Hummas bridges Jerusalem divide
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Pressure over Jewish settlements
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Israel's Livni boosted in Kadima leadership bid AUG 7,08
JERUSALEM (AFP) - Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni won the the support of a minister close to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Thursday, boosting her bid to lead the ruling Kadima party and possibly become premier. I will support Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni in her candidacy to lead Kadima and the next government, said Finance Minister Roni Bar-On, a key member of the centrist Kadima and close Olmert ally.Over the past 10 years she has had an impressive political career... In the past three years she has been at the heart of Israel's decision-making process in political and security issues. I consider her apt and worthy of the job, he said at a news conference.Olmert, who is facing multiple corruption investigations, announced last week he would step down after Kadima elects a new leader in a September 17 primary election.Bar-On urged other party members to get off the fence and announce their support for one of the candidates.Livni appears to have garnered strong backing among Kadima MPs, but faces stiff competition from her main rival in the race, Transport Minister Shaul Mofaz, a former chief of staff who is running on a security ticket.
Public Security Minister Avi Dichter on Thursday insisted that although he is trailing behind the two front-runners in opinion polls, he will still run in the primary.It might seem that I am alone in this race, but I am not. I have many supporters, the former chief of the Shin Beth internal security service said.The winner of the primary will be formally asked by President Shimon Peres to form a government, although analysts say the new Kadima leader might find it impossible to form a strong enough coalition.
That would force a general election, and opinion polls indicate that right-wing Likud leader and former premier Benjamin Netanyahu, who has called for snap elections, is the favourite to take over the helm of government.Israelis are not scheduled to go to the polls until 2010.
Israel, Palestinians agree to boost postal cooperation AUG 7,08
GENEVA (AFP) - Israel and the Palestinian authorities have agreed to take joint steps to improve the postal services in the Palestinian territories, the Universal Postal Union said Thursday.
The two parties have agreed to start direct mail exchanges between the Palestinian Authority and the 191 member states of the UPU, with mail transitting via Jordan, the organisation's Director General Edouard Dayan said.Dayan said in a statement that the announcement would help to prepare the ground for work to develop and improve the quality of the Palestinian postal service. He welcomed the spirit of dialogue and total cooperation shown by both parties.The UPU is currently holding its annual congress in Geneva, which runs from July 23 to August 12.
Olmert pushes ahead on Palestinian, Syrian peace tracks By Adam Entous Thu Aug 7, 4:00 AM ET
Jerusalem - Despite Israel's Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's decision to resign, the peace process continues on several tracks. Israel agreed on Wednesday to free scores of Palestinian prisoners this month as a gesture to President Mahmoud Abbas. Separately, a senior Syrian official told Reuters that indirect talks between Syria and Israel will continue.Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said between 120 and 150 prisoners, and possibly more, would be released on Aug. 25. Israel has roughly 11,000 Palestinians in custody.The Israeli side will be releasing Palestinian prisoners towards the end of August as a sign of good faith and a confidence-building measure towards the Palestinians, Mr. Olmert's spokesman, Mark Regev, said after Olmert and Mr. Abbas met in Jerusalem.Mr. Erekat said Abbas wanted any release to include long-serving prisoners, women, and children, as well as political leaders, a reference to Marwan Barghouti, who is seen as a possible successor as Palestinian president.Israeli sources said that releasing Mr. Barghouti was an option. The Hamas Islamist group, which controls the Gaza Strip, has included Barghouti, as well as Hamas leaders and hundreds of other prisoners on its list of Palestinians it wants freed in exchange for Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, captured in a cross-border raid two years ago.Some Israeli officials see the release of Barghouti to Abbas as preferable to freeing him to Hamas in a deal over Corporal Shalit that Egypt is trying to broker.
