coincide with Israel's weekly cabinet meeting.A sea of banners and placards urged ministers to Vote against, while others addressed Netanyahu, saying: Yes you can! Say No,in a twist on US President Barack Obama's successful 2008 election campaign slogan.
Renewal of the freeze is the start of the uprooting, said another, alluding to fears that a peace deal with the Palestinians will see the removal of Jewish settlements.
Scores of schools in settlements across the West Bank observed a one-day protest strike on Sunday, freeing up thousands of students to attend the demonstration against the potential new moratorium.Organisers said several thousand demonstrators had showed up, while police spokesman Mickey Rosenfeld told AFP the number was more than 5,000.Later on Sunday, several dozen protesters blocked the main road into Jerusalem, sitting on the ground and causing huge tailbacks, an AFP correspondent said.
However, a resumption of negotiations does not appear imminent.The deal with the Americans was worked out in talks with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton earlier this month, but has not yet been finalised with Israel demanding the agreements in writing.Washington has said it is willing to put the understandings in writing, but their failure to produce a document after more than two weeks indicates that disagreements remain.We have still not yet received the written understandings from the Americans,Netanyahu told party members who largely oppose the new moratorium. If we get a written commitment, I will bring it to the cabinet and I'm sure the ministers will approve it because it is what's good for Israel, the prime minister said.Another hitch was the insistence by the Palestinians that the new freeze on settlements include annexed east Jerusalem, which the previous moratorium did not and which Israel has refused to do.
If it does not encompass Jerusalem -- in other words, if there is not a complete freeze on settlement in all the Palestinian territories including Jerusalem -- we will not accept it, Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas told reporters in Cairo after meeting Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak on Sunday.US-sponsored direct peace negotiations resumed on September 2 but collapsed three weeks later with the expiry of a 10-month Israeli partial ban on West Bank settlement building.The Palestinians have refused to rejoin the peace talks until a new moratorium is imposed.
Israel to invest $23m in Western Wall plaza
– Sun Nov 21, 11:50 am ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – Israel's cabinet on Sunday backed plans to invest millions of shekels in a five-year project to develop the Western Wall plaza, in a project branded by the Palestinians as illegal.The plans to improve access to both the Wall and to nearby archaeological sites were outlined in a statement from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office, which said it would invest 85 million shekels (23 million dollars, 17 million euros) in the project.But the announcement drew an angry response from the office of Palestinian prime minister Salam Fayyad, which said Israel had no right to make changes on the ground in occupied east Jerusalem.
Construction work in the Old City, particularly around the Western Wall which backs onto the Al-Aqsa mosque compound housing Islam's third holiest site, is one of the most contentious issues in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and has a history of triggering unrest.The aim of the plan is to improve access for millions of visitors to the site and also to the archaeological sites, and to upgrade the infrastructure and the transport infrastructure in the area, the Israeli statement said.The goal of the plan is to preserve, and improve accessibility to, archaeological findings, it said, mentioning improved access for private cars, public transport and emergency vehicles, as well as improving disabled access.The 2011-2015 plan follows on from a project first approved in 2004, the results of which led to huge growth in the number of annual visitors to the Western Wall, rising from two million to eight million in 2009, the statement said.It was not immediately clear how the development project would change the appearance of the vast Western Wall plaza, which covers some 20,000 square metres (215,200 square feet).The Western Wall is the most important heritage site for the people of Israel, and we are committed to developing and preserve it so it will continue to be the focal point and a source of inspiration for millions of visitors and tourists, both old and young, from Israel and abroad,Netanyahu was quoted as saying in the statement.
But Ghassan Khatib, a spokesman for the Palestinian Authority, slammed the project as illegal,accusing Israel of trying to create facts on the ground in the city's eastern sector, which the Palestinians want as capital of their future state.It is illegal because what they want to do is in an occupied area and they have no right to make any change in occupied areas, especially in (east) Jerusalem,he said.Such a project would only block attempts to reach any peaceful solution because any solution with Israel must include (east) Jerusalem, Khatib said.The international community must put pressure on Israel to stop any project which aims to make any changes on the ground in (east) Jerusalem.Construction or renovation projects in and around the Old City are deeply controversial and have often sparked violence in the past.In 1996, more than 80 people were killed in three days of riots during Netanyahu's first term of office when he authorised the opening of a new entrance to an archaeological tunnel near the holy sites.Huge protests also erupted when Israel began repair work on a damaged stone ramp leading to the Al-Aqsa mosque compound, enraging Muslims around the world.Last month, planners revealed they were mulling the first new gate into the Old City in more than 100 years as part of a broader plan to improve access and intensify the tourist profile of the Western Wall.The gate would take the form of an underground tunnel under the Old City's southern walls and lead to a multi-storey car park in the Jewish quarter. Each year, more than eight million people visit the Western Wall, Israel's biggest tourist attraction which is revered by Jews as the last remnant of the Second Temple. Above the wall is the area known to Muslims as the Haram al-Sharif or Noble Sanctuary, which houses the Al-Aqsa mosque compound, the third holiest site in Islam.Israel considers Jerusalem to be its eternal and indivisible capital, a claim not recognised by the international community.
Abbas rejects settlement freeze that excludes Jerusalem
by Ines Bel Aiba – Sun Nov 21, 7:34 am ET
CAIRO (AFP) – Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas said on Sunday that he will not return to the negotiating table with Israel without a settlement freeze that includes annexed Arab east Jerusalem.The Palestinian leader also hit out at US efforts to persuade Israel to agree to a more limited freeze applying only to the rest of the occupied West Bank in return for a raft of political and security benefits, saying he wanted to have nothing to do with such deal-making.If it does not encompass Jerusalem, in other words if there is not a complete freeze on settlement in all the Palestinian territories including Jerusalem, we will not accept it, Abbas told reporters after talks with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.
If Israel wants to return to its settlement activities, then we can't go on. A settlement freeze must include all of the Palestinian territories and above all Jerusalem, Abbas said.Direct peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians resumed on September 2 but collapsed three weeks later with the expiry of a 10-month Israeli freeze on settlement building in the West Bank.Although that freeze did not apply directly to east Jerusalem, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu quietly held off approving projects there for most of its duration to avoid the political fallout.
But faced with opposition from hardliners in his cabinet to any new settlement freeze, Netanyahu has said repeatedly that no restrictions will apply to construction in east Jerusalem.In talks last week, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton put together a package of incentives to get Netanyahu to accept a one-off 90-day freeze, including an additional 20 F-35 fighter jets, worth three billion dollars, and a pledge to block any international efforts to impose a peace deal on Israel.But Abbas spoke out against the US diplomatic efforts.We told the Americans that we wanted nothing to do with their deal-making. We reject the idea of linking these bargains to the resumption of negotiations, he said.If the issue is a matter of weapons for one side or another, then we don't accept it.Abbas said there were still no firm proposals from Washington.So far nothing official has come out of the US administration, either to us or to the Israelis, that we can comment on, he said.
After talks with Abbas on Saturday, Arab League chief Amr Mussa said that as soon as the Palestinians received the US response, the bloc's follow-up committee would hold an emergency meeting to discuss its next step.The League has given Washington until the end of this month to rescue the peace talks.Abbas also held talks on Saturday with Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman, who has been brokering reconciliation talks between the Western-backed Palestinian leader's Fatah faction and the Islamist Hamas movement which controls Gaza.So far we have not reached an agreement with Hamas, Abbas said, accusing the movement of going back on some of its earlier bargaining positions.Despite all that... we will continue to hold a dialogue with Hamas at all levels until we restore Palestinian national unity,he added. The two factions have been at loggerheads since Hamas seized Gaza in June 2007, ousting forces loyal to the Palestinian president and effectively restricting his authority to the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
Hezbollah says its arms needed to resist Israel
– Sat Nov 20, 10:17 am ET
BEIRUT – Hezbollah's weapons are still necessary to defend the country despite Israel's decision to pull out of a disputed border village, a senior official with the group said Saturday.The comments of Hussein Khalil, the political adviser to Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, came three days after Israel announced its decision to withdraw from the northern half of Ghajar.When Israel ended its 18-year occupation of southern Lebanon in 2000, U.N. surveyors split the village between Lebanon and the Israeli-controlled Golan. Israel took back the village's northern half after its the 2006 war with Hezbollah.Khalil said that even if Israel pulled out the village, it is still occupying the disputed Chebaa Farms and Kfar Chouba Hills captured from Syria four decades ago.The resistance and its weapons are still a national need to liberate remaining occupied Lebanese territories especially Chebaa Farms and Kfar Chouba Hills, Khalil told reporters after meeting Christian leader Michel Aoun, a strong ally of Hezbollah.Israel seized Chebaa Farms and Kfar Chouba Hills from Syria in the 1967 Mideast war. Lebanon and Syria claim it is Lebanese territory. But a U.N.-drawn border between Israel and Lebanon marks it as Syrian land under Israeli occupation.Hezbollah cites the Israeli presence there as justification for its continuing armed resistance against Israel.Backed by Iran and Syria, the well equipped group is the strongest armed force in the country and fired some 4,000 rockets into Israel during the 34-day war in 2006.
