Eleven killed in clashes between Hamas and Gaza clan SEPT 16,08
GAZA CITY (AFP) - At least 11 people were killed on Tuesday when Hamas-run security forces clashed with a powerful local family in Gaza City, Palestinian security officials said. The fighting, in which another 40 people were wounded, erupted when Hamas police moved to arrest three members of the Doghmush clan accused of gunning down a police officer on Monday.The 11 people killed included at least one police officer and nine members of the Doghmush family, Islam Shahwan, a spokesman for the Hamas-run interior ministry, told reporters.The three men the police had been searching for -- Jamil, Saeb, and Ibrahim Doghmush -- were all killed in the fighting, he said, adding that they were wanted in a criminal case. Another 15 people were arrested.Witnesses said they heard heavy gunfire and the blasts of rocket-propelled grenades in the city's Sabra neighbourhood, a clan stronghold, after Hamas-run forces had sealed off the area the night before.Several members of the Doghmush clan, one of the most powerful families in the impoverished coastal strip, are suspected of belonging to the Army of Islam, a small shadowy armed group inspired by Al-Qaeda.
The Army of Islam was behind the kidnapping of BBC reporter Alan Johnston in 2007 and along with Hamas and another small group claimed responsibility for the capture of an Israeli soldier in a deadly cross-border raid in 2006.Since Hamas seized power in Gaza in June 2007 after routing forces loyal to Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas it has had tense relations with the group that have occasionally spilled over into street clashes.Witnesses said Army of Islam fighters took part in the clashes, but Shahwan insisted the operation did not target the group, which is led by Mumtaz Doghmush.Tuesday's fighting was the deadliest in Gaza since the start of August, when several people were killed and dozens wounded in a similar battle between Hamas police and another clan, the Hellis, which is close to Abbas's Fatah party.
NATO chief says body will continue to expand By STEVE GUTTERMAN, Associated Press Writer SEPT 16,08
TBILISI, Georgia - NATO's chief said Tuesday the Western alliance will continue its expansion despite Russian opposition and warned Moscow that it has no veto on Georgia's bid to become a member. In a strong message of support for Georgia after its debilitating war with Russia, NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said the road to NATO is still wide open and Russia could not break the alliance's ties with the former Soviet republic through military action.The process of NATO enlargement will continue, with due caution but also with a clear purpose — to help create a stable, undivided Europe, he said in a speech at Tbilisi State University during a two-day visit.No other country will have a veto over that process, nor will we allow our strong ties to Georgia to be broken by outside military intervention and pressure, he said. Georgia has a rightful place in this Europe.De Hoop Scheffer was accompanied to Georgia by the NATO ambassadors of all 26 allies — a display of unity. The ambassadors broke off for separator meetings Tuesday but the entire delegation was to visit Gori, a city targeted by Russian bombs and tanks, in the afternoon.De Hoop Scheffer condemned Russia's recognition of the two separatist regions in Georgia, saying its sovereignty and territorial integrity must be respected. He also called on Moscow to tone down its rhetoric in the wake of the war.
Reflecting NATO's precarious position, however, he said NATO is not in the business of punishing Russia and does not want to be. Punishing Russia is not the way forward. The way forward, really, is to help Georgia, he said.De Hoop Scheffer said NATO would not accept Russian demands that it choose between Russia and Georgia.He said NATO still wants to work with Russia but stressed that it had put some ties on hold until Moscow complies with a cease-fire deal and withdraws its forces to positions they held before the war erupted Aug. 7 in separatist South Ossetia.