Israel freed 429 Palestinians as a gesture to Abbas after the resumption of peace negotiations in November at a conference in Annapolis, Md.At their meeting Wednesday, Olmert and Abbas discussed how to press ahead with the peace talks that had set a goal of reaching a Palestinian statehood agreement by the end of 2008. Olmert has vowed to press ahead with talks with Abbas and indirect negotiations with Syria until he leaves office. The Syrian talks have made progress but not enough to move to face-to-face talks as favored by the Jewish state, a senior Syrian official said Wednesday. If the talks had not progressed then they would have been stopped, said Buthaina Shaaban, who was recently promoted to adviser to President Bashar al-Assad.A fourth round of talks between Israel and Syria took place last week. The fifth round is expected later this month.
Israel to release over 150 Palestinian prisoners By MARK LAVIE, Associated Press Writer Wed Aug 6, 11:18 PM ET
JERUSALEM - Israel's prime minister pledged to free more than 150 Palestinian prisoners in a meeting Wednesday with President Mahmoud Abbas, a gesture meant to energize their sluggish peace talks. The release could also boost the prestige of the embattled Palestinian leader, whose Fatah movement is engaged in a tense power struggle with the militant Islamic Hamas.The meeting at Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's official Jerusalem residence was the first since the Israeli premier announced last week that he would resign next month because of corruption investigations against him. Palestinians have been seeking assurances that peace talks, started with great fanfare at a U.S.-sponsored conference last November, would continue despite Israel's political turmoil.Olmert says he is determined to press ahead with peace efforts as long as he is in office. Because of Israel's complicated political system, his term could extend into next year.The Olmert-Abbas summit came on the day Israel freed five Palestinian prisoners as part of its exchange with Hezbollah guerrillas to bring back the bodies of two soldiers captured in 2006.With Hamas demanding freedom for several hundred prisoners in exchange for Sgt. Gilad Schalit, an Israeli soldier also captured in 2006, Abbas needs to show his people that he can win freedom for prisoners in Israeli jails by peaceful means, as opposed to the militants' tactics of attacks and abductions.
However, the modest numbers Abbas achieved were not likely to prompt celebration among Palestinians or reduce Hamas' influence. Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said that on Aug. 25, more than 150 prisoners would be freed, out of about 11,000 held by Israel.
Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev said prisoners would be released this month as a confidence-building measure, as a gesture of good will.But it was seen highly unlikely that Olmert would agree to a key Abbas demand: freedom for Marwan Barghouti, the highest Fatah official in Israeli custody, who is serving multiple life terms for involvement in deadly attacks on Israelis. Israeli officials said only that Olmert did not commit to specific names.
Barghouti is also said to be on the list of prisoners Hamas wants released in exchange for the soldier it is holding, but Israel is unlikely to give that kind of boost to the Islamic militants, who do not recognize Israel and have sent dozens of suicide bombings to attack Israelis.Over the past week, tensions have flared again between Hamas and Abbas' Fatah, starting with a bombing in Gaza that killed five Hamas militants and a girl. Hamas reacted with mass arrests of Fatah loyalists and Fatah hit back with arrests in the West Bank. Then over the weekend, Hamas launched an assault on a Fatah stronghold in Gaza City, an operation that ended with 11 dead, dozens wounded and about 90 Fatah fugitives fleeing Gaza for the West Bank.On Tuesday a Hamas official hinted darkly of a Hamas uprising similar to its sweep through Gaza last year, when it expelled Fatah forces and took over the territory.After nightfall Palestinians fired a rocket at Israel from Gaza, the military said, in violation of a June 18 cease-fire. It exploded harmlessly in a field.Israel is trying to stay out of the internal Palestinian conflict, but it is negotiating with Abbas while boycotting Hamas as a terror group.Some Israelis have hinted that Barghouti, who had broad contacts with Israeli doves, might be freed someday — but probably in the context of significant progress toward a peace accord. Israel's official position is that Palestinians convicted in fatal attacks cannot be freed.However, it has made exceptions, most recently three weeks ago when it released Lebanese prisoner Samir Kantar as part of the Hezbollah deal. Kantar was convicted of the 1979 killing an Israeli father, his daughter and a policeman.