Israel launches air raids in Gaza after rocket, mortar fire
by Mai Yaghi – Fri Nov 19, 5:57 pm ET
GAZA CITY (AFP) – Israeli warplanes struck targets in the Hamas-run Palestinian Gaza Strip on Friday, wounding six people after a rocket and mortar rounds were fired into Israel from the coastal enclave.The jets bombed three sites Friday afternoon and then later in the evening destroyed two smuggling tunnels from the southern Gaza town of Rafah to neighbouring Egypt, Palestinian officials and the Israeli army said.
The targeting of these terror-linked sites was in response to the firing of rockets at Israel's southern communities over the past two days, the military said.In a statement, it said 10 mortar rounds and a military-grade Grad-type rocket were fired into Israel from Gaza, causing no casualties.Adham Abu Selmiya, a spokesman for the Hamas-run medical services in Gaza, said four people were wounded in a strike that targeted a house east of the central town of Deir al-Balah.The injured, who included two women, were taken to Shuhada al-Aqsa hospital, he told AFP.A separate air strike on the southern town of Khan Yunis lightly wounded two people, one of them a child, Abu Selmiya added.There were no casualties reported in the night-time raid on Rafah.
The Israeli military said the strike near Deir al-Balah targeted two tunnels being dug towards the border with southern Israel, but had no details on the attack in Khan Yunis.Earlier on Friday, a Soviet-designed Grad rocket fired from Gaza damaged a tanker truck in an attack the Israeli military described as the first of its kind for several months.Grad-type rockets have a range of up to 40 kilometres (25 miles), about twice the distance of the home-made Qassam rockets normally used by Palestinian militants in Gaza.Israeli media reported that one of the mortar rounds fired at Israel was a white phosphorus bomb. Police could not immediately confirm the report, however Palestinian militants have fired such projectiles in the past.
Israel came under heavy criticism during the 22-day offensive it launched on Gaza in December 2008 for using these rounds and has since then changed its procedures for using phosphorus.Under international law, white phosphorus is banned for use near civilians, but is permitted for creating a smoke screen.Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman instructed Israel's ambassador at the United Nations to file a complaint over the use of phosphorus targeting Israeli civilians, media reports on Friday said.
This is another reminder to the international community that Israel's southern residents are forced to live in constant fear, the Haaretz daily quoted Lieberman as saying.An Islamist militant group, the Al-Nasser Brigades, claimed responsibility for Friday's mortar attack, saying it had fired six rounds in retaliation for the assassination by Israel.The statement was an apparent reference to an Israeli strike on Wednesday that killed Islam Yassin, 39, and his brother Mohammed, 20, both members of the Army of Islam, a radical group with an ideology similar to Al-Qaeda.
Separately on Friday, Israeli gunfire wounded a 22-year-old Palestinian near the border in northern Gaza as he collected gravel. About 70 Palestinians have been wounded and two killed while gathering building materials at the border since the end of the Gaza offensive in January 2009, emergency services spokesman Abu Selmiya said.The Israeli military confirmed it shot the man after he entered the border area and refused to withdraw when warning shots were fired.Israel cited persistent rocket fire from Gaza as its reason for launching Operation Cast Lead,the 2008 offensive that killed more than 1,400 Palestinians and 13 Israelis.Since the beginning of this year, more than 180 rockets and shells have been fired towards Israel from Gaza, according to the Israeli military.
Friday, November 19, 2010
ISRAEL HITS GAZA TARGETS
Israel planes hit Gaza targets after rocket fire
10AM NOV 19,10
GAZA (Reuters) – Israeli warplanes struck three targets in the Gaza Strip Friday in response to militant rocket and mortar fire, the Israeli army said.At least four people, three women and a boy, were hurt in one attack in the central Gaza Strip when an uninhabited building close to where they were standing collapsed after being hit, local residents said.The injuries were not considered to be life threatening, a Gaza hospital source said.The two other strikes were aimed at targets near the town of Khan Younis in the southern part of the territory, one of which was a training camp belonging to the Islamic Jihad militant group. There were no reports of casualties.An Israeli military spokesman said three air strikes had been carried out against militant targets in the coastal strip.Two of the three targets were smuggling tunnels that were being built and they were destroyed, said the spokesman, who declined to specify the nature of the third target.He added that nine mortar shells and one longer-range rocket were fired over the past 24 hours, the highest number in a concentrated period for several months.The Popular Resistance Committees, a Palestinian militant group, claimed responsibility for the mortar fire, saying it was in retaliation for Israel's killing of two militant leaders of the al-Qaeda linked Army of Islam in Gaza Wednesday.(Reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi; Writing by Ori Lewis and Allyn Fisher-Ilan; Editing by Myra MacDonald)
No link between peace process, US Israeli aid: Abbas
– Fri Nov 19, 8:45 am ET
DUBAI (AFP) – Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas said he refuses to link the troubled Middle East peace process with a US offer of additional military aid to its Israeli ally, in a newspaper interview published on Friday.We refuse to allow the offer of planes be linked in any way to a freeze on settlements, he told the London-based Arab newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat.We have nothing to do with all that. This is our position and it will not change, said Abbas, who insists on a renewed Israeli moratorium on settlement building before he returns to direct US-brokered peace talks with Israel.The United States is an ally of Israel and we can not prevent that,said the Palestinian president.But let their aid be carried out far removed from the Palestinian peace negotiations and not be used as a pretext for giving more weaponry to Israel,he said.Israel has agreed to consider a renewed moratorium in exchange for a package of US incentives, reportedly including the delivery of an additional 20 warplanes to the Jewish state.Washington's aim is to bring Abbas back to the negotiating table with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.Direct peace negotiations resumed on September 2 but collapsed three weeks later with the expiry of a 10-month Israeli ban on West Bank settlement building.
Netanyahu in intensive contacts with US on peace
– Thu Nov 18, 6:03 pm ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday that he was pursuing intensive contacts with the United States that might lead to relaunching peace talks with the Palestinians.After my meetings in New York a week ago with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, we are holding intensive contacts with the American administration, he said during a visit to a college in northern Israel.
The objective is to reach an understanding under which we could relaunch the peace process, while always preserving Israel's vital interests, with security being the priority, he said.If I receive such a proposal from the American government, I will submit it to the cabinet, and I do not have the slightest doubt that my ministerial colleagues would equally accept it.On Wednesday, Netanyahu said he hoped to soon clinch a deal with the United States over a fresh freeze on Jewish settlement building in the occupied West Bank.In Washington, Mark Toner, a State Department spokesman, declined to say whether the US administration would submit a written proposal to Israel but said Clinton and Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak spoke over the telephone on Wednesday.In last week's talks, Clinton offered incentives to get Netanyahu to accept a fresh 90-day moratorium on new settlement building in the occupied West Bank outside annexed Arab east Jerusalem in a bid to get peace talks back on track.But Netanyahu has baulked at bringing the deal to his security cabinet until he receives the pledges in writing.Netanyahu's office reiterated on Wednesday Israel's long-standing position that there can be no freeze on construction in east Jerusalem.Jerusalem is not part of these discussions,the statement said. The clear Israeli position during the whole process is that building in Jerusalem will continue.
For their part, the Palestinians are continuing to demand that any new freeze include east Jerusalem.Washington's aim is to bring Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas back to the negotiating table so the two parties can begin discussing borders, commentators say.Direct peace talks resumed on September 2 but collapsed three weeks later with the expiry of a 10-month Israeli ban on West Bank settlement building.
UN welcomes Israel moves on Lebanon border village
– Thu Nov 18, 2:21 pm ET
UNITED NATIONS (AFP) – UN leaders on Thursday welcomed Israel's move to leave a disputed village on the border with Lebanon while a UN envoy expressed concern at other border incidents.Michael Williams, UN special coordinator for Lebanon, said the Hezbollah militia is probably smuggling large amounts of weaponry into its south Lebanon stronghold.UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon led international welcome for the Israeli security cabinet's approval of plans to move soldiers out of the northern part of the village of Ghajar.If the plan goes ahead, the troops, who have been in Ghajar since the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah, would redeploy south of the blue line unofficial frontier between Israel and Lebanon.Williams said, after UN Security Council consultations on efforts to maintain border peace, that he would go to Israel next week for talks.I feel confident that this is going in the right direction and that we will be able to agree with the Israeli government on the withdrawal of their forces from northern Ghajar, he told reporters.He called it an important step toward the full implementation of 1701 the UN resolution that led to the ceasefire in 2006.
But Williams insisted that both sides must still take further concrete steps after other incidents that he said had raised considerable concern.On August 3, an Israeli soldier and three Lebanese were killed in a shootout when Lebanese forces opened fire on Israeli troops cutting down a tree on the border.On September 3, a suspected weapons cache exploded in the south Lebanon town of Shehabiyeh, a Hezbollah stronghold.Williams said there were concerns at the delay in which the UN peacekeeping force, UNIFIL, was given access to the site of the Shehabiyeh explosion.
