Olmert calls for world to stop Iran nuclear bomb NOV 16,08
JERUSALEM – Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Sunday that Iran is still trying to build nuclear bombs and the world must make a concerted effort to stop the project.Iran has not terminated its pursuit of nuclear weapons, Olmert told a gathering of North American Jewish leaders in Jerusalem. Iran cannot become nuclear. Israel cannot afford it...the free world must not accept it. We must all do whatever we can to prevent it.Israel considers Iran a strategic threat because of its nuclear program, its development of long-range missiles and repeated threats to destroy the Jewish state.Olmert did not give specific warnings about possible Israeli actions against Iran.Iran denies its nuclear program is aimed at producing weapons.
Israel PM accuses Hamas of shattering Gaza truce by Ron Bousso Ron Bousso – NOV 16,08
JERUSALEM (AFP) – Interim Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert accused the Islamist Hamas movement on Sunday of shattering the Gaza truce after two rockets hit Israel, prompting an air strike which killed four Palestinian militants.Olmert told the weekly cabinet meeting that Israel could not stand idly by while it came under repeated rocket fire and said he had ordered security chiefs to draw up action plans against Hamas's 17-month-old rule in Gaza.But several more rockets fired from Gaza hit Israel late on Sunday afternoon, leaving one person with light shrapnel wounds to the head and the arm, the army said.Defence officials said that Israel's border crossings would remain closed to humanitarian deliveries to the aid-dependent territory, despite mounting international pressure for a resumption of desperately needed food and fuel.Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas was expected to press Olmert on the issue in talks on Monday, following appeals from both the European Union and the United Nations.Olmert said that the responsibility for the shattering of the calm and the creation of a situation of prolonged and repeated violence in the south of the country is entirely on Hamas and the other terror groups in Gaza.He said he had asked security chiefs to present different action plans against the Hamas terror rule without its hampering our ability to use all necessary force in our response to violations of the calm.Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni meanwhile told her visiting British counterpart David Miliband that she expected the international community to support the tough stand in Gaza.Israel can not just watch its citizens being attacked... The international community can not turn a blind-eye, Livni said.But the head of the Hamas administration in Gaza, Ismail Haniya, said Israel, not the Islamists, was violating the truce and demanded that Jewish state prove its interest by keeping to its side of the bargain.
Israel must turn its words about a truce into actions by halting the aggression and lifting the unjust siege, Haniya said.He also dismissed calls by some Israeli leaders for a resumption of so-called targeted killings against Hamas leaders saying such threats don't even scare the smallest Palestinian child.During Sunday's cabinet meeting, a senior official quoted Transport Minister Shaul Mofaz as saying: We must stop talking and start a policy of targeted killing against the Hamas leadership.
Haniya made his comments at the funeral of four Palestinian militants from the Popular Resistance Committees, a small armed group not linked to Hamas, who were killed in an Israeli air raid on Gaza City earlier Sunday.The army said the four were preparing to fire rockets at Israel, and that the raid followed two hits which caused neither casualties nor damage.Olmert's speech to the cabinet exposed a mounting rift with Defence Minister Ehud Barak over the Egyptian-brokered truce with Hamas which went into force on June 19 and which, despite sporadic violations by both sides, had led to a prolonged calm on the border until earlier this month.Barak took a far more conciliatory line than his colleagues, saying Israel should be prepared to consider a return to the deal. If the other side wants the calm, we will consider it seriously, he said.Any major change of policy will have to be approved by Israel's security cabinet which is expected to meet later this week. Since violence flared on November 5, Israeli forces and militants, some of them from Hamas, have engaged in almost daily tit-for-tat exchanges and Israel's border with Gaza -- its sole gateway for vital goods -- has remained almost continuously closed.
On Sunday, Israel maintained the crippling blockade which has forced the United Nations to suspend food distribution to 750,000 Gaza residents and the territory's sole power plant to shut down. The crossings will remain closed until further orders, said Israel's liaison officer for the Palestinian territories, Peter Lerner.
Top Barak aide Amos Gilad, who negotiated the informal truce with the Egyptians, said Israel could reopen the crossings to limited humanitarian deliveries. Israel does not want a humanitarian crisis, he said.
