Monday, October 04, 2010

KORANS BURNED IN WEST BANK MOSQUE

PEACE TALKS
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Radio/News.aspx/2559

BIBI SAID HE IS IN OFFICE TO REBUILD THE THIRD TEMPLE BACK WHEN HE WAS ISRAELI PM BACK THEN.ITS NO ACCIDENT NOW THAT BIBI IS IN OFFICE WHEN ALL THE FAITHS WANTS A MOSQUE BUILT IN NY TO BE A INTERFAITH PEACE MISSION.THIS I BELIEVE WILL LEAD TO A INTERFAITH TEMPLE IN ISRAEL UNDER THE GUISE OF PEACE AMOUNG ALL RELIGIONS.NY HAS THE 2ND MOST ISRAELIS NEXT TO ISRAEL.IF NY WORKS AS A STARTUP INTERFAITH RELIGION IT WILL THEN BE DONE IN ISRAEL I BELIEVE,THE HEART OF ALL RELIGIONS.

Korans burnt in West Bank mosque attack
By Douglas Hamilton - 11AM OCT 4,10


BEIT FAJJAR, West Bank (Reuters) – Jewish settlers opposed to a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians were accused of setting fire to a mosque in the West Bank on Monday, burning the Koran and scrawling threats in Hebrew on its walls.

Mosques, we burn,said a warning scribbled at the door of the smoke-smudged mosque of Beit Fajjar south of Bethlehem on the day Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appealed for cool heads to avert the collapse of U.S.-brokered peace talks.The green-carpeted floor of the mosque was burned to a black crust in a dozen places where it was doused with kerosene and set alight at around three in the morning. A dozen copies of the Koran were scorched by the fire.Palestinians said settlers were behind the attack.The settlers' message is: terrorize the Palestinian people, said Mohammad Hussein, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, who came to inspect the damage and talk to the locals.Crimes like these do not terrorize the Palestinian people. On the contrary, such attacks will only embolden the Palestinian people and increase our determination to achieve all of our rights,he told Reuters after delivering a brief sermon.Violence could complicate U.S.-led efforts to prevent the collapse of Middle East peace talks launched just a month ago. They were plunged into crisis last week when a 10-month Israeli moratorium on building new houses in West Bank Jewish settlements expired.

PRICE TAG

Beit Fajjar is a dusty, jumbled village of stone-cutting mills on a dead-end road outside the sprawling Jewish settlement of Gush Etzion, which is closed to Palestinians.A Star of David symbol and the words Price Tag were found scrawled over the mosque's doorway. Militant settlers coined the slogan to warn of the cost of any threat to their presence.It was the fourth such attack since December and a very serious incident which we view with utmost gravity, said Israeli military spokeswoman Lieut. Colonel Avital Liebowitz.Investigators from the Israeli police and the army, which has controlled the occupied West Bank since 1967, collected forensic evidence at the scene including footprints and a slice of the burned carpet, and took statements from witnesses.On Saturday, the Palestinian leadership said the peace talks relaunched on September 2 but now in suspension could not resume until Israel halted settlement construction completely.Netanyahu said on Monday there were sensitive diplomatic contacts with the United States to try to save the talks.I advise everybody to be patient, responsible, cool-headed and, above all, quiet, he said in remarks aimed at ministers in his right-wing coalition which is dominated by pro-settler parties, including his own Likud.Young Palestinians smoking on the wide porch of the house of Abou Mohammad opposite the mosque scoffed at the idea of a peace deal creating a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza.

The peace talks are doomed from the start. There is no point in talking with the Jews, they are determined to build settlements,said Abou Mohammad.(Additional reporting by Mustafa Abu Ganeya and Joseph Nasr in Beit Fajjar, Ali Sawafta, Mohammed Assadi and Tom Perry in Ramallah, Ori Lewis in Jerusalem; Writing by Douglas Hamilton and Jeffrey Heller; Editing by Angus MacSwan)