Erekat said Abbas asked for release of imprisoned politicians, including Barghouti, as well as hundreds who have served more than 20 years in prison, women and minors. But Erekat said the criteria were not agreed on at the meeting.Associated Press Writer Mohammed Daraghmeh contributed to this report from Ramallah, West Bank.
Jordan in secret talks with Hamas: Islamist Wed Aug 6, 10:46AM ET
AMMAN (AFP) - Jordan's intelligence chief Mohammed Dahabi and Hamas politburo member Mohammed Nazzal held secret talks in Amman last month, a leading Islamist said on Wednesday. Dahabi and (Syria-based) Nazzal met for talks in Amman two weeks ago, Zaki Bani Rsheid, secretary general of the key opposition Islamic Action Front (IAF) party, told AFP.Bani Rsheid refused to give details about the meeting while government officials said they had no information about the alleged secret talks.Relations between Hamas and Jordan have been rocky since 1999, when the Jordanian authorities expelled Hamas supremo Khaled Meshaal and three other members of the Palestinian Islamist movement after a crackdown on the group.An arrest warrant had also been issued against Nazzal but he had gone into hiding.At the time Hamas was accused of threatening Jordan's security and stability.Relations between Jordan and Hamas soured in 2006 after Amman accused members of the group of having smuggled arms into the kingdom from neighbouring Syria.In June three suspected Hamas members were jailed for plotting attacks in Jordan. Five other Jordanians suspected of belonging to the movement are currently on trial over charges of gathering information on behalf of Hamas.
Amman had offered at the end of 2006 to host reconcilitation talks between Hamas and Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas.Jordan has been bound by a peace treaty with Israel since 1994 while Hamas refuses to recognise the Jewish state.The IAF is the political arm of Jordan's Muslim Brotherhood and has traditionally good ties with Hamas.
Israel releases 5 prisoners in Hezbollah swap By ALI DARAGMEH, Associated Press Writer Wed Aug 6, 5:50 AM ET
TULKAREM, West Bank - Israel released five Palestinian teenagers from jail Wednesday as part of a prisoner exchange agreement made with Lebanon's Hezbollah militia last month. The five were driven from a prison in central Israel to the West Bank town of Tulkarem, where one of them, 15-year-old Zakariya Shurbaji, told reporters they were only informed of their impending release a day earlier. They were never told that it was part of the deal with Hezbollah, Shurbaji said.The emotional July swap between Israel and Hezbollah brought back to Israel the bodies of two slain soldiers in return for five live Lebanese prisoners. One was reviled in Israel as the perpetrator of a 1979 attack in which four Israelis were killed, including a civilian and his two young daughters.As part of the deal, Israel agreed to release some Palestinian prisoners, but sought to minimize the concession by selecting some of the most insignificant offenders. All five freed Wednesday were minors serving short sentences for throwing stones and other objects and were due to be freed next year, according to data posted on the Prisons Authority Web site.
By insisting on the release of a token number of Palestinians, Hezbollah sought to bolster its standing beyond its core following of Shiite Muslims to the broader Arab world.Four of the youngsters freed Wednesday said they were supporters of the secular Palestinian nationalist Fatah movement and the fifth said he was involved in the radical leftist Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine.Shurbaji said they were all grateful to Hezbollah's leader.I say thank you to Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah for all the efforts he made on our behalf, he said.
Iran is root of all evil: Israel PM contender Wed Aug 6, 4:23 AM ET
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israeli cabinet minister Shaul Mofaz, a contender to succeed the prime minister, denounced his native Iran on Wednesday as the root of all evil and said its nuclear program constituted a threat to world peace. Mofaz was speaking a day after he launched a campaign for a party leadership election next month that will lead to the replacement of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.
Opinion polls show that Mofaz, a deputy prime minister and transport minister, is a frontrunner in the contest to lead the centrist Kadima party but trails Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni.