Georgia has angered Russia with its drive to join NATO. The alliance in April declined to take a key step toward membership for Georgia but assured the nation that it will eventually join.De Hoop Scheffer said that decisions stands. But he said he could not give a timetable, stressing that decisions on the path to membership require consensus and acknowledging differences within the alliance about how soon Georgia might join.Earlier on Tuesday, de Hoop Scheffer met with Georgia's parliament speaker during the second day of a visit that comes with thousands of Russian troops on its soil, more than a month after a war that has caused mounting confrontation between Moscow and the West.De Hoop Scheffer said he and the NATO ambassadors were in the ex-Soviet republic to show solidarity with its people, to show that we stand by them as they work to reshape their country and take their proper place in the European and Euro-Atlantic community.He said it was fitting to be meeting in Georgia's colonnaded parliament building, the hub of the peaceful Rose Revolution protests in 2003 that ushered President Mikhail Saakashvili to power and set the country firmly on a pro-Western path.The parliament speaker, Saakashvili ally David Bakradze, said that while the government party faces strong opposition, the country is united in its desire to join NATO and integrate with the West.The war has damaged Saakashvili's standing on Georgia's turbulent political stage, with Georgians questioning the wisdom of the country's Aug. 7 offensive targeting separatist South Ossetia. Saakashvili claims Georgia was responding to Russian aggression.Russian tanks, troops and warplanes repelled the Georgian attack on its South Ossetian allies and drove deep into Georgia in a five-day war that killed hundreds of people and displaced nearly 200,000.On Monday, de Hoop Scheffer and Georgia's prime minister signed documents creating the new NATO-Georgia Commission conceived in the wake of the war to emphasize alliance support for Georgia and oversee further relations. The NATO leader also condemned Russia's use of disproportional force and emphasized NATO's demand that Moscow withdraw to positions its forces held before the fighting erupted, complying with a cease-fire deal brokered by French President Nicolas Sarkozy. Under a supplemental agreement Sarkozy reached last week, Russia has pledged to withdraw its forces from Georgian territory outside South Ossetia and Abkhazia, within 10 days of the deployment of EU monitors expected to be in place by Oct. 1. But Moscow has said it will maintain nearly 8,000 troops in South Ossetia and Abkhazia for the foreseeable future. The U.S. and European Union say that would flagrantly violate the commitment to withdraw to pre-conflict positions. The unresolved status of South Ossetia and Abkhazia has always given alliance members pause about accepting Georgia. The persistent Russian presence adds to questions about how to handle the membership aspirations of a country with large chunks of territory beyond its control.
Russia has adamantly opposed NATO membership for Georgia, whose location straddling a key westward energy route for Caspian and Central Asian oil and gas supplies gives it outsize geopolitical importance. Georgia has emerged as a major focus of a struggle for influence, pitting a resurgent Russia against the United States and the EU amid relations that have become increasingly frayed over the past decade.
Israel's Olmert Prepares for His Last Act By TIM MCGIRK / JERUSALEM
SEPT 16,08
In what was may have been his last cabinet meeting, disgraced Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Sunday displayed rare flashes of the forceful, straight-talking leader that he might have been. He told his ministers that the notion of a Greater Israel no longer exists, and anyone who still believes in it is deluding themselves -suggesting that Israel will have to give up settlements built outside its 1967 borders, often on the claim of a Biblical right, if its wants peace with the Arab world. It was this sort of blunt realism that made Israelis vote for Olmert's centrist Kadima party in March 2006. But that Olmert, the pragmatic peace-maker, vanished soon after his victory, only to be replaced by another Olmert, feinting and dodging like an outclassed boxer, who clung to power by forever cutting new deals with rightwing coalition partners to refrain from pressing forward on the key peace-making issues of the future of Jerusalem and the West Bank settlements. Now, Olmert faces a possible indictment for fraud and corruption, and is expected to resign after Kadima chooses a replacement party leader in primaries to be held on Wednesday. Olmert could officially step down on Thursday, but stay on as a caretaker premier until the new Kadima leader forges a governing coalition - a process that could drag on for months. Still, that could give Olmert a last chance to redeem his legacy by acting on his new-found courage.