Israeli ministers oppose fresh moratorium: report
by Steve Weizman - OCT 4,10


JERUSALEM (AFP) – Attempts by Washington to entice Israel into extending a settlement moratorium look set to meet fierce opposition from coalition hardliners, a newspaper poll of cabinet ministers showed on Monday.Renewing the ban on building new settler homes in the occupied West Bank appears to be key to salvaging peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians, who say they will walk out if construction continues.Findings from the poll published in the Yediot Aharonot newspaper indicate that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will struggle to convince his coalition to back a reported US deal offering security and other guarantees in exchange for a 60-day extension of the settlement curbs.Peace talks with the Palestinians, which began a month ago, are facing imminent collapse over Israel's refusal to renew the freeze, which expired on September 26.Since then, Washington has been working around the clock to lure Israel into renewing the freeze and thereby convince the Palestinians to stick with the fledgling negotiations.We are in the midst of a process of delicate diplomatic contacts with the American administration in an effort to find a solution that will enable the talks to continue, Netanyahu told reporters at the start of a weekly cabinet meeting on Monday. He did not elaborate.

The Washington Institute for Near East policy, a respected US think-tank, reported last week that US President Barack Obama had offered a string of assurances to Israel in return for a two-month moratorium extension.The writer, David Makovsky, is head of the institute's programme on Middle East peace efforts and considered close to senior White House advisor Dennis Ross, with whom he has co-authored a book on the subject.US officials indicate that the document makes commitments on issues ranging from current peace and security matters to future weapons deliveries in the event that peace-related security arrangements are reached, Makovsky wrote.Netanyahu has not confirmed or denied the story, to which he appeared to allude in his comments on Monday.I am not able to deny every baseless report that is published in the media, he said.Cabinet colleagues say that they have not been made privy to Netanyahu's dealings with Obama and could not confirm the existence of the reported US proposal.If there was such an offer we don't know about it officially, only through newspaper reports, Environment Minister Gilad Erdan told reporters as he arrived for the cabinet session.The prime minister has made it clear that there has so far been no decision, and if there is a decision he will update cabinet ministers, Erdan added.Although Netanyahu is reportedly willing to comply with Washington, he faces fierce resistance from within his coalition government, which is made up largely of far-right and religious parties who strongly back Jewish settlement of the occupied West Bank.Of the 30 ministers in the cabinet, 15 oppose any renewal of the partial freeze, the newspaper poll said.Another eight said they would back such a move, with the remaining seven undecided, the poll found, meaning that even if Netanyahu managed to sway those sitting on the fence he would still need to turn one of his 15 opponents.

I personally object, obviously, to continuing the freeze,Erdan told reporters. An additional freeze is in essence giving up in advance on communities in which we believe that Jews have a right settle.The Yediot Aharonot survey showed that eight of the 15 members of the powerful security cabinet were against any move to halt West Bank construction, with four in favour and three undecided. It was that panel which approved the original 10-month moratorium in November last year. Social Services Minister Isaac Hertzog told reporters that he had asked Netanyahu to open the issue for debate when the security cabinet convenes on Wednesday.Defence Minister Ehud Barak, who has played a key role in mediating the dispute with Washington, is said to back a renewal of the freeze, while the tough-talking Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman is opposed.

Israeli Supreme Court rebukes Irish Nobel laureate By AISHA MOHAMMED, Associated Press Writer - OCT 4,10

JERUSALEM – An Irish Nobel peace laureate called Israel an apartheid state during a deportation hearing before the country's Supreme Court Monday, prompting a rebuke from a justice who told her to keep her propaganda to herself.Israel has banned Mairead Corrigan Maguire, 66, from entering the country because of her attempt to breach the Gaza naval blockade aboard a vessel in June.She was detained last Tuesday after landing at the airport in Tel Aviv on her way to meet Israeli and Palestinian peace activists. But she appealed the move and asked the Supreme Court to allow her into Israel to join a women's human rights delegation.During Monday's hearing, Maguire, her face pale and twitching, called on Israel to cease what she called its apartheid policy against the Palestinian people.This is no place for propaganda, Justice Asher Grunis retorted and cut her off. The session ended soon thereafter.The government opposed a court-proposed compromise that Maguire be allowed to join the delegation for two days and then leave. The court was expected to rule later Monday.