Olmert, dogged by a corruption probe, said last week he would step down once a successor for the party leadership was chosen.The Iranians are the root of all evil, Mofaz said in a live interview on Israel Radio, adding that Tehran's nuclear program would pose a threat to Israel's existence.He urged the West anew to impose stiffer sanctions on Tehran to pressure Iran to stop a nuclear program that Israel believes is intended to produce atomic weapons. Iran says the developments are for civilian purposes only, to produce energy.Israel is widely believed to have assembled the Middle East's only nuclear arsenal which experts say comprises as many as 200 warheads.Israel does not discuss its nuclear capabilities under a strategic ambiguity policy designed to ward off enemies while avoiding the sort of provocation that can trigger arms races.Mofaz, who was born in Tehran before many Iranian Jews moved to the new state of Israel, accused his native country of trying simply to bide its time, by rejecting Western proposals to stop enriching uranium.This has been the Iranian strategy for years, to bide their time and continue with their enrichment, Mofaz said.
Mofaz, a former head of the Israeli military, has been one of Israel's most outspoken ministers against Iran.While he supports diplomacy to resolve the standoff with Tehran, Mofaz said in June an Israeli attack to halt the project may be unavoidable unless a deal was reached.Israel's security cabinet met behind closed doors on Wednesday to discuss its intelligence assessments that Iranian-backed Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon have been rearming with rockets since a 2006 war.Some 1,200 Lebanese and 159 Israelis died in that month-long war. Israel launched an air campaign and then invasion after Hezbollah staged a lethal cross-border raid against a military patrol.Security officials said ministers discussed reports the guerrillas were seeking to obtain anti-aircraft missiles to fire at Israeli warplanes that fly over Lebanese territory on reconnaissance missions.(Writing by Allyn Fisher-Ilan, Editing by Alastair Macdonald and Samia Nakhoul)
Assad arrives in Turkey for talks and holiday: media Tue Aug 5, 12:58 PM ET
ANKARA (AFP) - Syrian President Bashar al-Assad arrived in Turkey Tuesday for a brief holiday and to discuss the indirect negotiations taking place in Turkey between his country and Israel, local media reported. The Syrian leader, who was accompanied by his wife, was welcomed by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his wife at the airport in Bodrum, a major tourist destination, NTV and CNN-Turk television stations reported.The two men then had a working lunch and discussed the Israel-Syria talks as well as the wider situation in the Middle East, according to the networks.
Assad and his wife plan to spend nearly a week on holiday in a luxury hotel in Bodrum, which is visited by hundreds of thousands of foreign tourists each year, the online edition of the Hurriyet newspaper reported.Israeli and Syrian officials completed a fourth round of talks in Turkey in July and agreed to resume negotiations later this month.Under the format of the talks, which started in May after an eight-year freeze, Israeli and Syrian officials do not see each other and Turkish diplomats shuttle between the two sides.
Israel and Syria have been formally in a state of war since the Jewish state was created in 1948, but the two countries have since signed an armistice.
Israel's Olmert to be grilled again in graft probes Tue Aug 5, 9:36 AM ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) - Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is to be questioned on Friday over allegations of graft, for the second time since he announced his resignation last week, police said. The interview at Olmert's official residence in Jerusalem will be the fifth in three months.Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld declined to give further details but Israeli public radio said Olmert would be questioned over allegations he billed the same overseas trips several times over, and separate claims he traded favours in exchange for a discount on a house he bought in Jerusalem.Olmert, 62, is under investigation in six different cases of alleged wrongdoing in the years before he took office in 2006, when he was mayor of Jerusalem and trade and industry minister.He announced last week he would step down after his centrist Kadima party holds a leadershipo election on September 17, but insisted he was innocent.Olmert had faced a growing chorus of calls for his resignation over the claims of wrongdoing.