According to Israel, Hezbollah has more than tripled the number of missiles it has in south Lebanon since the 2006 war.Many times the secretary general of Hezbollah has referred openly to the Hezbollah's considerable armaments, sometimes in some detail, and has referred also to the replenishment of those armaments since the war of 2006, so I have to assume that this is weaponry was smuggled into the country, Williams said.Lebanon has been plunged into political turmoil, partly inflamed by a UN tribunal's investigation into the 2005 assassination of former premier Rafiq Hariri.Unconfirmed reports have said Hezbollah members could soon be indicted by the tribunal.I like others expect to see indictments from the special tribunal in the coming months. I don't know whether that is next week or next year,said Williams.All Lebanese will have to strive to overcome, as they have done in the past, current political difficulties through dialogue,the envoy added, including especially sensitive issues such as the special tribunal.Obviously there are concerns in Lebanon and that is why we have intensified our efforts to underline the importance of dialogue and to try and reinforce stability within the country in the coming period,Williams said.
Islamist group posts Hebrew-language threat online
– Thu Nov 18, 12:51 pm ET
DUBAI (AFP) – An Islamist group on Thursday posted a Hebrew-language threat on the Internet, pledging revenge for the killing of two militants in an Israeli air strike on Gaza City a day earlier.The 30-second clip, in which a man speaks in heavily-accented Hebrew, was posted on an Islamist website which contains references to Gaza.
Our letter is to the Jewish attackers that the killing of our brothers will not stop us from the continuation of jihad, it said, naming the two militants killed when an Israeli missile slammed into their car in Gaza City on Wednesday.The strike, for which the Israeli military claimed responsibility, killed Islam Yassin, 39, and his brother Mohammed, 20, both members of the Army of Islam, a radical group with an ideology similar to Al-Qaeda.You won't have any security calm and our rockets will continue, God willing, if you won't leave the land of Palestine and you will know that your citizens ... are not safe from our members.At the end of the clip, the speaker identifies himself as belonging to Ansar al-Sunna in Al-Quds -- in what appeared to be a reference to a Gaza-based Salafist group which models itself on Al-Qaeda.Many Palestinians speak Hebrew, and although militant groups often put out fiery statements vowing revenge and occasionally recordings, an audio clip in Hebrew is extremely unusual.
In northern Gaza on Thursday, mourners attended the militants' funeral, with around 200 people walking silently through the streets of Jabaliya in a procession where calls for vengeance were noticeably absent, an AFP correspondent said.The Israeli military said two mortar shells were fired from Gaza into southern Israel without causing casualties or damage. The Popular Resistance Committees, a small armed group based in the Strip, claimed the attack.Salafist Muslims practise a strict version of Islam in which they say they strive to live as the Prophet Mohammed did in the 7th century.In Gaza, the term is applied to hardline Islamist militant groups, some of which have openly challenged the territory's Hamas rulers and model themselves on Al-Qaeda.
Israel says in talks on more F-35 fighter jets
– Wed Nov 17, 6:29 pm ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Israel is in talks with the United States to acquire an additional 20 Lockheed Martin Corp F-35 fighter jets, a senior Israeli defense official said on Wednesday.Lieutenant General Gabi Ashkenazi said Israel would welcome another 20 fighter jets on the heels of a deal signed in October to buy about 20 of the radar-evading jets at a cost of about $96 million per aircraft.As I understand -- and that's the latest information I have on this issue -- it's still under negotiation between the Israeli government and the administration, he said, speaking at a news conference alongside Admiral Mike Mullen, the top U.S. military officer.I don't know the final decision, Ashkenazi said.Some media had reported the Obama administration offered the additional jets to Israel in exchange for a three-month freeze on construction of new settlements, a key issue in efforts to broker Israeli-Palestinian peace.Israel signaled on Tuesday it had delayed approving U.S. proposals for a freeze on West Bank settlement building so that peace talks can resume, saying it wanted the ideas in writing.Israeli sources said the proposals, made verbally during a meeting between U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in New York last week, included an F-35 offer worth $3 billion and pledges of enhanced U.S. diplomatic support at the United Nations.Israel has said the first batch of jets, to be received from 2015 through 2017, would boost the country's ability to defend itself against any Middle Eastern threat.(Reporting by Missy Ryan; Editing by Philip Barbara)
Israel approves pullout from Lebanon border village
by Hazel Ward - Wed Nov 17, 4:04 pm ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – Israel's security cabinet approved plans on Wednesday to withdraw troops from part of a disputed village on the Lebanese border and hand over control to a UN peacekeeping force, officials said.The ministerial committee on security decided today to accept the principle of a proposal by the United Nations and UNIFIL to withdraw IDF (Israel Defence Force) forces from the northern part of the village, cabinet secretary Zvi Hauser said in a statement.The move will see Israel pulling its troops out of the northern part of Ghajar village and redeploying south of the UN blue line demarcating the border, he said.No date was mentioned but Washington welcomed the announcement and urged all sides to move ahead quickly.The United States encourages Israel and the UN to complete the technical details necessary to implement this proposal rapidly and thereby protect the rights of the affected civilians, State Department spokesman Philip Crowley said.The peacekeeping force UNIFIL ruled that north Ghajar lies in Lebanon and the rest lies in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, but Israel took over the Lebanese side too during its devastating 2006 war with Shiite militant group Hezbollah.
Following the pullback decision, responsibility for the sector will be handed to UNIFIL (the UN Interim Force in Lebanon), whose troops will redeploy around the village's northern perimeter but not inside it, officials said.A UNIFIL spokesman confirmed that the head of the Israeli foreign ministry had personally informed force commander Major General Alberto Asarta Cuevas of the security cabinet's decision.We are awaiting formal notification in order to get more details. It is also important to have a date for the IDF withdrawal from the area, Neeraj Singh told AFP in Beirut.Details of the withdrawal are to be hammered out by the foreign ministry and UNIFIL, and will need further security cabinet approval before being implemented.UNIFIL has been pressing Israel to withdraw from north Ghajar in line with UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah.In taking these steps, Israel demonstrates its continued commitment to UN Security Council Resolution 1701, the cabinet secretary said.The village, which has around 2,200 residents, lies on the borders of Lebanon, Syria and the Golan Heights, which Israel seized from Syria in the 1967 Middle East war and annexed in 1981 in a move not recognised by the international community.Most of the residents took Israeli citizenship after the annexation, and now hold dual Israeli and Syrian citizenship. The vast majority are against repartitioning the village, which would leave 1,700 people in the north and 500 on the Israeli side.Practically speaking, the withdrawal will have little demonstrable effect on the ground, with residents unlikely to see their village physically divided, foreign ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor said.It means there will be no IDF troops or any police or other Israeli security forces in the northern part of the village as UNIFIL has declared that area to be under Lebanese security, he told AFP.Residents would still have no access to Lebanon, and the main change would be that those living in the north would have to go south to access Israeli-provided services.An AFP correspondent on the Lebanese side of the border said the cabinet decision was not well received, with angry villagers calling through loudhailers for protests against the move. Israel's plans to withdraw from the village were first confirmed in New York last week at talks between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.
A statement from Netanyahu's office said the idea of a troop withdrawal from north Ghajar was first raised by UNIFIL in June 2008. At the time, Israel was reluctant to hand over control because of concerns it would give Hezbollah access to the village.
Between 2000 and 2006, no forces were deployed in north Ghajar, although UNIFIL troops were loosely deployed around the perimeter, Palmor said.It became an opening for Hezbollah which they exploited and used to attack various Israeli positions in the area, as well as for drug traffic,he said.This time, they will exert tight control around the border.
Fatah accuses Hamas of West Bank assassination plot
– Wed Nov 17, 3:04 pm ET
NABLUS, Palestinian Territories (AFP) – The Fatah party of Western-backed Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas accused its Islamist rival Hamas on Wednesday of plotting to kill one of its governors in the West Bank.Hamas, which has effectively limited Abbas's authority to the Israeli-occupied territory since it seized control of Gaza in 2007, denied it had made any attempt to assassinate Jibrin al-Bakri, governor of the northern city of Nablus.Hamas should take full responsibility for this assassination plot against the governor of Nablus, Fatah spokesman Ahmed Assaf said.Security sources in Abbas's Palestinian Authority said a number of suspects from Hamas had been arrested after being implicated in the alleged plot and other suspected operations against the Israeli army or Palestinian Authority.But Hamas spokesman Mushir al-Masri strongly denied the alleged plot.
These are lies put out by the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah to cover up their criminal campaign against resistance fighters in the West Bank, Masri told AFP in Gaza.The long-time political rivals have been fiercely divided since Hamas seized power in Gaza in a bloody rout of Abbas's forces in 2007.A string of attempts to reconcile the groups have failed, with each side accusing the other of undermining trust by persecuting political rivals in the territory under its control.