Maguire's lawyers said they expect her to be deported, another decision that could further tarnish Israel's image abroad. Interior ministry officials say Maguire knew she would not be allowed into the country but sought to provoke an incident.Upon entering the courtroom, Maguire said to reporters: There will be peace in this country, but only after Israel ends apartheid and the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people.Fellow Nobel laureate Jody Williams of the Nobel Women's Initiative, which sponsored the delegation, said they were unaware of the ban. But earlier in the year, Israel's Foreign Ministry denied the group's appeal to ease the ban and let Maguire take part in the delegation that arrived last week.The activist won the peace prize in 1976 for her efforts to end sectarian violence in Northern Ireland. She has since become a marginal political figure at home and turned most of her attention in recent years to the Palestinian cause.She has voiced support for Israeli nuclear whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu, a man widely seen in Israel as a traitor, attended anti-Israel demonstrations in the West Bank and compared the Jewish state's reported nuclear arsenal to Hitler's gas chambers.In 2007, she was wounded at a demonstration against Israel's West Bank security barrier when a rubber bullet fired by police hit her in the leg.Israel has banned other pro-Palestinian activists from entering the country, including Jewish-American linguist Noam Chomsky in May. The government later said that was a mistake.

Palestinians want to keep peace talks alive: US envoy
by Ahmad Khatib – Sun Oct 3, 3:29 pm ET


AMMAN (AFP) – The Palestinians want peace talks with Israel to continue, US envoy George Mitchell insisted on Sunday, as he visited Egypt and Jordan in a last-ditch effort to salvage fledgling direct negotiations.Despite their differences, both the government of Israel and the Palestinian Authority have asked us to continue these discussions in an effort to establish the conditions under which they can continue direct negotiations, Mitchell told reporters after meeting Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.They both want to continue these negotiations, they do not want to stop the talks, he added.The Middle East envoy, who has been touring the region since Tuesday, flew to Amman from Cairo on Sunday, in his effort to rescue the faltering peace process.The US-backed negotiations, which began on September 2, have been on the brink of collapse since Israel refused to extend a 10-month moratorium on new settler homes in the West Bank that expired a week ago.The Palestine Liberation Organisation, an umbrella group that includes most Palestinian factions except the militant Hamas, on Saturday urged president Mahmud Abbas to withdraw from the talks over continued Israeli settlement construction.The resumption of negotiations requires tangible steps from Israel and the international community beginning with a halt of settlement activity, the PLO said.Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reacted by urging Abbas to continue the peace talks without a break with the aim of reaching a historic accord in a year.In Amman, Abbas met Jordanian King Abdullah II on Sunday, and insisted that Israel should freeze settlement building before he returns to peace talks.

Of course we will not stop contacts with the Americans, a palace statement quoted him as saying following the talks.We will continue to communicate with them to find a solution to the Israeli settlements problem, which should stop before we go back to the negotiations.Abbas has said he would not make a final decision on the talks until after meeting Arab foreign ministers in Libya on Friday, giving US mediators another few days to try to strike a compromise.Israel refused to renew a freeze on the settlement building, and we could not continue the talks. So now, there is a problem and we will follow up on through Arab coordination, he added in Jordan.Seeking to break the deadlock, Mitchell met Netanyahu in Jerusalem and Abbas in Ramallah on Friday, before flying to Qatar, Egypt and Jordan, where he briefed the king on US peace efforts, the palace said.We are pursuing this effort continuing discussions today, in the past several days and in the next several days with the two parties, with other leaders in the region, in Europe and elsewhere, including the members of the (Mideast) Quartet, Mitchell said in Cairo.Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit underlined his government's support for the Palestinian position, which requires favourable conditions in order to pursue direct negotiations.At this precise moment, the conditions are not conducive, he said, adding: We have asked the United States to continue their efforts.The Palestinians have long viewed the presence of some 500,000 Israelis in more than 120 settlements scattered across the West Bank and annexed east Jerusalem as a major obstacle to the establishment of a viable state.

The international community considers the settlements to be illegal. Highlighting another challenge facing the faltering peace talks, an Israeli border guard on Sunday killed a Palestinian labourer who was trying to cross from the West Bank into east Jerusalem.The 38-year-old father of five, who worked in Israel illegally, was detained and tried to grab the gun of the guard who then shot him dead, an Israeli police official said.The Palestinians have demanded east Jerusalem -- occupied by Israel since 1967 -- as the capital of their future state. Alongside Jewish settlements, the city's future status remains one of the most intractable issues in the Middle East conflict.

