Israel comes to standstill for Yom Kippur Thu Oct 9, 4:32 AM ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) - Israel came to a standstill on Thursday as the country marked Yom Kippur -- the Day of Atonement -- the most sacred observance in the Jewish calendar.
Public transport and air traffic stopped, as did television and radio programming, while schools and offices -- including the Tel Aviv stock exchange -- were closed. Pedestrians, skaters and cyclists took over the car-free roads.Police stepped up security measures and the military shut down the Israeli occupied West Bank.In ultra-Orthodox Jewish neighbourhoods of Jerusalem, men clad in long coats and huge black fur hats packed synagogues and religious schools.Yom Kippur is devoted to fasting and prayer. It began at sundown on Wednesday and was to end on Thursday evening.
On Yom Kippur, Jews ask God to pardon their sins committed during the previous year. It is also on Yom Kippur that God judges Jews and determines their destiny, deciding who will live and who will die.At the end of Yom Kippur, prayers are offered at Judaism's most sacred place, the Western Wall in the Old City of Jerusalem.
Thursday's observance also marked the anniversary of the October 1973 Arab-Israeli war which cost the lives of 2,700 Israelis and which continues to haunt the Jewish state.While Israel eventually pushed back the Syrian and Egyptian forces, the 19-day war broke the myth of Israel's military strength.Declassified documents published on Wednesday highlighted just how much Israel had underestimated the strength of its Arab foes amid deep divisions among its military and political establishment.
Syrian forces kill three suspected 'terrorists': TV OCT 9,08
DAMASCUS (AFP) - Syrian security forces have killed three suspected terrorists in clashes in the Palestinian refugee camp in Yarmuk, south of Damascus, private Dunia television reported on Thursday. A clash took place between security forces and presumed terrorist elements in the Yarmuk camp, and three of them were killed and one wounded, Dunia said, quoting witnesses.One of the men, who was wearing an explosives belt, was overpowered by the Syrian security forces, the television added, saying calm had returned to the camp.The report did not say when the incident occurred.
Fatah says Hamas stalling on Palestinian unity plan By Douglas Hamilton
Thu Oct 9, 10:23 AM ET
RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) - Palestinian Islamists in Gaza are stalling on an Egyptian plan to reconcile them with the secular PLO leadership in the West Bank, a senior official of the rival Fatah faction said on Thursday. Responding to comments from Hamas officials who met Egyptian mediators in Cairo on Wednesday, Azzam al-Ahmad dismissed the Islamists' generally positive reaction to Egypt's proposal of a technocratic, unity government for the Gaza Strip as merely designed to buy time to consolidate their hold on the enclave.The sharp response from the Fatah movement, which dominates the larger West Bank, offered little sign that a planned meeting of all the Palestinian factions next month in Cairo can provide a breakthrough to end the schism with Gaza that has helped block efforts to found a Palestinian state free of Israeli occupation.Hamas' statements in Cairo show they're trying to maneuver and gain time, Ahmad told Voice of Palestine radio, a day after Hamas said it shared the vision of unity presented to them on Wednesday by Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman.They still have illusions that they can impose on others their will to have Gaza as an independent entity under their control, Ahmad added.Despite the frost, however, chief Hamas negotiator Moussa Abu Marzouq met a top Cairo-based Fatah official, Nabil Amr, on Thursday, a source close to the talks told Reuters.
SCHISM
In the West Bank, run by the Palestinian Authority of Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas, 2.5 million people live under Israeli occupation. In Gaza, run by Hamas since it routed President Abbas's forces in 2007, 1.5 million live under an Israeli blockade.Abbas wants peace with Israel in return for a viable Palestinian state. Hamas, which won a parliamentary election in 2006 and ran the Palestinian government until last year's Gaza fighting with Fatah, refuses to accept the Jewish state.Among its demands, Hamas wants to be made a partner in the umbrella Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), a bastion of Fatah since the days of its late leader Yasser Arafat.Many Abbas allies, however, seem set on isolating Hamas and portraying the Islamists as solely responsible for any failure in a reconciliation process endorsed by the Arab League.