Israel demands written U.S. guarantees before freeze
– Tue Nov 16, 11:24 am ET
JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel has demanded the United States provide written security guarantees before it votes on whether to agree to freeze Jewish settlement building in the West Bank, an Israeli political source said on Tuesday.The source added that Palestinian opposition to some of the pledges that Washington has verbally offered Israel was delaying progress toward finalizing U.S. proposals for resuming the stalled Middle East peace talks.There was no immediate comment from Palestinian officials.(Writing by Allyn Fisher-Ilan; Editing by Crispian Balmer)
U.S. suggests Mideast deadline may be slipping
– Mon Nov 15, 5:28 pm ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. target to resolve all major issues in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by August 2011 may be slipping, the State Department said on Monday.Israel and the Palestinians resumed peace negotiations in Washington on September 2 only to see these unravel within weeks after Israel's 10-month partial moratorium on Jewish settlement construction expired that month.In her August 20 announcement of the talks' relaunch, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the key issues -- which include borders, settlements, Jerusalem and the fate of Palestinian refugees -- could be resolved within a year.However, State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley acknowledged the impasse on settlements could delay any resolution and said that if more time was needed, so be it.When the process started we said this could be accomplished within 12 months. Hard to say at this point, you know, given the delay, over the issue of settlements, where we stand on that clock, Crowley told reporters.If we get to August 2011 and we need a little more time, you know, to get this done, we'll take that time, he added.We're not making progress as we stand here, he said. We have got to get the parties back into negotiations, then we can see, once again, you know, some forward motion, he said.Washington wants Israel to renew the freeze on building settlements so that talks can resume with Palestinians, who walked out of negotiations after just a few weeks when Israel refused to extend its self-imposed settlement freeze.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu presented a U.S. plan to his cabinet on Sunday that would extend the freeze for 90 days in return for diplomatic and security incentives.Israeli political sources said on Sunday that Netanyahu would probably win narrow approval from his coalition government for the U.S. proposal. It is unclear whether the Palestinians will agree to resume talks.(Editing by Sandra Maler)
Egypt denies not cracking down on Gaza smuggling
– Mon Nov 15, 1:03 pm ET
CAIRO (AFP) – A top security official said on Monday Egypt has cracked down on tunnels to Gaza and intercepted explosives destined for the enclave, a day after an Israeli official criticised its anti-smuggling efforts.The Gaza Strip relies on a network of tunnels underneath its border with Egypt, which has been key in maintaining a blockade on Gaza first imposed in June 2006 after Palestinian militants there kidnapped an Israeli soldier.The blockade was tightened a year later when the Islamist Hamas seized power in the tiny but densely populated territory.
The Egyptian official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said security forces have closed down dozens of tunnels this year but found none used for smuggling weapons.He said security services have captured large quantities of explosives that were extracted from ordnance left over from Egypt's wars with Israel, before the two countries signed a peace deal in 1979.Other weapons were smuggled into Gaza by sea, he said.We set up dozens of checkpoints inside Rafah and along the roads leading to it to prevent smuggling operations. The weapons that reach Gaza come the sea, which is controlled by the Israeli navy, he said.A senior Israeli intelligence official said on Sunday that Egypt was not doing enough to stop weapons smuggling to Gaza.
Egypt has lost control of what is happening, he said.However, the Israeli official also praised Egypt for apprehending Islamic militants believed to be operating in the Sinai Peninsula.Egypt said on Friday it had arrested at least 20 Islamists suspected of extremist ideology in the Sinai, a day after Israel warned its citizens of a possible kidnap plot there.Security services in Egypt have accused militants arrested over the past two years of receiving training inside Gaza to mount attacks in the Sinai targeting tourists and the Suez Canal.Relations between Egypt and Hamas are at their lowest point ever, partly because of an underground barrier Egypt is building along its border with Gaza aimed at stopping the smugglers.Earlier this year, Cairo accused Hamas gunmen of shooting dead one of its border guards.
Hamas, which believes Israel was illegitimately created on Palestinian land, fought a devastating war with the Jewish state in December 2008 and January 2009.
Obama calls latest Israeli plan promising By BEN FELLER, AP White House Correspondent – Sun Nov 14, 10:27 pm ET
WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama on Sunday hailed the prospect of a new settlement freeze in the disputed West Bank as a promising step toward peace, urging Israelis and Palestinians to get back into serious negotiations quickly.An upbeat president also pledged to return to the basic principles that drove his thinking when he first came to the White House, including sticking to a more bipartisan tone and better explaining his decisions to the American people. He spoke of moving from an obsessive focus on policy and making changes to his approach after a humbling midterm election.The fact that we are out of crisis — although still obviously in a difficult time — I think will give me the capacity, Obama told reporters aboard Air Force One at the end of long Asia trip.On the Mideast, Washington's new proposal for reviving peace talks includes a 90-day ban on housing starts in West Bank settlements — but not in east Jerusalem, the Palestinians' hoped-for capital. The goal is to give the two sides a three-month period to shape borders of side-by-side states, a daunting, elusive mission.Obama commended Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for making a very constructive step toward creating an environment for peace. I think it's a signal that he's serious,Obama said.
U.S. officials said Netanyahu told the administration that he supports the plan and will try to win approval from his Cabinet. Obama said he hopes the Israeli leader and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas will resume negotiations soon.A previous 10-month moratorium in the West Bank expired Sept. 26, and talks have stalled, casting doubt about the notion of a peace deal within a year's time, as Obama has sought. Just a few days ago, during a stop in Indonesia, Obama acknowledged he was worried about the peace process and urged both sides to show more effort.Looking rested after two legs of an all-night flight from Asia, Obama on Sunday made an unannounced visit to the press cabin of Air Force One just before the plane landed at Andrews Air Force Base in Washington.The president sounded optimistic about getting Senate ratification of a new U.S.-Russia nuclear arms treaty during the postelection session of Congress, during which lawmakers try to push through matters before a new Congress convenes.The White House is working furiously to round up the votes, warning that a failure would deeply undermine U.S.-Russia relations. As a way to rally support, the administration is proposing extra billions of dollars to modernize the existing nuclear arsenal. That's a priority of Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., who is seen as the key to rounding up Republican support for ratification.
Actually, I feel pretty good about our prospects,Obama said.Obama said Congress should also reach a deal on extending certain George W. Bush-era tax cuts, soon due to expire, so that the middle class does not get a tax hike in the new year. Republicans are pushing for an extension of tax cuts for wealthier Americans, too, and Obama is probably going to have reach at least a temporary deal on that.Later this week the president will hold a strategy session with Republican and Democratic leaders in the House and Senate. He joked of his coming week, I'm sure it'll be very relaxing.Obama sought to raise the expectations on Republicans, who won convincingly in the midterm elections.They're still flush with victory, having run a strategy that was all about saying no, he said. But I am very confident that the American people were not issuing a mandate for gridlock.The president said one lasting impression of his trip is that the nations of southeast Asia are on the move economically, and that while the U.S. can confidently compete, we are going to have to step up our game.As for his own leadership, Obama said he will focus more on sounding the right tone and connecting with the American people. I neglected some things that matter a lot to people,the president said of the first two years of his presidency.
Israeli official: Hamas rockets can reach Tel Aviv
By DAN PERRY, Associated Press – Sun Nov 14, 3:36 pm ET
TEL AVIV, Israel – A senior Israeli intelligence official warned Sunday that Hamas rulers in the Gaza Strip have rockets that can travel 80 kilometers (50 miles) — a longer range than previously reported, which would put the coastal metropolis of Tel Aviv within range of its launchers.The official blamed Egypt, saying it was not doing enough to stem smuggling through a network of tunnels along the relatively short border between its Sinai desert and the Palestinian territory. An Egyptian security official reached for comment maintained that Egypt was combating the smuggling successfully.The Israeli intelligence official said that Hamas, which seized control of Gaza in 2007, is making very big efforts to build up their military capabilities ... building up their rocket capabilities in the Gaza Strip, and all this is happening because of one important thing: the smuggling of weapons through Egypt to the Gaza Strip.Egypt, along with Israel, imposed an embargo on Gaza in June 2007 after Hamas militants took control of the area, but the Israelis and United States have repeatedly urged Egypt to do more to prevent weapons smuggling into the territory.Most of the tunnels that are used to smuggle these rockets and explosives and other weapons are in an area of three to four kilometers, or up to 2.5 miles, said the official, who is privy to high-level intelligence information and briefed foreign correspondents on condition that he not be identified.We see it in our intelligence. We have photos of this. In many places we can show photos of Egyptian soldiers located less than 20 meters (yards) from the opening of a tunnel, and the tunnel is operating under his eyes, under his control, and nobody is doing anything about it.Egypt can stop all this smuggling of weapons within 24 hours if they want to do it,he said. There are enough Egyptian troops and policemen ... located on this border.