Syria says only Turkey can act as mediator with Israel
– Sun Oct 3, 2:55 pm ET


DAMASCUS (AFP) – Foreign Minister Walid Muallem said on Sunday that only Turkey can act as an intermediary in any indirect peace negotiations between Syria and Israel.
Turkey has shown itself to be an honest intermediary. Indirect talks must therefore be under Turkish mediation, and begin in Turkey at the point where they stopped in December 2008 when Israel attacked the Gaza Strip, he said.He ruled out any country other than Turkey being involved in indirect talks, telling reporters: Any efforts by other parties will consist of helping the Turkish role.Muallem was speaking on the sidelines of a Syrian-Turkish ministerial meeting in the northern port of Lattakia.Turkey began mediating in May 2008 between Syria and Israel, primarily focusing on the Golan Heights plateau Israel occupied in the 1967 Six-Day War and later annexed.Four rounds of indirect talks lasted just over six months until they were broken off by Israel's turn-of-the-year offensive against the Islamist Hamas-ruled Gaza enclave.Since then, Turkey's ties with Israel, previously a close regional ally, have badly deteriorated amid vehement criticism from Ankara of the Jewish state's heavy-handed policies against the Palestinians.Israel's relations with Ankara chilled even further when Israeli commandos attacked a ferry carrying humanitarian aid to Gaza on May 31, killing nine Turkish activists.

Muallem said Syria-Turkey relations form the basis for stability in the Middle East, and were an example to follow.He said it had been decided to establish a four-nation cooperation council that also includes Jordan and Lebanon.Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu told a news conference that Ankara and Damascus wanted to increase their cooperation with Amman and Beirut in order to attract investment to the region.
I am sure that such cooperation will help in finding solutions to the problems of the region, he said.Syrian Deputy Vice President Mohammed Hassan Turkmani told the news conference both countries would work to make the Middle East prosperous and stable.We share with Turkey a common political vision: we want to contribute to guarantee stability and security in the region,Turkmani said.

Egypt, Jordan back Palestinians on settlements By SARAH EL DEEB, Associated Press Writer – Sun Oct 3, 12:50 pm ET

CAIRO – Key U.S. Mideast allies Egypt and Jordan backed on Sunday the Palestinian refusal to negotiate with Israel as long as it continues to build West Bank settlements, but they urged more efforts to salvage peace talks mediated by Washington.U.S. Mideast envoy George Mitchell held separate meetings with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in Cairo and Jordanian King Abdullah II in Amman.We understand the Palestinian position which calls for setting the appropriate environment and circumstances for negotiations to take place and continue, Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit said after Mubarak met Mitchell. The current conditions are not favorable.Israel refused last week to extend its 10-month moratorium on new construction in West Bank settlements, throwing the month-old peace talks into doubt because Palestinians have repeatedly threatened to quit if building resumes.Aboul Gheit said the focus now should be on continued U.S. and international efforts to pressure Israel to extend the moratorium.Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas says there is no point negotiating as long as settlements are eating up the land the Palestinians want for a future state. On Saturday, senior Palestinian officials backed Abbas refusal and said they are now considering alternatives to the direct negotiations if Israel doesn't budge.In Jordan, Abdullah met separately with Mitchell and Abbas and he said Israel's refusal to stop settlements undermines peacemaking. But he stopped short of calling on the Palestinians to end negotiations.

A Royal Palace statement said Abdullah told Abbas that you have Jordan's full support for the establishment of a Palestinian state, which requires an end to Israel's unilateral actions ... primarily settlement building. Another palace statement said Abdullah told Mitchell that the U.S. role was crucial for peacemaking to continue.Mitchell and the leaders discussed the impasse ahead of an Arab League later this week where Palestinians are expected to come to a decision on whether to continue talks with Israel.Abbas told reporters in Jordan he will continue contacts with the Obama administration to press Israel on settlements.Certainly, we will not cut our relations with the Americans and we will continue our contacts to ensure that settlements stop in order for (direct) talks to resume, Abbas said.The first direct Israeli-Palestinian peace talks in two years were launched last month in Washington. The two sides then met face-to-face in Egypt and Jerusalem but disagreements over the settlement building curb derailed the negotiations, which are to address the borders of a future Palestinian state, the political status of Jerusalem and the fate of Palestinian refugees.Now, Mitchell is back to speaking separately with all the parties and consulting regional players to save the floundering process.We knew when we began these efforts that there will be a lot of difficulties and obstacles, Mitchell said after meeting Mubarak. Despite the differences, both the government of Israel and the Palestinian authority asked us to continue these discussions and efforts.However, Saturday's unanimous decision by dozens of senior members of the Palestine Liberation Organization and Abbas' Fatah movement makes compromise increasingly unlikely.There will be no negotiations as long as settlement building continues, senior Abbas aide Nabil Abu Rdeneh said after the three-hour meeting at Abbas' headquarters.Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said he is serious about reaching a deal within a year and has accused the Palestinians of wasting precious time over secondary issues.

