ISRAELIS STORM ARABS FINALLY

Israel's Olmert stands by settlement building By Adam Entous MAR 17,08

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Defying U.S. criticism, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert vowed on Monday not to stop building on occupied land in and around Jerusalem and said peace talks slowed by violence had resumed with the Palestinians. The United States has called Jewish settlement building near Jerusalem unhelpful and said neither Israel nor the Palestinians were doing nearly enough to meet their obligations under a long-stalled road map peace plan.

There are places in population centers and in Jerusalem where the reality will not be the same in the future as it is today. We are building in Jerusalem because everyone knows that there is no chance the state of Israel will give up on neighborhoods like Har Homa, Olmert told a news conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.Washington has been especially critical of Israeli plans to build hundreds of new homes in Har Homa, which Palestinians refer to as Jabal Abu Ghneim.Israel has also pushed ahead with some plans to build within major settlement blocs on land occupied in the 1967 Middle East war, arguing those areas would be part of the Jewish state under any future peace deal.

Palestinians see the building of Har Homa as the last rampart in a wall of settlements encircling Arab East Jerusalem, cutting it off from the rest of the West Bank.Israel has rejected criticism of building in Har Homa on the grounds that it annexed the land and placed it inside the Jerusalem city boundaries it drew after occupying the West Bank. That annexation is not recognized internationally.Despite the dispute, Olmert said the lead negotiators, Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and former Palestinian prime minister Ahmed Qurie, were resuming their talks.

The two met later on Monday at a Jerusalem hotel.

Israeli officials said Livni and Qurie had held an undisclosed meeting about 10 days ago, soon after a deadly Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip prompted Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to suspend the U.S.-backed talks.The talks have shown little sign of progress since they were launched at a peace conference in Annapolis, Maryland in November with the goal of trying to reach a statehood agreement before U.S. President George W. Bush leaves office next January.We have not stopped, we are not stopping and we will not give up, Olmert said of the talks.Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat declined to comment.

SUSPENSION LIFTED

Abbas had temporarily suspended the peace negotiations earlier this month after an Israeli offensive in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip killed more than 120 Palestinians, many of them civilians.Israel said the incursion was meant to counter cross-border rocket fire by militants.Livni, addressing Israel's parliament, said Israel would push forward on parallel tracks -- one aimed at reaching an agreement with Abbas; the other to fight militants.Terror should not and will not be an excuse for Israel not to enter the negotiation room. I expect the Palestinians not to use any Israeli action against terror in order to stay out of this room, Livni said. The road map calls on Israel to remove outposts built without government authorization in the West Bank and to halt all settlement activity in the territory. It demands that the Palestinians crack down on militants. Abbas, whose authority has been limited to the West Bank since Hamas Islamists seized Gaza in June, wants to reach a full-fledged agreement allowing him to declare statehood. Olmert has said the goal of the peace talks was to reach an understanding this year on basic principles for a Palestinian state, with implementation only once Abbas reined in militants in the West Bank and Gaza Strip as called for under the 2003 road map. (Additional reporting by Jeffrey Heller and Mohammed Assadi; Editing by Peter Millership)

Israeli, Palestinian negotiators meet in Jerusalem: official MAR 17,08

JERUSALEM (AFP) - Top Israeli and Palestinian negotiators met on Monday for the first time since the Palestinians suspended talks after an Israeli blitz on Gaza, an Israeli official said. Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and former Palestinian premier Ahmed Qorei held their meeting in Jerusalem, the official said on condition of anonymity.The last time the two met was on February 19, when Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and president Mahmud Abbas chaired a session of the Middle East peace talks renewed in late November to great fanfare under US stewardship.Abbas had suspended the talks on March 2 amid Israeli operations in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip in response to increased rocket fire, a massive assault that killed more than 130 Palestinians, including dozens of civilians.

During a subsequent visit to the region, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the two sides had agreed to resume negotiations, but new Israeli settlement projects in the occupied West Bank have since heightened tensions.The talks were officially restarted on Friday, when Palestinian prime minister Salam Fayyad and a senior Israeli defence ministry official met Lieutenant General William Fraser, a US envoy charged with overseeing the implementation of the 2003 roadmap peace blueprint.The internationally-drafted document calls on Israel to freeze settlement activity and the Palestinians to improve security in the territories, but on Friday both sides accused the other of shirking their obligations.Israeli settlement projects and continuing violence in the Gaza Strip, where Abbas's security forces were driven out by the rival Hamas movement in June, have repeatedly threatened to derail the peace negotiations.