Iceland, Sweden to take in Iraq's Palestinian refugees Tue Aug 5, 7:54 AM ET
GENEVA (AFP) - Palestinian refugees stranded for two years in desperate conditions on the Iraq-Syria border will be resettled in Iceland and Sweden in the coming weeks, the United Nations refugee agency said Tuesday. More than two dozen vulnerable Palestinians from the Al Waleed camp will be leaving for Iceland while another group of 155 refugees from the Al Tanf camp are bound for Sweden, UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) spokesman Ron Redmond told journalists.Redmond said that an estimated 2,300 Palestinians were living in camps along the border amid dire health conditions, unable to return to Iraq or cross into neighbouring countries.
Human rights group Amnesty International warned last year that thousands of Palestinian refugees had been ill-treated in Iraq, with many abducted, tortured and murdered by armed Shiite Muslim groups.Palestinians are targeted, Amnesty said, because they are seen to have received preferential treatment from the ousted dictatorship of Saddam Hussein, a Sunni like most of them, or they are suspected to support Sunni insurgents.Redmond said that the refugees would be well supported in Iceland, which has a long history of accepting refugees from conflict-riven countries despite its small size and relative geographical isolation.Iceland has taken in refugees from the Balkan conflicts of the 1990s and also from Colombia and has a good support structure, he said.
Israel's Barak predicts more strikes on Gaza Tue Aug 5, 6:43AM ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) - Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak said Israel will return to its pattern of military strikes on the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip despite the ongoing month-old truce, army radio reported on Tuesday. Those who miss the operations in the Gaza Strip, don't worry, they will come, Barak told a Labour party event in Jerusalem, without elaborating.A spokesman for Hamas, which violently seized power in Gaza in June 2007 and is pledged to Israel's destruction, called the remarks ridiculous and said the Islamist movement was prepared for all options.Barak's remarks reflect the state of confusion of the Israeli occupation in dealing with Hamas and the Gaza Strip, and the vacillation between an aggressive escalation and the truce, Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri told AFP.
In June, Israel agreed to an Egyptian-brokered truce with Palestinian militants in Gaza that has virtually halted the near daily rocket and mortar attacks launched from the impoverished territory on southern Israel.But Israeli officials remain wary of the deal and suspect Gaza's Hamas rulers and other armed groups are using the calm to train and rearm with weapons smuggled through a vast network of tunnels under the border with Egypt.Israel had also said the truce depended on progress in releasing Gilad Shalit, an Israeli corporal seized by Gaza militants in a deadly cross-border raid on June 25, 2006.Israel's army chief said on Monday that the military knows Shalit's location and the identity of those holding him, raising the possibility that Israel could seek to extract him through military means.The army later insisted that General Gabi Ashkenazi meant only that Israel knew Shalit was being held by Hamas in Gaza.Israeli officials have in the past ruled out a rescue mission, saying that Shalit's exact location was unclear and that such an operation would be extremely risky.Israel and Hamas have been holding indirect negotiations through Egyptian mediation on a prisoner swap expected to include the release of hundreds of Palestinians held in Israeli prisons in exchange for Shalit.But Israel has so far refused to release the prisoners demanded by Hamas, who include several people implicated in deadly attacks on Israelis.
Olmert-Abbas to meet Wednesday: Palestinians Tue Aug 5, 3:18AM ET
RAMALLAH, West Bank, (AFP) - Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas will meet Wednesday for the first time since Olmert announced he will step down, a Palestinian official said Tuesday. Tomorrow there will be a meeting between president Abbas and Prime Minister Olmert in Jerusalem, senior Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat told AFP.He said the two men would discuss final-status issues in US-backed peace talks formally relaunched last year, Israeli checkpoints and closures in the occupied West Bank, and the fate of thousands of Palestinian prisoners.The two leaders have met roughly twice a month since talks were formally revived at an international conference hosted by US President George W. Bush in November in which they vowed to reach a peace deal by the end of this year.The future of the talks is unclear however following Olmert's surprise announcement earlier this month that he will step down in the wake of several corruption scandals after his Kadima party chooses a new leader in September.
The United States and the Palestinians have vowed to work with whomever succeeds Olmert, and have said they still think a deal is possible by 2009.
