Israel arrests 30 in West Bank refugee camp APR 30,08
NABLUS (AFP) - Israeli troops arrested 30 Palestinians in an operation early Wednesday in a refugee camp in the northern West Bank town of Nablus, a Palestinian security official said. An Israeli army spokeswoman said troops had detained 13 people in the raid, which she described as a routine arrest operation targeting wanted men.The Palestinian official, who asked not to be named, showed the names of 30 people he said were arrested to an AFP correspondent.Residents of Askar camp said troops entered the camp before dawn in some 30 armoured jeeps, searched several houses and questioned residents on the streets.Those arrested included members of the Islamist movement Hamas, Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas's Fatah party and ordinary citizens, residents said.Abbas's forces have been carrying out a security crackdown in Nablus since November as part of renewed peace talks with Israel.But the Israeli army still regularly operates in every part of the occupied West Bank and carries out operations in Nablus on an almost nightly basis.
Study: Israel can remove 10 key West Bank checkpoints By KARIN LAUB, Associated Press Writer APR 30,08
RAMALLAH, West Bank - Israel should remove 10 major West Bank checkpoints to give a badly needed boost to the Palestinian economy, a group of Israeli ex-generals and Palestinian officials said in a joint report Wednesday. Removing the roadblocks would not compromise security for Israel, but they cause major disruptions to Palestinian trade and movement, said the report. Its authors include two former chiefs of Israel's military government in the West Bank.The report comes just days after the World Bank warned that the Palestinian economy is not likely to grow this year, largely due to continued Israeli restrictions on movement, despite massive foreign aid.Representatives of donor countries will meet in London later this week to review the aid effort — $7.7 billion pledged over three years. The bank warned that more aid may be needed if the Palestinian economy doesn't recover from several years of downturn. A recovery depends on easing restrictions, the bank said.
Israel says it's willing, in principle, to ease restrictions, but Palestinian militants still pose a threat. A hasty removal of checkpoints could lead to more attacks, which would then harm peace efforts, Israel argues.Israel erected a network of hundreds of roadblocks, dirt mounts and gates after the outbreak of Israeli-Palestinian fighting in 2000. It insists it's still the most effective way to deter militants.However, Wednesday's study said Israel could ease up without compromising security.While there was once a serious security need for checkpoints and roadblocks, this need is diminishing with time, the study said. The checkpoints and roadblocks policy, however, has not changed accordingly.A removal of checkpoints is in Israel's long-term interest because it would help defuse Palestinian resentment and improve the standard of living, said one of the authors, Israeli reserve Brig. Gen. Ilan Paz, who headed the West Bank's military government from 2002-2005.
If Israel wants the Palestinian economy to improve ... we have to change the reality in the West Bank, said Paz. We want to create a light at the end of the tunnel for the Palestinians, so they won't search for revenge or hatred against the Israelis.The six-member group, which also included three senior Palestinian government officials, said the majority of West Bank roadblocks should be removed, arguing they've become unnecessary with the construction of Israel's separation barrier in the West Bank. The barrier, expected to stretch about 500 miles is two-thirds complete.However, the report noted that a blanket removal is currently unrealistic owing to the strength of opposition made by the Israeli security forces and the Jewish settlers centering around security considerations, the report said.Instead, the group focused on 10 checkpoints that Palestinian officials said are particularly harmful to trade. The list included three checkpoints around Nablus, the West Bank's second largest city and a former militant stronghold.In recent months, the Palestinian government tried to assert control in Nablus, deploying security forces and trying to get gunmen off the streets. Israel has portrayed the deployment as a good start, but said the Palestinian Authority needs to do more. In the meantime, Israeli troops carry out almost nightly arrest raids in the city.
The study said the Nablus checkpoints can be removed, provided Israeli and Palestinian forces step up coordination and Palestinian forces heighten their activity in the city.Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev reiterated that Israel is taking some risks but does not want to be hasty. We have an obligation to protect our people from a very real terrorist threat that exists in the West Bank, he said.In other developments, Israeli troops on Wednesday shut down a women's sewing cooperative run by the Islamic Charitable Association, the largest Islamic charity in the West Bank city of Hebron.The Israeli military says the charity is a Hamas front, and that it funds violent activity against Israel. The military has ordered all of the charity's operations closed, including private schools, among them a boarding school for children from disadvantaged homes. The charity denies it's linked to Hamas. Israel closed other offices of the charity earlier this year. That closure came after two Hamas members from the city carried out a suicide bombing that killed an Israeli. Hamas advocates Israel's destruction, and the group violently seized power in the Gaza Strip last year. Both Israel and the moderate Palestinians rulers of the West Bank fear Hamas will try to wrest control of the West Bank as well. Associated Press writer Diaa Hadid contributed to this report from Jerusalem.
YES THESE SOLDIERS BETTER LEARN ABOUT THE HOLOCAUST, BECAUSE THE GREATEST IS YET TO COME AS REVELATION CHAPTER 12 TELLS US.