Palestinian leaders said they will now begin to study alternatives, should talks collapse, and step up efforts to reconcile with the Islamic militant Hamas, which seized control of Gaza by force from Abbas in 2007. The Islamic militant group has repeatedly called on the Palestinian leader to quit the talks, saying they were futile. On Sunday, the leader of the Hamas government in Gaza, Ismail Haniyeh, praised the decision to refuse to negotiate while settlement construction continued, saying Palestinian national reconciliation should take precedent.But Haniyeh also stressed that the decision must be followed up to show that it is not just a tactic but is a genuine desire to ... work according to a unified national agenda.

Arab League to hold meeting key to peace talks on Friday
– Sat Oct 2, 2:10 pm ET


CAIRO (AFP) – The Arab League will hold a meeting next Friday seen as key to saving Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, ahead of a summit in Libya, an official told AFP.
It has been decided that the Arab committee for peace will meet on October 8 in the Libyan city of Sirte, Ahmed bin Hilli, the Arab League's deputy secretary general, said on Saturday.Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas plans to announce at the meeting if he will carry out a repeated threat to walk out of the US-backed peace talks over Israeli settlement building in the occupied West Bank.The gathering was initially planned for Monday but was first pushed back to Wednesday to give the United States a chance to rescue the peace talks that resumed on September 2.Cairo then asked that the meeting be postponed again because October 6 is a public holiday in Egypt.Arab foreign ministers are due to meet in Sirte on October 8 to prepare for an summit to be held the following day.Their meeting with Abbas comes amid international efforts to get both the Israeli and Palestinian sides to continue the negotiations.US Middle East envoy George Mitchell and EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton shuttled between Jerusalem and Ramallah on Friday in a bid to keep the fledgling talks going.

Abbas had repeatedly warned he would pull out of the talks if Israel did not extend a 10-month freeze on the building of Jewish settlements in the West Bank after it expired on September 26.Israel refused to extend the moratorium, with Abbas since saying that he would reserve a final decision on Palestinian involvement in the peace talks until after he confers with Arab foreign ministers.

No breakthrough in US efforts to save talks: Palestinians
– Fri Oct 1, 10:38 am ET


RAMALLAH, Palestinian Territories (AFP) – There has been no breakthrough in talks to salvage peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians, a top Palestinian official told AFP on Friday after two days of meetings with US and EU officials.The American efforts are ongoing but there has been no breakthrough so far because Israel is pursuing settlement activities, said Nabil Abu Rudeina, spokesman for president Mahmud Abbas.President Abbas made it clear to Senator (George) Mitchell that no negotiations will take place as long as the settlement activities are ongoing, he said after Abbas held his second meeting with the US envoy in 24 hours.

Mitchell arrived in the region on Tuesday and has been engaged in four days of intense diplomatic activity in a bid to resolve a looming crisis over Israeli settlement building on occupied Palestinian land.Peace negotiations began just four weeks ago, but Israel's decision not to extend a ban on building new Jewish homes in the West Bank -- which expired on Sunday -- has brought the talks to crisis point.
Yasser Abed Rabbo, a senior leader with the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), told AFP that Israel's insistence on building more settler homes on land the Palestinians want for a future state was tantamount to a rejection of the peace talks.Our position has not changed. We consider that Israel's insistence on pursuing settlement activities amounts to a rejection of the negotiations and we hold them responsible for that,he said.