As things stand, Olmert may go down as one of the most reviled leaders in Israel's history: He is blamed for the fiasco of the 2006 Lebanon war in which the deterrent myth of the Israeli military's invincibility - shared by Arab regimes and the Israeli public - was badly dented. And to coddle his coalition partners, he stalled on turning U.S.-sponsored talks with the Palestinians into any meaningful peace process, although, to be fair, the ascendancy of the Islamist Hamas movement in Palestinian territories had rendered Olmert's partner, President Mahmoud Abbas, something of a lame duck. Following the Lebanon war, his popularity dived to an abysmal 3% approval rating. It seldom climbed back into double-digits, except, briefly, when Olmert orchestrated an air attack on a suspected nuclear facility in Syria and a high-ranking Hezballah commander, Imad Mugniyah, was killed last February in Damascus in a car-bombing widely viewed as the work of the Mossad. The prime minister's tenure was dogged by police investigations that culminated in an American-Jewish businessman testifying that he had given Olmert over $100,000, mostly in cash-stuffed envelopes. Allegations later emerged that Olmert had taken luxury trips abroad and double-billed various Jewish charities for his costs. If the expected criminal case against Olmert is proven, he may be the first Israeli leader forced to resign from office for corruption. A former Jerusalem mayor and ardent soccer fan, Olmert was known primarily as the cigar-chomping back-room wheeler-dealer who followed his mentor, Ariel Sharon, out of the rightwing Likud party to create Kadima. Olmert came to power by a fluke: Sharon fell into a coma in January 2006 and Olmert, as his deputy, succeeded him as prime minister, vowing to extend Sharon's evacuation of Gaza into the evacuation of some of the hundreds of thousands of Jewish settlers in the West Bank. Says Yaron Ezrahi, a political science professor at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Olmert will be known as the first leader who realized that the settlements place an intolerable burden on Israeli society and yet was unable to act on this.
Over the past two-and-a-half years, not a single Jewish settlement has been removed from the Palestinian territories, despite intense pressure from the U.S. and the international community on Olmert. Today, with one foot out the door, Olmert sounds repentant that he did not try harder. As he told his cabinet: Every day that goes by without our reaching a deal with the Palestinians is a day we may regret in the future, and I say this as a man who once had, and fought for very different ideas. He added: If we don't reach a deal fast we'll be missing an opportunity, and missing that opportunity may come at an unbearable price.Such sober talk coming on the eve of his departure has some analysts wondering whether Olmert may try to remove some of the smaller outposts from the West Bank during his tenure as caretaker prime minister. He might choose to act like Samson pulling down the pillars of the temple, says Ezrahi. Evidence that Olmert might be thinking this way: During the Sunday cabinet meeting, a bill was proposed offering settlers 1.1 million shekels ($308,000) if they were willing to relocate back inside Israel. Many settlers might take the cash offer, Olmert's aides believe. But Olmert could only pull off such a bold maneuver if he is able to extend the tenure of a caretaker government for several months. The idea is not so far-fetched, in light of the battle for leadership of Kadima now underway between Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and Transportation Minister Shaul Mofaz. The party primary could easily drag into a second round of voting. Even once a new Kadima leader is chosen, it may take several months of horse-trading with Israel's myriad parties to cobble together a new ruling coalition. Olmert may yet find the time to improve on his dismal legacy. But whether he'll find the political muscle remains to be seen. - With reporting by Aaron J. Klein/Jerusalem.
Olmert says Mideast peace possible by year-end Tue Sep 16, 2:14 AM ET
JERUSALEM, (AFP) - Israel's embattled Prime Minister Ehud Olmert still believes a peace deal with the Palestinians is possible by year's end despite a looming vote to replace him, his spokesman said on Tuesday. The prime minister believes that the door to an agreement with the Palestinians is not closed and it is possible to achieve this goal by the end of the year, Mark Regev told AFP.Olmert was to meet Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas later in the day for their last meeting before his centrist Kadima party holds a leadership vote Wednesday to choose his successor.
The beleaguered prime minister had said he would step down after a new party leader is chosen so he can battle a flurry of corruption allegations that could lead to criminal indictment.But Regev said Olmert would continue to assume all responsibilities even after the vote. Olmert is expected to serve as interim prime minister until a new government can be formed, which could take weeks or even months.
In the meantime Olmert hopes to draw up a so-called shelf agreement with Abbas outlining the results of their talks, one that could be handed over to a new government.Olmert has met with Abbas roughly twice a month since US-sponsored peace talks were formally relaunched in November with the expressed goal of resolving the decades-old conflict by the end of the year.The two have made little visible progress however and remain deeply divided on the core issues of the conflict, including final borders, the future status of Jerusalem, and the fate of over 4.5 million Palestinian refugees.