Hamas has no veto power on the Egyptian plan, which was accepted by 12 PLO factions, Ahmad said.Restoring authority over Gaza is crucial for Abbas's credibility as Palestinian leader, but accommodating Hamas could set back negotiations with Israel and alarm Western powers.Abu Marzouq on Wednesday said his group agreed to the Egyptian idea of a unity government with other factions including Fatah, This proposal might be an opening to the end of the Palestinian crisis and there will be additional meetings ... this month, he told a news conference.But Fatah's Ahmad said any proposal to set up open-ended committees was simply a stalling tactic. He said the Egyptians want full acceptance of their plan before having Palestinian factions meet face-to-face to discuss the details.After Hamas accepts the Egyptian paper, we will accept the formation of committees to discuss the details. Not before.(Additional reporting by Wafa Amr in Ramallah and Nidal al-Mughrabi in Gaza; Editing by Alastair Macdonald and Louise Ireland)
Arabs, Jews clash in Israel city Thu Oct 9, 4:46 AM ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) - Cars and stores were damaged as Jews and Arabs clashed in the Israeli city of Acre after an Arab man was assaulted for driving during Yom Kippur, the Haaretz newpaper reported on Thursday. The unrest erupted around midnight (2200 GMT Wednesday), several hours after Jews began marking Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, the holiest observance in the Jewish calender, when Israel comes to a virtual standstill.A group of Jewish youths assaulted an Arab man who was driving his car, in an incident that touched off large-scale rioting between Jews and Arabs, resulting in extensive damage to dozens of cars and shops, Haaretz said in its internet edition.Police used force to disperse the crowd of several hundred peoples, the newspaper said, citing police officials.About one third of Acre's population of almost 50,000 residents are Arab.Arab MPs have for years asked security forces to take tougher action to prevent Jews from stoning cars driven by Arabs on Yom Kippur.
One of them, Abbas Zkoor, said such attacks occurred frequently.
Despite numerous complaints filed in police stations, officers were not sent to disperse the racist gatherings, Zkoor said.He called on religious authorities to condemn such behaviour, which he said surely contravenes the basic principles of the Jewish religion.Israel came to a virtual standstill as the country marked Yom Kippur, which started at sunset on Wednesday and was to end on Thursday evening.
Public transport and air traffic stopped, as did television and radio programming, while schools and offices -- including the Tel Aviv stock exchange -- were closed. Pedestrians, skaters and cyclists took over the car-free roads.Police stepped up security measures and the military shut down the Israeli occupied West Bank.In ultra-Orthodox Jewish neighbourhoods of Jerusalem, men clad in long coats and huge black fur hats packed synagogues and religious schools.On Yom Kippur, observant Jews fast, pray and ask God to pardon their sins committed during the previous year. It is also on Yom Kippur that God judges Jews and determines their destiny, deciding who will live and who will die.At the end of Yom Kippur, prayers are offered at Judaism's most sacred place, the Western Wall in the Old City of Jerusalem.Thursday's observance also marked the anniversary of the October 1973 Arab-Israeli war which cost the lives of 2,700 Israelis and which continues to haunt the Jewish state.
While Israel eventually pushed back the Syrian and Egyptian forces, the 19-day war broke the myth of Israel's military strength.Declassified documents published on Wednesday highlighted just how much Israel had underestimated the strength of its Arab foes amid deep divisions among its military and political establishment.
US officials fear terrorist links with drug lords By CURT ANDERSON, Associated Press Writer Wed Oct 8, 3:29 PM ET
MIAMI - There is real danger that Islamic extremist groups such as al-Qaida and Hezbollah could form alliances with wealthy and powerful Latin American drug lords to launch new terrorist attacks, U.S. officials said Wednesday. Extremist group operatives have already been identified in several Latin American countries, mostly involved in fundraising and finding logistical support. But Charles Allen, chief of intelligence analysis at the Homeland Security Department, said they could use well-established smuggling routes and drug profits to bring people or even weapons of mass destruction to the U.S.The presence of these people in the region leaves open the possibility that they will attempt to attack the United States, said Allen, a veteran CIA analyst. The threats in this hemisphere are real. We cannot ignore them.