Hamas leader: Arafat urged attacks on Israel By KARIN LAUB and DAN PERRY, Associated Press Writers – Fri Oct 1, 3:17 am ET

RAMALLAH, West Bank – It has been 10 years since Palestinians began an uprising that swept away peace talks, triggered a ferocious reaction by the Jewish state and left thousands dead on both sides.Exactly why it happened just as Palestinian statehood seemed attainable is a mystery, fed by conspiracy theories and competing narratives from across the political spectrum.This week comes an intriguing twist: One of the leading figures in Hamas seems to confirm that Yasser Arafat was playing a double game — encouraging Islamic militants to attack inside Israel while publicly insisting he was trying to stop the violence.Some suggest Hamas strongman Mahmoud Zahar may be exaggerating, but his comments could help shape the legacy of the Palestinian leader. To many in Israel and elsewhere, the late Arafat remains an arch-terrorist who fooled the world into considering him a peacemaker. Others lionize him as an iconic — if flawed — visionary who dedicated his life to forging demoralized Palestinians into a determined, proud nation.As head of the Palestine Liberation Organization, Arafat struck a historic deal with Israeli Premier Yitzhak Rabin and then-Foreign Minister Shimon Peres in 1993, under which the Palestinians received autonomous control over parts of the West Bank and Gaza, territories Israel captured in the 1967 war. The three shared the Nobel Peace Prize in 1994.

The so-called Oslo accords were an interim arrangement, and seven years later another Israeli leader, Ehud Barak, was offering Arafat statehood on the majority of the two territories. But Barak's proposed borders — and especially his formula for sharing Jerusalem and refusal to allow Palestinian refugees to return to Israel — fell short of Palestinian expectations.Now, Zahar has been quoted by Hamas-affiliated newspapers as telling Gaza City students that when Arafat realized negotiations were failing, he recommended to Hamas to carry out a number of military operations in the heart of the Hebrew state.A student leader confirmed the reports of the closed-door session published Thursday in the Al Risala and Felesteen newspapers.Zahar could not be reached for comment by The Associated Press, but he appeared to publicly confirm the statement in an interview with a Hamas TV station broadcast Thursday.Arafat realized that negotiations without claws will produce nothing, Zahar said. Arafat sensed the importance of resistance on the negotiation table, and that it's one of the tools to face occupation. Therefore, he worked to use it to his advantage.Other Hamas leaders refused to discuss the statements on the record, and several privately expressed displeasure but did not deny them.It was not clear when Arafat's supposed urgings took place. But Zahar's statements to the students were made Tuesday — the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 28, 2000, eruption of violence that became known as the second intifada. The first intifada broke out in December 1987, when the West Bank and Gaza were under full military occupation.

On the surface, this second uprising grew out of Palestinian protests against a visit to a contested Jerusalem shrine by Israeli nationalist Ariel Sharon. Known to Muslims as Haram as-Sharif and to Jews as the Temple Mount, the hilltop compound is a flash point in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Home to the Al Aqsa Mosque and gold-capped Dome of the Rock, it is Islam's third holiest shrine. Jews revere it as the location of the two biblical Jewish temples, making it Judaism's holiest site.
According to this version, it was Israel's deadly overreaction to those protests — six Palestinians were killed on the first day along with an Israeli officer — that led to a spiral of violence neither Arafat nor Barak, who lost elections to Sharon a few months later, could tame.Like many Israelis, Sharon's longtime spokesman Raanan Gissin believes the Palestinians used the Sharon visit as a pretext to launch a revolt and said Israeli intelligence at the time confirmed Zahar's statement.What Zahar said is true, Gissin told The Associated Press.Israeli intelligence knew that Arafat wanted to initiate violence because talks failed over Jerusalem, he said. Everything was in place for Arafat (and even) if Sharon wouldn't have gone there, something else would have triggered it.Veteran Arafat aide and peace negotiator Nabil Shaath rejected Zahar's assertions. Arafat refused to surrender to the Israeli and American positions, but only supported nonviolent resistance,he said. I witnessed many instances in which he tried to stop military confrontations.Others say reality was not clear-cut, and use careful, oblique terms. In a 2007 memoir, Arafat aide Marwan Kanafani wrote: After the start of the intifada, (Arafat) provided assistance for all the organizations that participated in the uprising, including Hamas.Within days of the start of fighting, Arafat's Fatah formed a violent offshoot, the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, whose gunmen carried out scores of shooting attacks on Israelis, mainly in the West Bank. Militants later said they were indirectly bankrolled by Arafat, but did not receive orders from him. Hamas, Arafat's main political rival, launched the first of what would be scores of intifada suicide bombings on the first day of 2001.Arafat and his aides usually distanced themselves from attacks in public, occasionally issuing condemnations which were received with increasing skepticism by Israelis.Some suspect Zahar may be exaggerating, perhaps trying to suggest there was consensus about a strategy that many Palestinians now believe to have backfired.