Israeli lawmaker Arieh Eldad, a member of the parliamentary Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, who has access to classified material, confirmed the official's assessment.Egypt is not a country that large quantities of weapons can enter without the authorities knowing, he told The Associated Press, charging that Egypt allows Hamas to acquire arms in exchange for the Islamic militants leaving Egypt alone.
They could easily train police to look for the smugglers and they don't, Eldad said.
A senior Egyptian intelligence official said Egyptian security has been performing its duties successfully at the border with Gaza. He said they have intercepted 50 tons of explosives in the past two years and have been praised by Israeli intelligence for their work.
The Gaza-Egypt border is only about 8 miles (13 kilometers) long.Egypt beefed up its presence at the border after Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip in September 2005 and handed it over to Palestinian control. The smugglers responded by digging longer tunnels, penetrating past the immediate border area.The Egyptians have found 675 tunnels since the beginning of this year, the security official said.The United States has helped Egypt with advanced equipment to find out the tunnels through uncovering the underground movement and several Egyptians were trained in the U.S. to use these equipment. Egypt also built a steel wall along the border to prevent smugglers from penetrating into Egypt, though some smugglers have cut through it.
Although Hamas has largely halted its rocket fire since a fierce Israeli military offensive in early 2009, the Israeli security official said the group's aim remained to strike at Israeli cities.Today there are rockets which are reaching 70 and 80 kilometers (45 to 50 miles) in the Gaza Strip ... so it means that we can sit here and talk and a rocket can fall on our heads within five minutes, the official said.
That range would mean that rockets could reach Tel Aviv, Israel's business and cultural hub. About 2 million people live in the Tel Aviv area, which was targeted by Saddam Hussein's Iraq with Scud missiles during the 1991 Gulf War. The assessment indicated that Hamas has improved its capabilities in recent months. Past assessments have said Hamas rocket range was closer to 60 or 70 kilometers, or roughly 40 to 45 miles.On Sunday Israel's Channel 10 TV showed video of Israel's Iron Dome system knocking down rockets. The system is designed to protect Israel from rocket fire from Gaza and Lebanon. However, deployment has been delayed several times and now appears at least months away.The official charged that corruption is undermining any efforts to stop the smuggling from Egypt to Gaza. He said Egyptian officers and soldiers are being bribed to look the other way.
Eldad confirmed that.
When an arms convoy goes through Egypt, lots of people are bribed along the way,he said. It's easy to bribe the guards and police on the border.On the other hand, the official said, intelligence cooperation with Egypt was otherwise effective: In other aspects we see Egypt, when they have concrete intelligence about terror attacks ... they are reacting most of the time very fast and trying to prevent these attacks.The Israeli intelligence official also said that Hamas' rival, the Palestinian Authority, was making a genuine and successful effort to maintain security and prevent attacks on Israel in the West Bank. But he warned it was dependent on progress in the currently stalled peace talks with Israel — and on the presence in office of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad.The official added that Israeli intelligence believes that it remains the long-range goal of Hamas to destroy Israel and to establish an Islamic caliphate, not only in the Middle East but in Europe as well.Associated Press writer Ashraf Sweilam contributed to this report from Rafah, Egypt.
Israel's Netanyahu unveils U.S. plan for new talks
By Allyn Fisher-Ilan – Sat Nov 13, 6:45 pm ET
JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu showed senior ministers a U.S. plan for resuming peace talks with Palestinians, including a 90-day settlement freeze, a diplomatic source told reporters Saturday.The plan also includes a pledge not to seek any extension to the settlement freeze after the 90-day period, a vow to veto any attempts at the United Nations to force a unilateral peace deal and an agreement on supplying Israel with more war planes.Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, renewed under Washington's sponsorship on September 2, broke down a few weeks later when Israel balked at renewing a settlement moratorium.Netanyahu met his top Forum of Seven" ministers a day after returning from a week-long U.S. tour that included talks on Thursday with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at which she unveiled the plan he showed his cabinet, the source said.Netanyahu hopes he may win approval for the plan from his pro-settler cabinet later this week, political sources said.Among the pledges offered to Israel by Washington, was a guarantee to veto any resolutions brought to the United Nations Security Council that seek to impose a political settlement on Israel,the source said, speaking on condition of anonymity.Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas had no immediate comment. Officials speaking on condition of anonymity said the Palestinian leader was likely to wait to see whether Israel approved the ideas before issuing any comment.
AN ADDITIONAL FREEZE
Under the plan Israel would declare an additional suspension of construction in the West Bank, land it captured from Jordan in a 1967 war, for 90 days. Building begun since a moratorium ended in September, would be halted, the source said.The proposed construction freeze would not include East Jerusalem, an area Israel has annexed as part of its capital in a move never recognized internationally and which Palestinians want as capital of any future state.Washington would also undertake to veto resolutions deemed anti-Israel in the U.N. Security Council and other international organizations, the source said, a pledge that could make Israel less vulnerable to threats made by some Palestinians to declare statehood unilaterally in the event that peace talks fail.The Obama Administration would also ask Congress to approve the supply of $3 billion worth of warplanes to Israel to maintain its qualitative edge in the region, the source said.The United States would further sign a more comprehensive deal to enhance its substantial security aid to Israel as part of any agreement concluded with the Palestinians.Israeli officials said Netanyahu, who faces a tough political sell within his own coalition on the settlement issue, had pushed Clinton for the broad understandings.The chances of reaching a peace agreement will be improved significantly by achieving comprehensive security understandings between Israel and the United States, Netanyahu said in New York before his talks with Clinton began.(Additional reporting by Ali Sawafta in Ramallah; Writing by Allyn Fisher-Ilan; Editing by Louise Ireland)
Comatose Sharon moved back to hospital
– Sat Nov 13, 6:29 pm ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – Former Israeli premier Ariel Sharon, who has lain in a coma for nearly five years, was taken back to hospital late Saturday after a brief stay at his home, public radio reported.Sharon was returned to hospital after having been brought back to his home at 'Sycamore Farm', southern Israel, for a trial period of just under 48 hours to see if he could be treated at home on a permanent basis.His family and the doctors treating him used the visit to test the medical equipment installed at his home to see if letting him return was practicable.The first trial period had gone perfectly, said doctors, the radio reported.Sharon will make another four such trips before he is allowed to settle in for treatment at his home on a permanent basis.On January 4, 2006, the premier suffered a massive stroke and slipped into a coma from which he has never recovered, leaving behind him a gaping political vacuum.
10AM NOV 19,10
GAZA (Reuters) – Israeli warplanes struck three targets in the Gaza Strip Friday in response to militant rocket and mortar fire, the Israeli army said.At least four people, three women and a boy, were hurt in one attack in the central Gaza Strip when an uninhabited building close to where they were standing collapsed after being hit, local residents said.The injuries were not considered to be life threatening, a Gaza hospital source said.The two other strikes were aimed at targets near the town of Khan Younis in the southern part of the territory, one of which was a training camp belonging to the Islamic Jihad militant group. There were no reports of casualties.An Israeli military spokesman said three air strikes had been carried out against militant targets in the coastal strip.Two of the three targets were smuggling tunnels that were being built and they were destroyed, said the spokesman, who declined to specify the nature of the third target.He added that nine mortar shells and one longer-range rocket were fired over the past 24 hours, the highest number in a concentrated period for several months.The Popular Resistance Committees, a Palestinian militant group, claimed responsibility for the mortar fire, saying it was in retaliation for Israel's killing of two militant leaders of the al-Qaeda linked Army of Islam in Gaza Wednesday.(Reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi; Writing by Ori Lewis and Allyn Fisher-Ilan; Editing by Myra MacDonald)
No link between peace process, US Israeli aid: Abbas
– Fri Nov 19, 8:45 am ET
DUBAI (AFP) – Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas said he refuses to link the troubled Middle East peace process with a US offer of additional military aid to its Israeli ally, in a newspaper interview published on Friday.We refuse to allow the offer of planes be linked in any way to a freeze on settlements, he told the London-based Arab newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat.We have nothing to do with all that. This is our position and it will not change, said Abbas, who insists on a renewed Israeli moratorium on settlement building before he returns to direct US-brokered peace talks with Israel.The United States is an ally of Israel and we can not prevent that,said the Palestinian president.But let their aid be carried out far removed from the Palestinian peace negotiations and not be used as a pretext for giving more weaponry to Israel,he said.Israel has agreed to consider a renewed moratorium in exchange for a package of US incentives, reportedly including the delivery of an additional 20 warplanes to the Jewish state.Washington's aim is to bring Abbas back to the negotiating table with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.Direct peace negotiations resumed on September 2 but collapsed three weeks later with the expiry of a 10-month Israeli ban on West Bank settlement building.
Netanyahu in intensive contacts with US on peace
– Thu Nov 18, 6:03 pm ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday that he was pursuing intensive contacts with the United States that might lead to relaunching peace talks with the Palestinians.After my meetings in New York a week ago with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, we are holding intensive contacts with the American administration, he said during a visit to a college in northern Israel.