Israeli soldiers urged to study Holocaust by Charly Wegman
APR 30,08
KIBBUTZ LOHAMEY HAGETAOT, Israel (AFP) - At a kibbutz founded by survivors of the Nazi death camps, Israel's top brass has urged soldiers to learn the lessons of the Holocaust to better protect the Jewish people. The Nazis had vowed to annihilate the Jewish people ... every Jew is a Holocaust survivor, said army chief of staff Lieutenant General Gaby Ashkenazi, before flying to Poland to pay tribute to the Jews who led the 1943 Warsaw ghetto uprising 65 years ago.Ashekenazi's comments were made at a gathering of top military officers and survivors at a kibbutz in northern Israel ahead of Holocaust Remembrance Day, which starts at sunset on Wednesday.The army must protect the Jewish people as well as their state which some still want to destroy, Ashkenazi told the 24 generals assembled at Lohamey Hagetaot kibbutz, whose name recalls the fighters of the Warsaw Ghetto.Educating soldiers about the Holocaust, when more than six million Jews perished in the Nazi concentration camps, was a crucial part of military training, he said.
Teaching about the Holocaust is imperative for the rank and file of the army. We want to preserve and pass on the memories (of the Holocaust) before the last witnesses die, said Brigadier General Elie Shermeister, head of the army's education department.Holocaust instruction will be expanded and groups of new army recruits will travel to the sites of the death camps and other memorials, including the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem.At the kibbutz, which was was founded in 1949 by Holocaust survivors from Poland and Lithuania, emotional mementoes of those who died are on display.Carefully preserved in glass cases are simple objects such as a pair of shoes, a suitcase, a prayer shawl, a Torah scroll, a typewriter, a jewellery box, pens and notebooks.At an interactive station, the history of each item is explained along with the story of the tragic deaths of their owners.We have preserved some 150 million objects, among them a cloth in which a two-year-old girl, Ruthie, was hidden by her mother at Auschwitz, before she was taken to be used in medical experiments at Birkenau by Doctor Joseph Mengele, said museum director Simha Stein.Ruthie lived through it all and today is among the 280,000 Holocaust survivors still living in Israel.The generals stood before a giant screen on which the names of 4,000 Jewish communities that were eradicated in Europe and north Africa during the Nazi era briefly appear before fading away.Here, at Lohamey Hagetaot, we are determined to remain strong, Stein said.Starting at sundown on Wednesday, the entire country will begin marking Holocaust Remembrance Day, when each year the wail of sirens reminds the citizens of the genocide.
Palestinian factions back proposed truce with Israel: Egypt APR 30,08
CAIRO (AFP) - Palestinian militant factions on Wednesday agreed to a proposal for a truce with Israel in the Gaza Strip and subsequently in the West Bank, a senior Egyptian official said on Wednesday, Palestinians meeting in Cairo agreed to the plan already backed by Hamas and Fatah for a comprehensive, simultaneous and reciprocal period of calm to be applied progressively, first in Gaza and then in the West Bank, the MENA news agency said, without naming the official.This is a stage in a plan aimed at creating a situation that will allow for the lifting of the (Israeli) blockade of the Gaza Strip and the end of internal Palestinian divisions, the official was quoted as saying.
Hamas are Iran's proxy warriors: Rice by Lachlan Carmichael
APR 30,08
WASHINGTON (AFP) - Palestinian Hamas militants are serving as the proxy warriors for an Iran bent on destroying Israel and destabilizing the Middle East, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said here. In a speech Tuesday to the American Jewish Committee in Washington that underscored growing US concerns about Tehran, Rice mentioned Iran as not just a threat in the Palestinian territories, but also in Lebanon, Iraq and even in Afghanistan.
Israel's Deputy Prime Minister Shaul Mofaz said after talks with Rice on Monday that an Iran-led radical front in the Middle East is becoming more powerful and weaknesses in it need to be found.Rice vowed to pursue US efforts to isolate Hamas which she said refused to renounce violence, recognize Israel's right to exist and respect all previous Palestinian agreements with Israel.But perhaps of deepest concern, the leaders of Hamas are increasingly serving as the proxy warriors of an Iranian regime that is destabilizing the region, seeking a nuclear capability and proclaiming its desire to destroy Israel, Rice told the group's annual meeting.
She did not elaborate.
Iran is one of the most vocal backers of the Islamic Resistance Movement and pledged millions of dollars in 2006 to help a Hamas government through a funding drought caused by Western aid cuts.But Tehran has always insisted its support for Palestinian militant groups is moral in nature and does not extend to arming or training fighters.Hamas seized power in the Gaza Strip in June last year after ousting forces loyal to Palestinian Authority president Mahmud Abbas's Fatah faction, which remains in power in the West Bank.Fatah and Hamas had served in a national unity government after Hamas won elections in 2006.The United States backs the Palestinian Authority in new peace negotiations with Israel that were launched last November, and denounces Hamas as a terrorist organization.Rice called for international support for the Palestinian Authority, which she said had the will to fight terrorism and the desire to govern effectively but did not yet have the means.She echoed remarks by President George W. Bush who said Tuesday he was still hopeful of a Middle East peace deal before he left office in January but warned that Hamas could undermine the effort.Rice also vowed that Washington would continue to tighten controls on Iran's alleged misuse of the international financial system for terrorism and weapons proliferation.