Crowds trace Jesus' path on Palm Sunday By LAURIE COPANS, Associated Press Writer Sun Mar 16, 6:49 PM ET

JERUSALEM - Thousands of Christians from around the world celebrated Palm Sunday by walking the path they believe Jesus rode on his donkey as he entered Jerusalem days before his crucifixion.
The procession with the top Roman Catholic cleric in the Holy Land, Patriarch Michel Sabbah, started at the Bethphage Church, where tradition says Jesus mounted the donkey. Participants walked up to the Mount of Olives, then down to the ancient stone walls of the Old City.Marching pilgrims strummed guitars, some of them wearing I love Jesus shirts, as they braved unseasonable heat in the city.

Palm Sunday commemorates Jesus' followers shaking branches to greet him as he entered Jerusalem. The festivities mark the start of Holy Week when, according to the New Testament, Jesus was betrayed by Judas, crucified on Good Friday and then resurrected on Easter Sunday.Michelle Alignay, 28, a preschool teacher from San Diego, California, was visiting the Holy Land for the first time.All your life you grow up learning and now I am finally able to walk in the footsteps of Jesus and see where it all happened, Alignay said. It wasn't just a story.Even some Jewish Israelis joined the procession this year as part of a course they are taking called Between Judaism and Christianity. In the courtyard of the Bethphage Church, their Hebrew speech mixed with the Arabic of the Palestinian teenage scouts from the West Bank city of Ramallah.Israel granted the Palestinian scouts special permission to enter Jerusalem for the festivities. For many years, during the height of Israeli-Palestinian fighting, they were not allowed in, the scouts said.

Outside, hundreds of believers crowded the street, singing hymns.

Some pilgrims said they were wary of coming, concerned by recent bloodshed, including a Palestinian shooting attack earlier this month on a Jewish religious school in Jerusalem in which eight Israelis were killed, as well as violence in the Gaza Strip and southern Israel.Taxi drivers said Sunday the number of tourists showed that few had been scared away by the violence. The fighting that began in 2001 seriously damaged the local tourism industry, but it has rebounded in recent years.Israel's separation barrier, built to keep out suicide bombers, passes right next to the church's olive grove in the form of a cement wall, blocking the way some pilgrims used to walk from nearby Bethany, in the West Bank town of Azariya, to the holy sites in east Jerusalem. Palestinians complain it cuts Jerusalem off from the West Bank and takes some of their land.Christians believe that Jesus stopped in Bethany at the house of a leper on his way to Jerusalem.Sitting in the Bethphage Church's anemone-speckled field as an Israeli border police jeep sped by along the cement wall, tourist Maria Irene, 76, said she was making the procession with her sister for their 13th time.

Jesus is here. Here he saved humanity, said Irene, a retired doctor from Porto in northern Portugal. At home we pray every day for peace in Israel.

Israel test-fires missile to intercept Gaza rockets Sun Mar 16, 4:05PM ET

JERUSALEM (AFP) - Israel last week test-fired a missile capable of intercepting short-range rockets like those fired by Palestinian militants from the Gaza Strip, Channel 10 television reported Sunday. This weapons system will be operational in 2010, said General Dany Gotlib, who is in charge of research at the Israeli defence ministry.Television showed pictures of the test-firing which it said took place in southern Israel.In December the Israeli government earmarked more than 200 million dollars (140 million euros) for the development of an advanced defence system dubbed Iron Dome aimed at countering rocket fire from Gaza and Lebanon.

Israel's Rafael Advanced Defence Systems arms firm is developing the system which is capable of knocking down rockets with a range from 4-70 kilometres (2.5-43.4 miles), such as the homemade Qassam used by Palestinian militants.Iron Dome is part of a multi-layered defence system aimed at protecting Israel from short-range missiles and rockets fired by militants in Gaza or Lebanon, and longer-range missiles in the arsenals of regional foes Iran and Syria.The Israeli army has had little success in ending the nearly daily rocket fire from the Gaza Strip, which has killed 14 people in southern Israel since the start of the second Palestinian uprising in September 2000.

WELL THE ISRAELIS FINALLY PELTED ROCKS AT PALESTINIANS INSTEAD OF THE REVERSE ALL THE TIME. ISRAEL IS STARTING TO STICK UP FOR THEMSELVES, THE THIRD TEMPLE IS ON ITS WAY (ISHMALITES) ARAB MUSLIMS LOOKOUT.