The objective is to reach an understanding under which we could relaunch the peace process, while always preserving Israel's vital interests, with security being the priority, he said.If I receive such a proposal from the American government, I will submit it to the cabinet, and I do not have the slightest doubt that my ministerial colleagues would equally accept it.On Wednesday, Netanyahu said he hoped to soon clinch a deal with the United States over a fresh freeze on Jewish settlement building in the occupied West Bank.In Washington, Mark Toner, a State Department spokesman, declined to say whether the US administration would submit a written proposal to Israel but said Clinton and Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak spoke over the telephone on Wednesday.In last week's talks, Clinton offered incentives to get Netanyahu to accept a fresh 90-day moratorium on new settlement building in the occupied West Bank outside annexed Arab east Jerusalem in a bid to get peace talks back on track.But Netanyahu has baulked at bringing the deal to his security cabinet until he receives the pledges in writing.Netanyahu's office reiterated on Wednesday Israel's long-standing position that there can be no freeze on construction in east Jerusalem.Jerusalem is not part of these discussions,the statement said. The clear Israeli position during the whole process is that building in Jerusalem will continue.
For their part, the Palestinians are continuing to demand that any new freeze include east Jerusalem.Washington's aim is to bring Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas back to the negotiating table so the two parties can begin discussing borders, commentators say.Direct peace talks resumed on September 2 but collapsed three weeks later with the expiry of a 10-month Israeli ban on West Bank settlement building.
UN welcomes Israel moves on Lebanon border village
– Thu Nov 18, 2:21 pm ET
UNITED NATIONS (AFP) – UN leaders on Thursday welcomed Israel's move to leave a disputed village on the border with Lebanon while a UN envoy expressed concern at other border incidents.Michael Williams, UN special coordinator for Lebanon, said the Hezbollah militia is probably smuggling large amounts of weaponry into its south Lebanon stronghold.UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon led international welcome for the Israeli security cabinet's approval of plans to move soldiers out of the northern part of the village of Ghajar.If the plan goes ahead, the troops, who have been in Ghajar since the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah, would redeploy south of the blue line unofficial frontier between Israel and Lebanon.Williams said, after UN Security Council consultations on efforts to maintain border peace, that he would go to Israel next week for talks.I feel confident that this is going in the right direction and that we will be able to agree with the Israeli government on the withdrawal of their forces from northern Ghajar, he told reporters.He called it an important step toward the full implementation of 1701 the UN resolution that led to the ceasefire in 2006.
But Williams insisted that both sides must still take further concrete steps after other incidents that he said had raised considerable concern.On August 3, an Israeli soldier and three Lebanese were killed in a shootout when Lebanese forces opened fire on Israeli troops cutting down a tree on the border.On September 3, a suspected weapons cache exploded in the south Lebanon town of Shehabiyeh, a Hezbollah stronghold.Williams said there were concerns at the delay in which the UN peacekeeping force, UNIFIL, was given access to the site of the Shehabiyeh explosion.
According to Israel, Hezbollah has more than tripled the number of missiles it has in south Lebanon since the 2006 war.Many times the secretary general of Hezbollah has referred openly to the Hezbollah's considerable armaments, sometimes in some detail, and has referred also to the replenishment of those armaments since the war of 2006, so I have to assume that this is weaponry was smuggled into the country, Williams said.Lebanon has been plunged into political turmoil, partly inflamed by a UN tribunal's investigation into the 2005 assassination of former premier Rafiq Hariri.Unconfirmed reports have said Hezbollah members could soon be indicted by the tribunal.I like others expect to see indictments from the special tribunal in the coming months. I don't know whether that is next week or next year,said Williams.All Lebanese will have to strive to overcome, as they have done in the past, current political difficulties through dialogue,the envoy added, including especially sensitive issues such as the special tribunal.Obviously there are concerns in Lebanon and that is why we have intensified our efforts to underline the importance of dialogue and to try and reinforce stability within the country in the coming period,Williams said.
Islamist group posts Hebrew-language threat online
– Thu Nov 18, 12:51 pm ET
DUBAI (AFP) – An Islamist group on Thursday posted a Hebrew-language threat on the Internet, pledging revenge for the killing of two militants in an Israeli air strike on Gaza City a day earlier.The 30-second clip, in which a man speaks in heavily-accented Hebrew, was posted on an Islamist website which contains references to Gaza.
Our letter is to the Jewish attackers that the killing of our brothers will not stop us from the continuation of jihad, it said, naming the two militants killed when an Israeli missile slammed into their car in Gaza City on Wednesday.The strike, for which the Israeli military claimed responsibility, killed Islam Yassin, 39, and his brother Mohammed, 20, both members of the Army of Islam, a radical group with an ideology similar to Al-Qaeda.You won't have any security calm and our rockets will continue, God willing, if you won't leave the land of Palestine and you will know that your citizens ... are not safe from our members.At the end of the clip, the speaker identifies himself as belonging to Ansar al-Sunna in Al-Quds -- in what appeared to be a reference to a Gaza-based Salafist group which models itself on Al-Qaeda.Many Palestinians speak Hebrew, and although militant groups often put out fiery statements vowing revenge and occasionally recordings, an audio clip in Hebrew is extremely unusual.
In northern Gaza on Thursday, mourners attended the militants' funeral, with around 200 people walking silently through the streets of Jabaliya in a procession where calls for vengeance were noticeably absent, an AFP correspondent said.The Israeli military said two mortar shells were fired from Gaza into southern Israel without causing casualties or damage. The Popular Resistance Committees, a small armed group based in the Strip, claimed the attack.Salafist Muslims practise a strict version of Islam in which they say they strive to live as the Prophet Mohammed did in the 7th century.In Gaza, the term is applied to hardline Islamist militant groups, some of which have openly challenged the territory's Hamas rulers and model themselves on Al-Qaeda.
Israel says in talks on more F-35 fighter jets
– Wed Nov 17, 6:29 pm ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Israel is in talks with the United States to acquire an additional 20 Lockheed Martin Corp F-35 fighter jets, a senior Israeli defense official said on Wednesday.Lieutenant General Gabi Ashkenazi said Israel would welcome another 20 fighter jets on the heels of a deal signed in October to buy about 20 of the radar-evading jets at a cost of about $96 million per aircraft.As I understand -- and that's the latest information I have on this issue -- it's still under negotiation between the Israeli government and the administration, he said, speaking at a news conference alongside Admiral Mike Mullen, the top U.S. military officer.I don't know the final decision, Ashkenazi said.Some media had reported the Obama administration offered the additional jets to Israel in exchange for a three-month freeze on construction of new settlements, a key issue in efforts to broker Israeli-Palestinian peace.Israel signaled on Tuesday it had delayed approving U.S. proposals for a freeze on West Bank settlement building so that peace talks can resume, saying it wanted the ideas in writing.Israeli sources said the proposals, made verbally during a meeting between U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in New York last week, included an F-35 offer worth $3 billion and pledges of enhanced U.S. diplomatic support at the United Nations.Israel has said the first batch of jets, to be received from 2015 through 2017, would boost the country's ability to defend itself against any Middle Eastern threat.(Reporting by Missy Ryan; Editing by Philip Barbara)
Israel approves pullout from Lebanon border village
by Hazel Ward - Wed Nov 17, 4:04 pm ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – Israel's security cabinet approved plans on Wednesday to withdraw troops from part of a disputed village on the Lebanese border and hand over control to a UN peacekeeping force, officials said.The ministerial committee on security decided today to accept the principle of a proposal by the United Nations and UNIFIL to withdraw IDF (Israel Defence Force) forces from the northern part of the village, cabinet secretary Zvi Hauser said in a statement.The move will see Israel pulling its troops out of the northern part of Ghajar village and redeploying south of the UN blue line demarcating the border, he said.No date was mentioned but Washington welcomed the announcement and urged all sides to move ahead quickly.The United States encourages Israel and the UN to complete the technical details necessary to implement this proposal rapidly and thereby protect the rights of the affected civilians, State Department spokesman Philip Crowley said.The peacekeeping force UNIFIL ruled that north Ghajar lies in Lebanon and the rest lies in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, but Israel took over the Lebanese side too during its devastating 2006 war with Shiite militant group Hezbollah.