Added U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration operations chief Michael Braun: It is not in our interest to let that potpourri of scum to come together.Their comments came at a two-day conference on the illegal drug threat in the Americas hosted by the U.S. Southern Command and the 35,000-member AFCEA International, a trade group for communications, intelligence and national security companies.Much as the Taliban tapped Afghanistan's heroin for money, U.S. officials say the vast profits available from Latin American cocaine could provide al-Qaida and others with a ready source of income. The rebel group known as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, has long used drug money to pay for weapons, supplies and operations — and is also designated as a terrorist organization by the U.S.We've got a hybrid that has developed right before our eyes, Braun said.Latin America's drug kingpins already have well-established methods of smuggling, laundering money, obtaining false documents, providing safe havens and obtaining illicit weapons, all of which would be attractive to terrorists who are facing new pressures in the Middle East and elsewhere.Allen, of the Homeland Security Department, said there was currently a low probability of cooperation between terrorists and drug organizations, but the fertile ground of Latin America — where government corruption is common and institutions often weak — means that the possibility deserves renewed U.S. attention.
It would be an unprecedented act. But we cannot rule it out, he said.
The officials said the key to preventing such an alliance is increasing cooperation between government agencies and with nations in the region. They singled out for praise the governments of Mexico and Colombia for making huge strides against drug groups, while criticizing Venezuela for its failure to do so.Braun said the DEA can be a particularly critical component because of its wide use of human informants and telephone wiretaps to track those in the drug trade. Those sources often provide tips about other types of crime and could be key to identifying terrorists in Latin America.They use the same money launderers, the same document forgers, he said. You are naturally going to bump up against terrorist organizations.
Don't mess with our hoummus, warn Lebanese by Jocelyne Zablit
Wed Oct 8, 7:28 AM ET
BEIRUT (AFP) - A battle over hoummus and tabbouleh is shaping up between Lebanon and Israel -- two neighbours still technically at war -- with efforts underway to clearly identify such dishes as exclusively Lebanese. In our mind tabbouleh and hoummus should belong to the Lebanese just as feta cheese belongs to the Greeks, said Fadi Abboud, president of the Lebanese Industrialists Association.Now when hoummus is known all over the world as an Israeli Kosher dip or a Greek dip, that's not fair, he added. This and other foods like tabbouleh are all Lebanese specialities and they should be registered as such.He said his group is preparing to go to the European Union to register the names of certain dishes as Lebanese.
Legislation is also pending in the Lebanese parliament to protect the names of certain geographical locations specific to Lebanon so that products cannot be marketed under the name of a town or region.What appals me with Israel is that they are (marketing) hoummus as a traditional Israeli product when it is clearly a Lebanese product, said Ramez Abi Nader, a member of the Lebanese Industrialists Association.What they are doing is misleading as hoummus is an Arabic not a Hebrew word... and everyone knows that tabbouleh is Lebanese.Hoummus is a dip made of chick peas, sesame paste, olive oil, lemon juice and garlic while tabbouleh is a salad made with parsley, bulgur wheat, spring onions and tomatoes.Both dishes, as well as others such as baba ghannouj, an aubergine dip, are widely popular in Israel and around the globe.Abboud and Abi Nader said they believe Lebanon has suffered millions of dollars in losses from such dishes being marketed in various countries without being produced in Lebanon.They said said their case was similar to the one over feta cheese in which a European Union court ruled in 2002 that feta is exclusively Greek.They also argue that just as France and Scotland have succeeded in protecting their geographical appelation rights for sparkling wine from Champagne and Scotch whisky, so should Lebanon for some of its dishes.Kamal Mouzawak, founder of Souk El Tayeb, a farmer's market in Beirut, said it was unthinkable that tabbouleh or hoummus could be marketed as other than Lebanese.When one speaks of Italy the first thing that comes to mind is pizza and pasta, when you speak about the States it's hamburger and when you speak of Lebanon it should be tabbouleh and company, Mouzawak said.
It's important that we protect our foods because they are part of our roots, he added. When I want to recount my origins I do so through hoummus and tabbouleh rather than a history book.When one speaks about hoummus, they must think of Lebanon and when they speak of Lebanon they must think of hoummus.
