HAMAS CALLS FOR TRUCE (RIGHT)

Israel test fires improved Patriot missile Wed Dec 19, 11:40 AM ET

JERUSALEM (AFP) - Israel successfully test fired an improved Patriot missile as part of efforts to upgrade the country's radar system following last year's war against Hezbollah, the army said on Wednesday.The test-firing was conducted on Tuesday in southern Israel as part of series of improvements conducted in the missile's operational system towards a new radar system that allows a wider cover and detection ranges.The experiment launched the missile at a target imitating an airplane flying on an operational mission.In August, it was reported that the Israeli air force was to buy advanced Patriot PAC-3 missiles, made in the United States and capable of intercepting aircraft and long-range ballistic missiles, to upgrade the air defence system.The Patriot PAC-3 was reportedly capable of intercepting missiles possessed by Syria, Israel's arch enemy to the north.The missile, weighing 320 kilos (700 pounds), increases the firepower of the Patriot battery, as 16 of them fit on a launcher, compared with four PAC-2s.Israel first deployed the Patriot system in 1991, when then Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein fired Scuds on the country during the first Gulf War.

Mideast peace in 2008 unlikely due to U.S. vote: Assad Wed Dec 19, 8:29 AM ET

VIENNA (Reuters) - Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said achieving Middle East peace in 2008 looked unrealistic because the United States would be preoccupied with the presidential election. Damascus attended a Middle East conference last month and the Annapolis meeting re-launched formal peace talks aimed at reaching agreement on Palestinian statehood by the end of 2008.It is perhaps too late to talk about peace in the last year of this U.S. administration. It will be preoccupied with elections, Assad said in an interview with Austrian daily Die Presse published on Wednesday.Annapolis was a one-day event. It will all depend on follow-up efforts. We have to be optimistic, although cautious. The United States presidential election is on November 4.Syria said the Annapolis meeting, attended by other Arab countries, revived its bid to recover the occupied Golan Heights from Israel although there were no direct talks between the two adversaries.

Assad said Syria and Israel went 80 percent of the way towards peace in talks on a handback of the Golan in 2000, before the talks collapsed.Now a referee is needed. The United States above all, naturally with support from the EU and U.N.. But without the U.S., nothing will work, he was quoted as saying.He said U.S. policy in the region, which Arabs have long regarded as misguided due to a perceived pro-Israel tilt, was changing in form although not yet in substance.Israel captured the Golan Heights during the 1967 Middle East war and later annexed it in a move not recognized internationally.(Reporting by Mark Heinrich; Editing by Robert Woodward)

Mideast Catholic leader says peace depends on Israel Wed Dec 19, 7:10 AM ET

JERUSALEM (AFP) - The Catholic leader in the Holy Land said on Wednesday in a Christmas message that peace depended on Israel and rejected the idea of a religious state on land revered by Christians, Jews and Muslims. To attain peace, it is necessary to believe that Israelis and Palestinians are equal in all things, that they have the same rights and the same duties, Latin Patriarch Michel Sabbah said in Jerusalem.The strong party, the one with everything in hand, the one who is imposing occupation on the other, has the obligation to see what is just for everyone and to carry it out courageously.Answering questions after reading out his Christmas message, Sabbah said Israelis and Palestinians were in a new phase after relaunching the peace process in the US city of Annapolis last month following a seven-year freeze.There is something new in this Annapolis. That the American administration is decided (to push for peace), though the decision will be taken by those who are here, Palestinians and Israelis, he said.And the one who will make the decision will be Israel. If Israel decides for peace, we will have peace, Sabbah said.The patriarch, who oversees Catholics in Cyprus, Israel, Jordan and the Palestinian territories, said the Holy Land was universal to Christians, Jews and Muslims, and that any state must recognise those claims.This land cannot be excluded for anyone... The land belongs to three religions, without excluding one religion or the other, he said.

That's why establishing a religious state, with a Jewish or Muslim religious character, would exclude the other religion and would treat unjustly the believers of other religions,he said.Israel wants the Palestinians to recognise the state's Jewish nature.
Palestinians refuse this, seeing it as de facto rejection of the right of return for refugees who fled when the state of Israel was created in 1948.Israelis fear that a massive return of Palestinian refugees would put the Jewish population -- currently 80 percent --in a minority.There is discrimination linked to the nature of the state. Israel says simply I am a Jewish state and that creates discrimination with regard to non Jews, said Sabbah, who was born in Nazareth, today in northern Israel.