Following the pullback decision, responsibility for the sector will be handed to UNIFIL (the UN Interim Force in Lebanon), whose troops will redeploy around the village's northern perimeter but not inside it, officials said.A UNIFIL spokesman confirmed that the head of the Israeli foreign ministry had personally informed force commander Major General Alberto Asarta Cuevas of the security cabinet's decision.We are awaiting formal notification in order to get more details. It is also important to have a date for the IDF withdrawal from the area, Neeraj Singh told AFP in Beirut.Details of the withdrawal are to be hammered out by the foreign ministry and UNIFIL, and will need further security cabinet approval before being implemented.UNIFIL has been pressing Israel to withdraw from north Ghajar in line with UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah.In taking these steps, Israel demonstrates its continued commitment to UN Security Council Resolution 1701, the cabinet secretary said.The village, which has around 2,200 residents, lies on the borders of Lebanon, Syria and the Golan Heights, which Israel seized from Syria in the 1967 Middle East war and annexed in 1981 in a move not recognised by the international community.Most of the residents took Israeli citizenship after the annexation, and now hold dual Israeli and Syrian citizenship. The vast majority are against repartitioning the village, which would leave 1,700 people in the north and 500 on the Israeli side.Practically speaking, the withdrawal will have little demonstrable effect on the ground, with residents unlikely to see their village physically divided, foreign ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor said.It means there will be no IDF troops or any police or other Israeli security forces in the northern part of the village as UNIFIL has declared that area to be under Lebanese security, he told AFP.Residents would still have no access to Lebanon, and the main change would be that those living in the north would have to go south to access Israeli-provided services.An AFP correspondent on the Lebanese side of the border said the cabinet decision was not well received, with angry villagers calling through loudhailers for protests against the move. Israel's plans to withdraw from the village were first confirmed in New York last week at talks between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.
A statement from Netanyahu's office said the idea of a troop withdrawal from north Ghajar was first raised by UNIFIL in June 2008. At the time, Israel was reluctant to hand over control because of concerns it would give Hezbollah access to the village.
Between 2000 and 2006, no forces were deployed in north Ghajar, although UNIFIL troops were loosely deployed around the perimeter, Palmor said.It became an opening for Hezbollah which they exploited and used to attack various Israeli positions in the area, as well as for drug traffic,he said.This time, they will exert tight control around the border.
Fatah accuses Hamas of West Bank assassination plot
– Wed Nov 17, 3:04 pm ET
NABLUS, Palestinian Territories (AFP) – The Fatah party of Western-backed Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas accused its Islamist rival Hamas on Wednesday of plotting to kill one of its governors in the West Bank.Hamas, which has effectively limited Abbas's authority to the Israeli-occupied territory since it seized control of Gaza in 2007, denied it had made any attempt to assassinate Jibrin al-Bakri, governor of the northern city of Nablus.Hamas should take full responsibility for this assassination plot against the governor of Nablus, Fatah spokesman Ahmed Assaf said.Security sources in Abbas's Palestinian Authority said a number of suspects from Hamas had been arrested after being implicated in the alleged plot and other suspected operations against the Israeli army or Palestinian Authority.But Hamas spokesman Mushir al-Masri strongly denied the alleged plot.
These are lies put out by the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah to cover up their criminal campaign against resistance fighters in the West Bank, Masri told AFP in Gaza.The long-time political rivals have been fiercely divided since Hamas seized power in Gaza in a bloody rout of Abbas's forces in 2007.A string of attempts to reconcile the groups have failed, with each side accusing the other of undermining trust by persecuting political rivals in the territory under its control.
Israel demands written U.S. guarantees before freeze
– Tue Nov 16, 11:24 am ET
JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel has demanded the United States provide written security guarantees before it votes on whether to agree to freeze Jewish settlement building in the West Bank, an Israeli political source said on Tuesday.The source added that Palestinian opposition to some of the pledges that Washington has verbally offered Israel was delaying progress toward finalizing U.S. proposals for resuming the stalled Middle East peace talks.There was no immediate comment from Palestinian officials.(Writing by Allyn Fisher-Ilan; Editing by Crispian Balmer)
U.S. suggests Mideast deadline may be slipping
– Mon Nov 15, 5:28 pm ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. target to resolve all major issues in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by August 2011 may be slipping, the State Department said on Monday.Israel and the Palestinians resumed peace negotiations in Washington on September 2 only to see these unravel within weeks after Israel's 10-month partial moratorium on Jewish settlement construction expired that month.In her August 20 announcement of the talks' relaunch, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the key issues -- which include borders, settlements, Jerusalem and the fate of Palestinian refugees -- could be resolved within a year.However, State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley acknowledged the impasse on settlements could delay any resolution and said that if more time was needed, so be it.When the process started we said this could be accomplished within 12 months. Hard to say at this point, you know, given the delay, over the issue of settlements, where we stand on that clock, Crowley told reporters.If we get to August 2011 and we need a little more time, you know, to get this done, we'll take that time, he added.We're not making progress as we stand here, he said. We have got to get the parties back into negotiations, then we can see, once again, you know, some forward motion, he said.Washington wants Israel to renew the freeze on building settlements so that talks can resume with Palestinians, who walked out of negotiations after just a few weeks when Israel refused to extend its self-imposed settlement freeze.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu presented a U.S. plan to his cabinet on Sunday that would extend the freeze for 90 days in return for diplomatic and security incentives.Israeli political sources said on Sunday that Netanyahu would probably win narrow approval from his coalition government for the U.S. proposal. It is unclear whether the Palestinians will agree to resume talks.(Editing by Sandra Maler)
Egypt denies not cracking down on Gaza smuggling
– Mon Nov 15, 1:03 pm ET
CAIRO (AFP) – A top security official said on Monday Egypt has cracked down on tunnels to Gaza and intercepted explosives destined for the enclave, a day after an Israeli official criticised its anti-smuggling efforts.The Gaza Strip relies on a network of tunnels underneath its border with Egypt, which has been key in maintaining a blockade on Gaza first imposed in June 2006 after Palestinian militants there kidnapped an Israeli soldier.The blockade was tightened a year later when the Islamist Hamas seized power in the tiny but densely populated territory.
The Egyptian official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said security forces have closed down dozens of tunnels this year but found none used for smuggling weapons.He said security services have captured large quantities of explosives that were extracted from ordnance left over from Egypt's wars with Israel, before the two countries signed a peace deal in 1979.Other weapons were smuggled into Gaza by sea, he said.We set up dozens of checkpoints inside Rafah and along the roads leading to it to prevent smuggling operations. The weapons that reach Gaza come the sea, which is controlled by the Israeli navy, he said.A senior Israeli intelligence official said on Sunday that Egypt was not doing enough to stop weapons smuggling to Gaza.
Egypt has lost control of what is happening, he said.However, the Israeli official also praised Egypt for apprehending Islamic militants believed to be operating in the Sinai Peninsula.Egypt said on Friday it had arrested at least 20 Islamists suspected of extremist ideology in the Sinai, a day after Israel warned its citizens of a possible kidnap plot there.Security services in Egypt have accused militants arrested over the past two years of receiving training inside Gaza to mount attacks in the Sinai targeting tourists and the Suez Canal.Relations between Egypt and Hamas are at their lowest point ever, partly because of an underground barrier Egypt is building along its border with Gaza aimed at stopping the smugglers.Earlier this year, Cairo accused Hamas gunmen of shooting dead one of its border guards.
Hamas, which believes Israel was illegitimately created on Palestinian land, fought a devastating war with the Jewish state in December 2008 and January 2009.
Obama calls latest Israeli plan promising By BEN FELLER, AP White House Correspondent – Sun Nov 14, 10:27 pm ET
WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama on Sunday hailed the prospect of a new settlement freeze in the disputed West Bank as a promising step toward peace, urging Israelis and Palestinians to get back into serious negotiations quickly.An upbeat president also pledged to return to the basic principles that drove his thinking when he first came to the White House, including sticking to a more bipartisan tone and better explaining his decisions to the American people. He spoke of moving from an obsessive focus on policy and making changes to his approach after a humbling midterm election.The fact that we are out of crisis — although still obviously in a difficult time — I think will give me the capacity, Obama told reporters aboard Air Force One at the end of long Asia trip.On the Mideast, Washington's new proposal for reviving peace talks includes a 90-day ban on housing starts in West Bank settlements — but not in east Jerusalem, the Palestinians' hoped-for capital. The goal is to give the two sides a three-month period to shape borders of side-by-side states, a daunting, elusive mission.Obama commended Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for making a very constructive step toward creating an environment for peace. I think it's a signal that he's serious,Obama said.
U.S. officials said Netanyahu told the administration that he supports the plan and will try to win approval from his Cabinet. Obama said he hopes the Israeli leader and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas will resume negotiations soon.A previous 10-month moratorium in the West Bank expired Sept. 26, and talks have stalled, casting doubt about the notion of a peace deal within a year's time, as Obama has sought. Just a few days ago, during a stop in Indonesia, Obama acknowledged he was worried about the peace process and urged both sides to show more effort.Looking rested after two legs of an all-night flight from Asia, Obama on Sunday made an unannounced visit to the press cabin of Air Force One just before the plane landed at Andrews Air Force Base in Washington.The president sounded optimistic about getting Senate ratification of a new U.S.-Russia nuclear arms treaty during the postelection session of Congress, during which lawmakers try to push through matters before a new Congress convenes.The White House is working furiously to round up the votes, warning that a failure would deeply undermine U.S.-Russia relations. As a way to rally support, the administration is proposing extra billions of dollars to modernize the existing nuclear arsenal. That's a priority of Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., who is seen as the key to rounding up Republican support for ratification.