Jewish voters report calls disparaging Obama By KELLI KENNEDY, Associated Press Writer Mon Sep 15, 9:14 PM ET
MIAMI - Jewish voters in Florida and at least one other state are being targeted by a telephone survey tying Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama to Palestinian causes, an advocacy group alleged Monday. The Jewish Council for Education in Research says at least two women in separate states were push polled, or asked questions intended to influence voters while pretending to take a poll, on Sunday afternoon from a caller who said he was from Research Strategies.Joelna Marcus says she became uncomfortable when the caller asked if she was Jewish, whether she was Orthodox and how often she attends synagogue.The caller then asked if Marcus would be influenced if she learned that Obama had donated money to the Palestine Liberation Organization. The caller also asked how she would vote if she learned that someone on the Illinois senator's staff had close ties to Palestine.Marcus, a 71-year-old former college professor, said she was furious.I said you're not polling me. This is un-American. This is unacceptable, said Marcus, a snowbird who lives in New Jersey and has a house in Key West. And then this is the scary part. He said if you had not said that you were Jewish, you would have been disqualified.Deborah Minden, who lives in a predominantly Jewish neighborhood in Pittsburgh received a similar call Sunday afternoon. After asking basic demographic information, Minden, 56, said the caller said, I'm going to ask you some things about Sen. Obama and you tell me if it would make you more or less likely to vote for him.The poller then ticked off a list of accusations including that Obama's church had made anti-Semitic statements and that Obama had met with Hamas leaders.A spokesman for Sen. John McCain, who is on a two-day swing in Florida, did not immediately comment Monday night.
We see this as a disturbing but not unexpected ratcheting up of the kind of misinformation and outright lies about Obama's record that we've literally seen since he declared his candidacy, said Mik Moore, co-executive director of the Jewish Council for Education & Research. The organization has endorsed Obama for president.
During the Republican presidential primaries, McCain alleged push polling had taken place and asked for an investigation into thousands of calls to New Hampshire voters that disparaged him and supported rival Mike Huckabee.
Race is on for leadership of Israeli ruling party By JOSEF FEDERMAN, Associated Press Writer Mon Sep 15, 2:31 PM ET
JERUSALEM - A popular foreign minister hoping to become Israel's first female leader in more than three decades squares off against a tough-talking military man Wednesday when the ruling party picks a new chief to replace Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. The Kadima Party called the election as Olmert is being forced from office by a corruption scandal.Whoever is chosen as party leader has a good chance of becoming the next prime minister, charged with dealing with Iran's nuclear ambitions, overseeing peace talks and shaping relations with Israel's most important ally, the United States.The race pits Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni — a rising political star hoping to become the second female prime minister in Israel's history after Golda Meir — against Shaul Mofaz, a former military chief and defense minister who says he is the perfect choice to lead this security-obsessed country.The differences are as much about substance as style.As Israel's lead negotiator in peace talks with the Palestinians, Livni, a lawyer and former agent in the Mossad spy agency, is eager to continue the low-decibel diplomatic efforts. She says she hopes diplomatic efforts to halt Iran's nuclear program prevail, though she says all options are on the table. And she has forged a warm working relationship with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.In the political arena, the lower the profile you maintain, the less you are perceived as a threat, Livni said in a recent interview with Israeli daily Yediot Ahronot. It is accepted as being more in the national interest, less politically motivated, and therefore you are capable of moving processes forward.
Mofaz takes a much tougher line in negotiations, demanding the Palestinians fulfill a series of conditions before final peace talks can take place. He also is more willing to order military action in times of crisis.The Arab states know that when I am prime minister, my determination, my tenacity, my assertiveness in the face of threats will be very significant, Mofaz told Yediot. Along with that, I will be able to achieve peace with them and also begin a dialogue of give and take. For this you need strong leadership that is able to make decisions and that has decisions in the past. I was there. I led soldiers.In June, Mofaz roiled world oil markets when he reportedly said Israel would have no choice but to attack Iran if diplomatic efforts to end Tehran's nuclear program fail. During the current campaign, he has said Israel should resume its practice of assassinating Hamas leaders in the Gaza Strip.
The choice between Mofaz and Tzipi Livni is for the Israeli public really a choice between opting from the use of military force in dealing with the conflict, as against the use of diplomacy, said Yaron Ezrahi, a political scientist at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.According to opinion polls, Livni and Mofaz are the clear front-runners in Wednesday's race, well ahead of Avi Dichter, a former director of Israel's Shin Bet security service, and longtime Cabinet minister Meir Sheetrit.