Hamas calls for truce with Israel By SARAH EL DEEB, Associated Press Writer DEC 19,07

GAZA CITY, Gaza City - On Islam's most important holiday, the leader of Gaza's Hamas government appealed Wednesday for a cease-fire with Israel and said his people — battered by Israeli military strikes and international sanctions — are greeting this year's feast with tears in our eyes.Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's spokesman said there could be no deals with Hamas until it renounces violence and recognizes Israel, though one Cabinet minister said Israel might consider outside mediation with the Islamic militants.Israel and Hamas have never had direct contacts because of the group's violently anti-Israel ideology. But they have agreed to short truces negotiated by third parties.The appeal from Ismail Haniyeh, who heads the Hamas government in Gaza, came in a phone call to an Israeli TV reporter, said Hamas spokesman Taher Nunu. It followed a two-day air assault by Israeli forces that killed 12 Gaza militants, two from Hamas and 10 from Islamic Jihad.

Israel should stop its attacks and siege, Nunu said. Then a truce would be possible, and not unlikely.Hamas officials said they were working with other militant groups to try to stop the rocket fire into Israel and also sent overtures to Israel through unidentified third parties.Olmert's office would not confirm that such messages had arrived. His spokesman, Mark Regev, said there would be no negotiations until Hamas recognizes Israel, renounces violence and accepts existing peace agreements between Israel and the Palestinians. The Islamic militant group has never agreed to those conditions.On Tuesday, Olmert said the war against militants would not end and its leaders were in Israeli cross-hairs. We will get all those who are responsible for firing rockets, he said.Israel's president, Nobel Peace laureate Shimon Peres, released an unusually harsh statement opposing talks with Hamas. He called the Hamas overture a pathetic attempt to deflect world attention away from the crimes of Hamas and Islamic Jihad.But Cabinet minister Shaul Mofaz, a former army chief and defense minister, took a more conciliatory view.In an interview on Israel Army Radio, he said Israel might consider indirect contacts with Hamas to end the fighting.As long as rocket attacks persist, Israel will not for even one hour let up its attacks on Gaza militants, Mofaz said. But mediation is something we can think about, he added.At least one other Cabinet minister supports contacts with Hamas, but a clear majority, including Olmert, is opposed.Islamic Jihad spokesman Abu Hamza said Hamas has not approached his group about a cease-fire.This is not a time for truce, he told The Associated Press. We have to inflict revenge upon this criminal enemy. Israel's air assault was the most punishing since Hamas overran Gaza in June.After the Hamas takeover, Israel closed the borders to all but minimum essentials, and Egypt also shut its only crossing with Gaza. The result has been further hardship for the poverty-stricken territory.

Speaking at a sparsely attended Wednesday prayer gathering at a Gaza soccer stadium for the beginning of the Eid al-Adha festival, Haniyeh blamed Israel for the sour atmosphere, referring to Israel's latest air assault.The Palestinians greet the feast differently from the other Muslim nations — with martyrs, with members of resistance dying, because of the crimes of the Zionist occupation, he said. We greet it with tears in our eyes and sadness in our hearts.The Eid al-Adha festival commemorates the ancient story of Abraham and his readiness to sacrifice his son, rendered in the Quran as Ishmael, as an act of obedience to God, who provided a lamb to be offered instead. Main features of the holiday are slaughtering animals and giving gifts, but both have been curtailed this year because of shortages caused by the tight cordon around Gaza. Outside their home in the upscale Gaza City neighborhood of Rimal, the Hamad family gathered to slaughter a cow after prayers, using a small crane to lift the 880-pound animal. One-third of the meat is traditionally distributed to the needy. Although he paid 25 percent more for the cow than in the past, Alaa Hamad said he will give out more than the required third to poor neighbors. Poverty now is a general phenomenon, he said. Umm Ahmed Abu Assem, 50, said she had to sell her gold bracelet for $220 to buy her children a sheep to slaughter. There is so much shortage as it is, she said. People were trying to make do with what they have, substituting traditional feast staples with local goods. Chocolate has not been coming in, so strawberries abundant in the market because of an export ban — featured high in holiday handouts.