From what I knew of Yasser Arafat, he was basically a terrorist, but he was careful not to give direct orders, because he knew we were on his tail, said Uzi Dayan, a former general and national security adviser to two Israeli premiers during the uprising.Avi Issacharov, an Israeli journalist who co-authored a book about the uprising, went further: Arafat wasn't in favor of suicide attacks. He didn't demand, he didn't order, he didn't recommend them. Either way, by the end of 2006, more than 4,200 Palestinians and more than 1,100 Israelis, most victims of suicide attacks, were dead.The intifada waned after Arafat's death in November 2004, and the election of Mahmoud Abbas, an outspoken opponent of violence, as his successor.Perry reported from Tel Aviv. Associated Press writers Ibrahim Barzak in Gaza City, Diaa Hadid and Ian Deitch in Jerusalem, and Mohammed Daraghmeh in Ramallah contributed to this report.

Mitchell says striving intensively to rescue Mideast talks
– Thu Sep 30, 8:54 am ET


RAMALLAH, Palestinian Territories (AFP) – US Middle East envoy George Mitchell said on Thursday he would strive intensively in the next few days to rescue Israeli-Palestinian peace talks from the brink of collapse.Speaking to reporters after about two hours of talks with Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas, Mitchell did not disclose details of their conversation, but said the two would meet again on Friday.

We are determined to continue our efforts to find common ground between the parties to enable the direct negotiations to continue, Mitchell said. We will continue our efforts intensively in the coming days.

U.N. rights body backs critique of Gaza flotilla raid
By Robert Evans – Wed Sep 29, 1:38 pm ET


GENEVA (Reuters) – The United Nations Human Rights Council Wednesday endorsed a fiercely critical report on Israel's raid on a Gaza aid flotilla in May but stopped short of pressing for an international criminal inquiry.It also renewed the mandate of separate investigation team that has been looking into whether Israelis and Palestinians have been properly investigating alleged rights abuses during the 3-week Gaza conflict in 2008-2009.But there was no indication in two separate resolutions tabled at the 47-nation council by the Organization of Islamic States (OIC) that Israel's critics were aiming to have it taken soon before the International Criminal Court (ICC).That possibility was raised Tuesday by a British judge on the council-appointed team that investigated the flotilla raid on May 31, in which nine pro-Palestinian activists, mainly Turks, were killed by Israeli commandos.Palestinian rights campaigners in Geneva for the council session told reporters that they wanted Israel taken immediately to the ICC over the Gaza fighting in December 2009 and January 2009, in which more than 1,400 Palestinians died.But diplomats said both resolutions appeared to take heed of public and private appeals from Western countries and the Palestinian Authority to avoid any action that would create new difficulties for the renewed Middle East peace process.

DISCUSSION NEXT YEAR

However, the two texts, passed easily in the council where Islamic states and their allies who include Russia and China, have a majority, did call for new discussion on both issues at its session in March and April next year.This left open the possibility that a firm move to have Israel put before the ICC, an action that would have to be endorsed in the U.N. Security Council, could be launched then if the already troubled peace talks lead nowhere.The United States, the main promoter of the latest round of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, voted against the two texts from the 57-nation OIC, saying nothing should be done that would spoil the prospects for peace.The flotilla raid report, presented to the council on Tuesday, said Israel had committed grave violations of human rights law and international humanitarian law in the incident, in international waters off Gaza.Israel, which maintains a blockade against Islamist Hamas-controlled Gaza, says pro-Palestinian activists on one of the ships aiming to deliver humanitarian supplies to the enclave, died when they attacked its commandoes.The raid resolution, presented by Pakistan for the OIC and effectively calling on Israel to try troops guilty of violence, was passed in the 47-nation council with 30 votes in favor, one -- the United States -- against, and 15 abstentions.The seven European Union members on the body abstained, joining the United States in saying that the text failed to recognize that another flotilla inquiry set up by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon took primacy.(Editing by Alison Williams)