Opinion polls have forecast a first-round victory for Livni, but analysts note such surveys have proved wrong in the past.Some 74,000 people are registered to vote. Under party rules, the winner must receive at least 40 percent of the votes. Otherwise, a runoff must be held between the top two vote-getters.Olmert, who is facing a series of corruption investigations, has said he will resign as soon as Kadima has a new leader. But whoever wins the primary does not automatically become prime minister.Kadima is the largest party in a four-member governing coalition, and the new leader will have just over a month to put together a new coalition. If that fails, the country will be forced to hold elections in early 2009, a year and a half ahead of schedule.Livni and Mofaz both say they want to keep the current coalition intact, and even expand it.With opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu's hard-line Likud Party polling well, neither Kadima nor its coalition partners appear eager for a new election, Kadima, which means Forward in Hebrew, was founded by then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in 2005 months after he oversaw Israel's unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza Strip. Through the centrist party, Sharon hoped to orchestrate a similar pullout from much of the West Bank — with or without an agreement with the Palestinians. He attracted a group of leading politicians from other parties to promote this agenda, which Sharon said would improve Israel's security. The following January, he suffered a debilitating stroke, and his deputy, Olmert, led the party to victory in elections. However, Olmert's popularity took a hit with Israel's inconclusive war against Lebanon's Hezbollah guerrillas in 2006 and a succession of police investigations into alleged corruption in his financial dealings. Although Olmert formally relaunched peace talks with the Palestinians last November and has resumed indirect talks with Syria, there has been no word of any breakthroughs on either front. The loss of Sharon, who remains in a coma, and Olmert's spotty record has left Kadima in disarray. Most Kadima lawmakers insist they will support their next leader, but the divisions have raised questions about the party's long-term viability. Israel's first female prime minister, Meir, governed from 1969-1974.
US plans to sell Israel 1,000 bunker-buster bombs By AMY TEIBEL, Associated Press Writer Mon Sep 15, 11:32 AM ET
JERUSALEM - The U.S. plans to sell Israel 1,000 buster-bunker bombs which Israeli military experts said Monday could provide a powerful new weapon against underground arsenals in Lebanon or Gaza. The experts said they doubted, however, that the bombs could be used to deliver a crippling blow against Iran's nuclear program.In announcing the proposed $77 million deal, which still needs Congressional approval, the U.S. Defense Department said the sale of the Boeing GBU-39 smart bombs would be consistent with the U.S. interest of assisting Israel to develop and maintain a strong and ready self-defense capability. The Pentagon issued a release on the planned sale on Sept. 9.Because it is a precision weapon that generates far less collateral damage than heavier munitions, this bomb is going to be the general-purpose bomb of the next generation, said Yiftah Shapir, a military analyst at Tel Aviv's Institute of National Security Studies. He said possible targets would include Katyusha launchers in Lebanon or Qassam (rocket) launchers in Gaza.Shlomo Brom, the Israeli military's former chief of strategic planning, noted an increasing tendency to place weapons underground.In Israel's 2006 war against Lebanon's Hezbollah guerrilla group, one of our problems had been that they put many of the rocket launchers in bunkers and fortifications underground , Brom said.One hardened target the military went after in that war was the bunker of Hezbollah chief Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, Israeli security officials have said. Nasrallah survived the fighting, but has been in hiding since the war.Past U.S. sales of bunker-buster bombs to Israel have been construed as a veiled threat against Iran's nuclear program.
But Brom and Shapir said they did not think they would be used against Iran, where key nuclear facilities such as the uranium enrichment plant at Nantanz are buried deep and hardened by yards of concrete.You would need something a lot heavier, he said. The GBU-39 can penetrate 6 feet of concrete, and 6 feet is not enough, he said.
Despite a 2007 National Intelligence Estimate that concluded Iran suspended its nuclear weapons program in 2003, Israel and many in the United States still believe Iran's nuclear program is geared toward developing weapons. Iran insists the program is only for producing electricity.Israel hopes Iran can be induced through sanctions and diplomacy to scale back its nuclear ambitions, but has not ruled out a military strike.The GBU-39 is a weapon Israel needs for general purposes, said Shapir, who questioned Israel's capability to deal a blow to Iran's nuclear program. But attaching this thing to an attack on Iran is propaganda, in my view.