Right-wing Israelis storm Arab area in Jerusalem Sun Mar 16, 1:25 PM ET

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Dozens of right-wing Jewish activists broke through an Israeli police barrier near an Arab neighborhood in East Jerusalem on Sunday and hurled stones at houses and cars, police and witnesses said. The activists entered the neighborhood of Jabal Mukaber, which was home to a Palestinian gunmen who earlier this month killed eight students at a Jewish seminary, the deadliest Palestinian attack on Israelis in two years.A number of individuals attempted to make their way inside Jabal Mukaber. Stones were thrown and arrests were made, said police spokesman MickyRosenfeld. No one was injured in the violence, he said.(Writing by Ari Rabinovitch; Editing by Ralph Boulton)

Cheney to Mideast with rich agenda on oil, peace By Tabassum Zakaria Sun Mar 16, 10:24 AM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Vice President Dick Cheney left on Sunday for the Middle East to raise concerns about high oil prices, push Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, and seek support for Iraq, where war began five years ago this week. Cheney, who has strong ties with leaders in the Middle East, will visit Oman, Saudi Arabia, Jerusalem, the Palestinian territories, and Turkey during a nine-day trip to the region.Clearly, our ongoing efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan will be discussed, John Hannah, national security adviser to Cheney, told reporters. Middle East peace, Iran, the situation in Syria, Lebanon, the violence in Gaza, energy -- it's a very long list and rich agenda.Cheney will reinforce the message from visits by President George W. Bush in January and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice earlier this month, in a stepped-up diplomatic push for Israelis and Palestinians to move forward on peace efforts dealt a blow by violence in Gaza and Israel.

The mood has deteriorated incredibly in the last six weeks since the president was there, Jon Alterman, director of the Middle East program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said.
From the outside it's very hard to see that Secretary Rice was able to even arrest the slide let alone get things moving forward. My guess is the vice president will be able to arrest the slide if not necessarily put things on track, he said.In Saudi Arabia, Cheney will discuss energy with King Abdullah as record-high oil prices strain the U.S. economy, but he was not expected to repeat the call by Bush for OPEC to increase production.I'm not sure he'll seek anything more than a good and thorough discussion about the current situation in the global energy markets, a senior administration official said.

ARAB ANCHOR

The United States wants Saudi Arabia, and other Arab allies like Egypt, to set up a diplomatic presence in Iraq by appointing an ambassador and opening an embassy in Baghdad.The United States can do a lot for Iraq, but we cannot provide Iraq with an anchor in the Arab world, a kind of legitimacy for the new Iraqi project that comes from being fully integrated in its neighborhood, the U.S. official said.And I think clearly some of our friends in the Arab world can do more on that score, he said on condition of anonymity.

But analysts were skeptical that Cheney would make any major breakthroughs.I don't think that he's going to be able to bring back anything meaningful because he's got nothing to offer, Steven Simon, a senior fellow for Middle Eastern studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, said.He represents a lame duck president, a floundering economy, a situation in which the U.S. for all its efforts in Iraq has no leverage on the government in Baghdad, Simon said.Cheney throughout his trip will discuss the situation in Iraq, where security has improved, but violence persists five years after the U.S.-led invasion.Bush will soon receive a new assessment from Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, and U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker, that he will weigh in deciding whether any changes to U.S. strategy are needed.Cheney will tell allies that the United States remains concerned about Iran's nuclear ambitions and would like to see its growing regional influence contained.

I expect in all of these countries that the challenge we face from Iran will be a very high topic of conversation, the U.S. administration official said. The message for Turkey, which has been fighting Kurdish rebels known as the PKK in northern Iraq, will be that the United States agrees the PKK is a terrorist organization that needs to be defeated, and will continue to support Turkey in addressing the problem, the official said. (Editing by Eric Walsh)

Germany's Merkel in Israel for 60th anniversary visit Sun Mar 16, 8:59 AM ET

TEL AVIV, Israel (AFP) - German Chancellor Angela Merkel arrived in Israel on Sunday at the start of a three-day visit to the Jewish state. The visit, coming nearly 60 years after Israel's creation, will see Merkel address the Israeli parliament, a first for a German chancellor.Merkel will also visit the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial to pay her respects to the six million Jews killed in the Nazi Holocaust.

Talk to Al-Qaeda, Taliban, Hamas: former top Blair aide Sat Mar 15, 10:24 AM ET

LONDON (AFP) - Western governments should talk to Islamist extremists including Al-Qaeda and the Taliban to end violence, one of former Prime Minister Tony Blair's closest aides said in comments published Saturday. It's very difficult for democratic governments to do -- talk to a terrorist movement that's killing your people, Blair's former chief of staff Jonathan Powell he told The Guardian in an interview.(But) if I was in government now I would want to have been talking to Hamas, I would be wanting to communicate with the Taliban and I would want to find a channel to Al-Qaeda.Powell, who was in the post throughout Blair's premiership from 1997 to 2007, is seen as having been a key behind-the-scenes figure in talks to bring about an end to sectarian violence in the British province of Northern Ireland.London had been in secret communication with the Irish Republican Army (IRA) since the 1970s, which had been a key factor in eventually securing a peace deal in 1998, he told the newspaper.He accepted though that there's nothing to say to Al-Qaeda and they've got nothing to say to us at the moment and there was also a problem of whom to talk to and about what.But at some stage you're going to have to come to a political solution as well as a security solution. And that means you need the ability to talk, he added.