Actually, I feel pretty good about our prospects,Obama said.Obama said Congress should also reach a deal on extending certain George W. Bush-era tax cuts, soon due to expire, so that the middle class does not get a tax hike in the new year. Republicans are pushing for an extension of tax cuts for wealthier Americans, too, and Obama is probably going to have reach at least a temporary deal on that.Later this week the president will hold a strategy session with Republican and Democratic leaders in the House and Senate. He joked of his coming week, I'm sure it'll be very relaxing.Obama sought to raise the expectations on Republicans, who won convincingly in the midterm elections.They're still flush with victory, having run a strategy that was all about saying no, he said. But I am very confident that the American people were not issuing a mandate for gridlock.The president said one lasting impression of his trip is that the nations of southeast Asia are on the move economically, and that while the U.S. can confidently compete, we are going to have to step up our game.As for his own leadership, Obama said he will focus more on sounding the right tone and connecting with the American people. I neglected some things that matter a lot to people,the president said of the first two years of his presidency.
Israeli official: Hamas rockets can reach Tel Aviv
By DAN PERRY, Associated Press – Sun Nov 14, 3:36 pm ET
TEL AVIV, Israel – A senior Israeli intelligence official warned Sunday that Hamas rulers in the Gaza Strip have rockets that can travel 80 kilometers (50 miles) — a longer range than previously reported, which would put the coastal metropolis of Tel Aviv within range of its launchers.The official blamed Egypt, saying it was not doing enough to stem smuggling through a network of tunnels along the relatively short border between its Sinai desert and the Palestinian territory. An Egyptian security official reached for comment maintained that Egypt was combating the smuggling successfully.The Israeli intelligence official said that Hamas, which seized control of Gaza in 2007, is making very big efforts to build up their military capabilities ... building up their rocket capabilities in the Gaza Strip, and all this is happening because of one important thing: the smuggling of weapons through Egypt to the Gaza Strip.Egypt, along with Israel, imposed an embargo on Gaza in June 2007 after Hamas militants took control of the area, but the Israelis and United States have repeatedly urged Egypt to do more to prevent weapons smuggling into the territory.Most of the tunnels that are used to smuggle these rockets and explosives and other weapons are in an area of three to four kilometers, or up to 2.5 miles, said the official, who is privy to high-level intelligence information and briefed foreign correspondents on condition that he not be identified.We see it in our intelligence. We have photos of this. In many places we can show photos of Egyptian soldiers located less than 20 meters (yards) from the opening of a tunnel, and the tunnel is operating under his eyes, under his control, and nobody is doing anything about it.Egypt can stop all this smuggling of weapons within 24 hours if they want to do it,he said. There are enough Egyptian troops and policemen ... located on this border.
Israeli lawmaker Arieh Eldad, a member of the parliamentary Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, who has access to classified material, confirmed the official's assessment.Egypt is not a country that large quantities of weapons can enter without the authorities knowing, he told The Associated Press, charging that Egypt allows Hamas to acquire arms in exchange for the Islamic militants leaving Egypt alone.
They could easily train police to look for the smugglers and they don't, Eldad said.
A senior Egyptian intelligence official said Egyptian security has been performing its duties successfully at the border with Gaza. He said they have intercepted 50 tons of explosives in the past two years and have been praised by Israeli intelligence for their work.
The Gaza-Egypt border is only about 8 miles (13 kilometers) long.Egypt beefed up its presence at the border after Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip in September 2005 and handed it over to Palestinian control. The smugglers responded by digging longer tunnels, penetrating past the immediate border area.The Egyptians have found 675 tunnels since the beginning of this year, the security official said.The United States has helped Egypt with advanced equipment to find out the tunnels through uncovering the underground movement and several Egyptians were trained in the U.S. to use these equipment. Egypt also built a steel wall along the border to prevent smugglers from penetrating into Egypt, though some smugglers have cut through it.
Although Hamas has largely halted its rocket fire since a fierce Israeli military offensive in early 2009, the Israeli security official said the group's aim remained to strike at Israeli cities.Today there are rockets which are reaching 70 and 80 kilometers (45 to 50 miles) in the Gaza Strip ... so it means that we can sit here and talk and a rocket can fall on our heads within five minutes, the official said.
That range would mean that rockets could reach Tel Aviv, Israel's business and cultural hub. About 2 million people live in the Tel Aviv area, which was targeted by Saddam Hussein's Iraq with Scud missiles during the 1991 Gulf War. The assessment indicated that Hamas has improved its capabilities in recent months. Past assessments have said Hamas rocket range was closer to 60 or 70 kilometers, or roughly 40 to 45 miles.On Sunday Israel's Channel 10 TV showed video of Israel's Iron Dome system knocking down rockets. The system is designed to protect Israel from rocket fire from Gaza and Lebanon. However, deployment has been delayed several times and now appears at least months away.The official charged that corruption is undermining any efforts to stop the smuggling from Egypt to Gaza. He said Egyptian officers and soldiers are being bribed to look the other way.
Eldad confirmed that.
When an arms convoy goes through Egypt, lots of people are bribed along the way,he said. It's easy to bribe the guards and police on the border.On the other hand, the official said, intelligence cooperation with Egypt was otherwise effective: In other aspects we see Egypt, when they have concrete intelligence about terror attacks ... they are reacting most of the time very fast and trying to prevent these attacks.The Israeli intelligence official also said that Hamas' rival, the Palestinian Authority, was making a genuine and successful effort to maintain security and prevent attacks on Israel in the West Bank. But he warned it was dependent on progress in the currently stalled peace talks with Israel — and on the presence in office of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad.The official added that Israeli intelligence believes that it remains the long-range goal of Hamas to destroy Israel and to establish an Islamic caliphate, not only in the Middle East but in Europe as well.Associated Press writer Ashraf Sweilam contributed to this report from Rafah, Egypt.
Israel's Netanyahu unveils U.S. plan for new talks
By Allyn Fisher-Ilan – Sat Nov 13, 6:45 pm ET
JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu showed senior ministers a U.S. plan for resuming peace talks with Palestinians, including a 90-day settlement freeze, a diplomatic source told reporters Saturday.The plan also includes a pledge not to seek any extension to the settlement freeze after the 90-day period, a vow to veto any attempts at the United Nations to force a unilateral peace deal and an agreement on supplying Israel with more war planes.Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, renewed under Washington's sponsorship on September 2, broke down a few weeks later when Israel balked at renewing a settlement moratorium.Netanyahu met his top Forum of Seven" ministers a day after returning from a week-long U.S. tour that included talks on Thursday with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at which she unveiled the plan he showed his cabinet, the source said.Netanyahu hopes he may win approval for the plan from his pro-settler cabinet later this week, political sources said.Among the pledges offered to Israel by Washington, was a guarantee to veto any resolutions brought to the United Nations Security Council that seek to impose a political settlement on Israel,the source said, speaking on condition of anonymity.Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas had no immediate comment. Officials speaking on condition of anonymity said the Palestinian leader was likely to wait to see whether Israel approved the ideas before issuing any comment.
AN ADDITIONAL FREEZE
Under the plan Israel would declare an additional suspension of construction in the West Bank, land it captured from Jordan in a 1967 war, for 90 days. Building begun since a moratorium ended in September, would be halted, the source said.The proposed construction freeze would not include East Jerusalem, an area Israel has annexed as part of its capital in a move never recognized internationally and which Palestinians want as capital of any future state.Washington would also undertake to veto resolutions deemed anti-Israel in the U.N. Security Council and other international organizations, the source said, a pledge that could make Israel less vulnerable to threats made by some Palestinians to declare statehood unilaterally in the event that peace talks fail.The Obama Administration would also ask Congress to approve the supply of $3 billion worth of warplanes to Israel to maintain its qualitative edge in the region, the source said.The United States would further sign a more comprehensive deal to enhance its substantial security aid to Israel as part of any agreement concluded with the Palestinians.Israeli officials said Netanyahu, who faces a tough political sell within his own coalition on the settlement issue, had pushed Clinton for the broad understandings.The chances of reaching a peace agreement will be improved significantly by achieving comprehensive security understandings between Israel and the United States, Netanyahu said in New York before his talks with Clinton began.(Additional reporting by Ali Sawafta in Ramallah; Writing by Allyn Fisher-Ilan; Editing by Louise Ireland)
Comatose Sharon moved back to hospital
– Sat Nov 13, 6:29 pm ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – Former Israeli premier Ariel Sharon, who has lain in a coma for nearly five years, was taken back to hospital late Saturday after a brief stay at his home, public radio reported.Sharon was returned to hospital after having been brought back to his home at 'Sycamore Farm', southern Israel, for a trial period of just under 48 hours to see if he could be treated at home on a permanent basis.His family and the doctors treating him used the visit to test the medical equipment installed at his home to see if letting him return was practicable.The first trial period had gone perfectly, said doctors, the radio reported.Sharon will make another four such trips before he is allowed to settle in for treatment at his home on a permanent basis.On January 4, 2006, the premier suffered a massive stroke and slipped into a coma from which he has never recovered, leaving behind him a gaping political vacuum.
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