As peace talks sputter, Israelis and Palestinians eye Plan B By Joshua Mitnick Mon Sep 15, 4:00 AM ET
Tel Aviv - Over the past two decades of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, deadlines for peace agreements have come and gone with precious few treaties. Now, amid low expectations for an agreement before the expiration of the Bush administration's target for an accord by the end of 2008, voices are growing on both sides advocating abandoning talks on Palestinian statehood if they miss the mark yet again.We certainly need to think outside the box, says Hanan Ashrawi, a Palestinian legislator and longtime supporter of peace talks. The business-as-usual approach hasn't worked.Advocating a single binational state of Jews and Arabs is the alternative strategy most often mentioned as gaining cachet among Palestinians, though even backers of that goal concede that it is more of an ideal than a realistic goal. Other alternatives that some Palestinians are mulling include dismantling the Palestinian government, an international trusteeship, and returning to popular uprising to achieve an independent state.Adds Ms. Ashrawi, There are many ideas, but there is no consensus. The consensus is that we are reaching the end of our rope. The two-state solution is receding, and we are in crisis.Nearly a year ago at a summit in Annapolis, Md., President Bush called for a push to reach a deal by the end of his term. If that deadline passes, it is unclear if the fledgling successor to the Bush administration will dive back into talks when chances for success seem slim. Palestinian and Israeli leaders are both weak right now, making it difficult for either side to push for an agreement.Both sides have acknowledged recently that negotiators aren't close to a peace agreement, despite 10 months of talks. Israeli Vice Premier Haim Ramon said Sunday that even a declaration of principles on a peace treaty isn't in sight. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas told Haaretz, an Israeli newspaper, that the gap between the sides is very large.
Calls for a new strategy are more urgent on the Palestinian side, where a collapse of the talks would be a blow to the standing of Mr. Abbas, a standard bearer for choosing negotiations over force, as he vies for legitimacy against the Islamic militants from Hamas who control the Gaza Strip. There is also fear that a breakdown in the negotiations will leave a vacuum for a new Palestinian uprising in the same way that the failed Israeli-Palestinian peace talks in July 2000 gave way within two months to several years of daily violence. Palestinians warn of a tipping point in the not so distant future when establishing a sustainable, sovereign Palestinian state will be rendered impossible, as Jewish settlements expand and Israel's security barrier continues to cut a cookie-cutter-like path through the West Bank.
There is an urgent need for Palestinians to get together and say, What is going on with our national project? says Bashir Bashir, a Palestinian citizen of Israel who helped draft a 52-page assessment of strategic options beyond the negotiations for a forum of 27 influential leaders and intellectuals calling themselves the Palestine Strategy Study Group, formed this year.Mr. Bashir concedes that, though he supports the creation of a single state of Arabs and Jews, it is unclear how such an entity can be created, given the opposition of Israeli Jews and the reluctance of many Palestinian leaders. A binational state was the prevailing choice of Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Liberation Organization until 1988. While a growing number of Palestinian intellectuals embrace the idea of a binational state, it remains a minority position.Talk about one state is a nice message, but its impossible. We will kill them, and they will kill us, says Ron Pundak, the director of the Peres Center for Peace in Tel Aviv and an architect of the 1993 Israeli-Palestinian Declaration of Principles reached in Oslo. Many Israelis fear that as Arabs in the West Bank, Gaza, and Israel reach demographic parity with Jews, demands for one state from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea will grow more compelling. US and Israeli officials have warned that the window of opportunity for the two-state solution might be closing.
There is also talk among Palestinians of a unilateral declaration of statehood in the spirit of Kosovo's secession from Serbia this year. (On the eve of a deadline for an agreement in 1999, Palestinian leaders threatened a similar move but ultimately didn't follow through.) Some right-wing critics have called for Egypt and Jordan to reassert authority in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, respectively, which they controlled until the 1967 Arab-Israeli War. Israeli critics of the current negotiations question the value of holding peace talks with a government whose legitimacy is challenged by many Palestinians. Instead of widening the rift between Abbas and Hamas by pushing peace talks that divides the Palestinians into moderate peace partners and extremist enemies, Israel should encourage Palestinian reconciliation, says Shlomo Brom, a former Israeli general and currently a fellow at the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies in Tel Aviv. As long as there is no agreement between Hamas and Fatah, at least on the rules of the game of running the Palestinian Authority, there is no chance of reach an agreement or implementing an agreement, he says. Israel needs a new paradigm.