The Foreign Office dismissed Powell's suggestion outright.

A spokesman told the newspaper: It is inconceivable that Her Majesty's Government would ever seek to reach a mutually acceptable accommodation with a terrorist organisation like Al-Qaeda.The Guardian said the government did communicate with Hamas for a time through one of its intelligence officers but now insists the Palestinian group recognises Israel and renounces violence before talks can resume.Prime Minister Gordon Brown has ruled out talking directly to the Taliban but its alleged efforts to open a dialogue with militants have apparently soured relations between London and Afghan.Two senior diplomats from the United Nations and European Union -- one British and the other Irish -- were expelled from Afghanistan late last year after contacting Taliban-linked insurgents in southern Helmand province.One of them, Michael Semple, defended their actions in an interview with The Guardian published February 16, saying: There isn't a serious actor in Afghanistan who says the only way forward is to fight your way out.

WHAT ELSE IS NEW THE BIBLE SAYS GERMANY WILL BE MARCHING WITH THE MUSLIMS AGAINST ISRAEL IN THE FUTURE IN EZEKIEL 38 + 39.

Germany to host conference on help for Palestinians Fri Mar 14, 5:06PM ET

BERLIN (AFP) - Berlin will host an international conference on assistance to the Palestinian police and judiciary at the start of June, a German foreign ministry spokesman said Friday. According to a statement from the ministry, Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas has welcomed the idea of the conference, which will look at ways to help authorities in the Palestinian territories prepare themselves for statehood.German Chancellor Angela Merkel will open the conference to help establish the rule of law in the Palestinian territories. Foreign ministers from Europe, the United States and Russia and UN and Arab delegates are invited.Merkel is due to visit Israel on Sunday and on Friday she talked to Abbas by telephone. The Palestinian leader briefed her on the state of the peace process between his authority and the Israeli government, the ministry said.Abbas asked the chancellor to bring up with Israel the question of Jewish settlement building, which considerably complicates bilateral negotiations and the application of the road map, according to the statement.The so-called road map was drawn up by Israel and the Palestinians under the auspices of the Quartet -- the United States, United Nations, European Union and Russia -- as a guide towards a two-state solution to their crisis.

It forsees an end to Palestinian militant attacks on Israel and an end to Israeli raids and settlement building on Palestinian land, but has seen scant progress since it was drawn up in 2003 amid ongoing violence.The peace process was further complicated when the radical Islamist group Hamas seized control of the Gaza Strip after fighting with Abbas' Fatah movement. Hamas and Israel do not recognise each other.Merkel in turn promised to brief Abbas on her return from the visit, which will be a first of its kind to involve several senior German ministers taking part in direct intergovernmental discussions, the statement continued.The chancellor will become the first German leader to address the Israeli parliament, the Knesset.

GERMANY MARCHES WITH RUSSIA - MUSLIMS IN WAVE 1 OFF WW3, AND CHINA MARCHES AGAINST ISRAEL IN WAVE 2 OF WW3 AFTER THE RUSSIA - MUSLIMS ARE DESTROYED.

China to supply crime-fighting gear to Palestinians Sat Mar 15, 9:58AM ET

RAMALLAH, West Bank (AFP) - China on Saturday reached a deal with the Palestinian Authority to supply crime-fighting equipment to West Bank security forces, a Chinese official said. What we signed today will give the Palestinians some emergency assistance for the security branches, Yang Wei Guo, the Chinese envoy to the Palestinian territories, told AFP.The agreement will see China supply vehicles, communications equipment and crime laboratories via the Jordanian border.Guo declined to comment on the total value of the contract.Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas has been working to bolster his security forces as part of the revived peace process, which among other things requires the Palestinians to improve security in the occupied territories.The peace talks were relaunched at a US conference in November but have made little progress since, with both sides accusing the other of failing to live up to prior agreements.

Islamic summit accuses Israel of war crimes: draft Fri Mar 14, 12:39PM ET

DAKAR (Reuters) - The world's largest Muslim body will accuse Israel of committing war crimes against Palestinian civilians, according to a draft of the final communique of an Islamic summit in Senegal seen by Reuters on Friday. The conference denounces the current and increasing Israeli military campaign against the Palestinian people and the serious violation of human rights and war crimes including the killing and injuring of Palestinian civilians,the draft said.It called Israel's collective punishment of civilians a violation of international human rights law and said the occupying forces must be held responsible for these war crimes.

The communique is due to be approved at the end of a two-day meeting in Dakar, Senegal, of the 57-nation Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC), the second largest inter-governmental bloc after the United Nations.(Reporting by Daniel Flynn and Lamine Ghami; Writing by Nick Tattersall)