Peace push with Syria should go on: Israel's Mofaz By Dan Williams Mon Aug 4, 11:06 AM ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Israel's peace efforts with Syria should continue, without preconditions, after Prime Minister Ehud Olmert steps down, a candidate to succeed him said on Friday. My opinion and my goal will be to continue to speak to the Syrians without preconditions, Deputy Israeli Prime Minister Shaul Mofaz said in a speech. The way is - peace for peace.Olmert and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad announced in May they we holding Turkish-mediated negotiations. But Olmert, dogged by corruption scandals, said earlier this week he would resign after his party picks a new leader in September.Public statements suggested the sides remain divided on core issues like Israel's occupation of the Golan Heights and Syria's ties to Iran, Lebanese Hezbollah and Palestinian Hamas.Syria has made clear it wants a return of the occupied Golan Heights to be on the agenda of any serious peace talks. Mofaz, a former defense minister, has come out against any plan by Olmert to return the Golan. Olmert says he had made no such undertaking to the Syrians.Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni has the edge in the ruling Kadima party race to replace Olmert, but Mofaz is her closest rival within the party, and contenders in other parties are vying for the job as well.Though Mofaz, as chief of Israel's armed forces, led crackdowns on a Palestinian revolt that erupted in 2000, on Wednesday he cast himself as a potential peacemaker.
As a father who has three children in the military, I want peace for them, he said.I will do my best to achieve peace with our neighbors ... Our first priority should be the Palestinians but there are some problems, some obstacles, he said, alluding mainly to the 2007 takeover of Gaza by Hamas.(Editing by Anthony Boadle)
Israel knows where captive soldier is: army chief Mon Aug 4, 4:55 AM ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) - Israel's chief of staff said on Monday that the military knows where a serviceman captured by Gaza Strip militants more than two years ago is and who is holding him. We are making every effort to make sure that Gilad Shalit returns home as soon as possible. We know Gilad is alive, we know where he is held and by whom, Lieutenant General Gabi Ashkenazi said in remarks broadcast on army radio.I hope we succeed in bringing this affair to an end, he told new recruits in Tel Aviv.Shalit was captured by Gaza militants in a cross-border raid on June 25, 2006, and is believed to be held in the Gaza Strip by the Islamist Hamas movement.
Israeli officials have in the past ruled out a military operation to extract Shalit from the densely populated territory, saying that his exact location was unclear and that such an operation would be extremely risky.Israel and Hamas have been holding indirect negotiations through Egyptian mediation on a prisoner swap expected to include the release of hundreds of Palestinians held in Israeli prisons in exchange for Shalit.His captors have since delivered to his family several letters and one tape recording in which Shalit said he needed medical treatment.
Jordan tells Abbas infighting threatens Palestinian state Sun Aug 3, 10:51 AM ET
AMMAN (AFP) - Jordan's King Abdullah II warned visiting Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas on Sunday that Palestinian infighting threatens their efforts to form an independent state, the palace said. Continued factional infighting harms the Palestinian cause and threatens efforts to help establish an independent Palestinian state, the king said according to a palace statement.The king also expressed concerns about developments in the territories, saying that the Palestinians should resort to dialogue to resolve their differences.Palestinian unity is key to tackling the current challenges, he added.Israel on Sunday began returning Fatah members who had fled deadly clashes in the Gaza Strip to the Hamas-ruled territory following a request by Abbas.On Saturday Abbas had asked that about 180 people be allowed out of Gaza after nine people were killed during the day in the deadliest internal fighting with Hamas since the Islamists seized power in June 2007.It followed a July 21 bombing that killed five Hamas militants and a little girl, which the Islamists blamed on Fatah's Helis clan.Abbas said meanwhile that Egypt plans to invite Palestinians for talks in Cairo.
Dialogue is important. We have called for it. Egypt has agreed to invite Palestinian factions to meet in Cairo, he was quoted in the statement as saying.We can't lose hope. We disagree and fight, but we have to work together to bridge the big gap created unfortunately by Hamas.Abbas urged the Islamists to resort to reason and logic and accept the law.