The US Treasury last October slapped sanctions on Iran's elite Quds Force, accused by the US of being a supporter of terrorism, as well as the country's Revolutionary Guards, said to be a proliferator of weapons of mass destruction.We made designations for instance of the Quds Force, we made designations of the Revolutionary Guard, Rice recalled. You can believe that we're going to continue to make designations.In her speech, Rice spoke of a new belt of extremism that ranges from Hamas, to the Lebanese Shiite Muslim movement Hezbollah in Lebanon to radicals in Iraq and radicals even increasingly in places like Afghanistan.It is supported overwhelmingly by Iran and to a certain extent Syria, but particularly Iran, gives this conflict a regional dimension it has not had before, Rice said. Critics say the US-led invasion of Iraq that overthrew Saddam Hussein, a Sunni Arab, has emboldened non-Arab Iran and its Shiite Muslim allies throughout the region.
Bush: Hopeful for Mideast peace deal by end of term By Tabassum Zakaria Tue Apr 29, 9:45 PM ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President George W. Bush, seeking a Middle East peace legacy that eluded his predecessors, said on Tuesday he is still hopeful an Israeli-Palestinian deal can be reached before he leaves office in January. Bush will encourage Israeli and Palestinian leaders to move forward when he meets them separately in Israel and Egypt during a May 8-13 trip that includes a visit to Saudi Arabia.Negotiations have bogged down since Bush hosted a conference in Annapolis, Maryland, in November where both sides pledged to try to reach a peace deal by the end of his term.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, after meeting with Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice last week in Washington, came away disappointed and pessimistic about prospects for a deal this year, according to aides.Bush offered a more optimistic assessment. I'm still hopeful we'll get an agreement by the end of my presidency, he said at a news conference at the White House.He accused Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, of trying to undermine peace efforts. But he avoided direct criticism of former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, who met the Palestinian group's leadership to try to pull them into peace talks with Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.Bush made clear he would not have similar engagement with Hamas, an Islamist group that advocates Israel's destruction and which the United States and the European Union consider a terrorist organization.They are a significant problem to world peace, or Middle Eastern peace. And that's the reason I'm not talking to them, Bush said.
The road to a peace agreement is strewn with obstacles.
Abbas, whose mainstream Fatah faction lost control of the Gaza Strip to Hamas in June, and Olmert face strong opposition at home to making concessions.The fragile peace process has stalled amid Israeli settlement expansion plans and violence in and around Gaza, where Hamas cross-border rocket fire has drawn a tough Israeli military response.Bush also accused Syria of helping Hamas and said there were rumors that Iran was also aiding the group.So when you want to talk about peace being difficult in the Middle East, it's going to be difficult, but it's even made more difficult by entities like Hamas, he said.
DIFFICULT DECISIONS
Speaking later to a Jewish group, Rice said Hamas leaders were increasingly serving as the proxy warriors of an Iranian regime that is destabilizing the region, seeking a nuclear capability and proclaiming its desire to destroy Israel.She said the United States was likely to impose additional bilateral sanctions on Iran over its suspected pursuit of nuclear weapons and she called for intensive diplomatic activity to try to persuade Iran to abandon such ambitions.Iran says its nuclear program is for power generation.Rice also urged Israel to make some sacrifices for peace. Difficult decisions are coming. Difficult decisions will have to be made, Rice told the American Jewish Committee. Israel can be bold in the pursuit of peace, for America is fully behind her and fully committed to her security.Bush, whose stated goal is the creation of a Palestinian state co-existing peacefully with Israel, said of his talks with Abbas and Olmert that the attitude is good. People do understand the importance of getting a state defined.Bush's visit to Israel will be his second this year. His January trip to Israel and the Palestinian West Bank was his first in seven years at the White House, raising skepticism about his commitment to the peace process. As for his stop in Saudi Arabia, Bush is under pressure at home to do something about record-high oil prices that are dragging down the U.S. economy. The White House has said there is no short-term fix to the problem. On his last visit to Saudi Arabia, Bush urged OPEC to boost production because the high price of oil was hurting the economies of its customers, but the oil group did not do so. (Additional reporting by Arshad Mohammed; Editing by Eric Beech)
Egypt finds black market fuel tunnels to Gaza Tue Apr 29, 3:49 AM ET
EL-ARISH, Egypt (AFP) - Egyptian security forces have discovered five tunnels used to smuggle petrol and goods into the Gaza Strip, a security official said on Tuesday. Two of the tunnels contained plastic tubes 850 metres (2,800 feet) long that were used to pump black market petrol into the isolated territory, the official said.
No one was arrested when the tunnels were discovered north of the Rafah border crossing on Monday evening.Israel has repeatedly accused Egypt of doing too little to counter alleged arms smuggling through tunnels dug from Gaza into Egypt. The accusations have been vehemently denied by Cairo.Palestinian militant groups are meeting in Cairo on Tuesday to discuss an Egyptian-mediated truce with Israel aimed at ending the Jewish state's punishing blockade of Gaza since the Islamist Hamas took over there in June.