Israel urges greater force vs Iran nuclear work NOV 16,08
JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert called on Sunday for a stronger international campaign against Iran's nuclear programme to thwart it with greater force.We must increase our measures to prevent Iran from achieving its devious goals, Olmert said in a speech to Jewish leaders in Jerusalem. Iran cannot become nuclear. Israel cannot afford it ... the free world must not accept it.We must unite our forces as part of the international community, led by the United States of America. We must confront Iran's malevolent diligence and thwart it with greater force.Israel and the West fear Iran may be using its nuclear programme to develop a nuclear weapon, which the Jewish state sees as a potential threat to its existence. Iran says its atomic programme is solely for energy purposes.Israel is widely believed to have the Middle East's only nuclear arsenal, although it has never confirmed nor denied it.Israel has backed Western economic sanctions against Iran but has said it is keeping all options on the table in its bid to halt Iran's nuclear programme.Israeli leaders have voiced concern about U.S. President-elect Barack Obama's stated readiness to seek dialogue either alongside or instead of sanctions as a method of persuading Iran to change its policies.Iran has not terminated its pursuit of nuclear weapons, Olmert said.He also accused the Islamic Republic of continuing to fund Palestinian militants and gunmen in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon.Olmert called for further sanctions against Iran, saying: It must become more costly to Iran to pursue nuclear weapons than to give it up.Olmert resigned as prime minister in September in the heat of a corruption investigation, but is staying on as caretaker prime minister until a new Israeli government can be formed after a February 10 election.(Writing by Allyn Fisher-Ilan; Editing by Janet Lawrence)
Miliband urged to support Israel's stand on Gaza by Steve Kirby Steve Kirby – Sun Nov 16, 1:54 pm ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni on Sunday told her visiting British counterpart David Miliband that she expected the international community to support the Jewish state's tough stand in Gaza.Israel can not just watch its citizens being attacked... The international community can not turn a blind-eye, Livni said during talks with Miliband.The British foreign secretary arrived in the region on Sunday for talks with Israeli and Palestinian leaders amid renewed violence in and around the Gaza Strip that threatened to end a five-month-old calm in the area.Palestinian militants in the Hamas-controlled territory continued to fire rockets against southern Israel on Sunday, wounding one person after four militants were killed in an Israeli air strike.Miliband, who will tour the rocket-battered Israeli town of Sderot together with Defence Minister Ehud Barak on Monday, said he was looking forward to showing solidarity in my visit tomorrow.He, nevertheless, did not echo calls from the United Nations and the European Union for Israel to ease its crippling blockade on the Gaza Strip that has deprived the densely-populated area of vital foodstuff and goods.Miliband earlier met outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to discuss efforts to launch direct Israeli-Syrian peace talks, ahead of the foreign secretary's visit to Damascus this week, a British embassy spokeswoman told AFP.
Last month Olmert asked the Turkish government to present the Syrians with a proposal to resume indirect talks which were put on hold after the premier announced on July 30 he would step down over a corruption scandal.Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has yet to reply to the proposal.Miliband was also due to meet right-wing opposition Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu, who together with Livni are the two frontrunners to head a new government in Israel's February elections.The visit also comes amid growing tensions after Britain's recent bid to press its European Union partners to stop Israeli exports to the bloc that are manufactured or largely manufactured in Jewish settlements, in what London sees as a breach of a 2000 free trade agreement between the two sides and an encouragement to settlement expansion.
According to the spokeswoman, Miliband and Olmert had a clear exchange of views on the issue that has raised heavy criticism in Israel.The foreign secretary made it clear that Britain was not trying to move the goalposts on the agreement but rather to follow up on representations which have been made to us on the workings of the system, she said.Israel has also expressed concerns over the threat of war crimes prosecutions in Britain against senior Israeli army officers.In September 2005, Major General Doron Almog narrowly missed arrest by police at London's Heathrow airport when he flew straight back to Israel following a tip-off that he faced detention on suspicion of war crimes over the destruction of more than 50 homes in Gaza in 2002.After Israel, Miliband will go on to West Bank talks with Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas as part of his efforts to bolster support for the peace negotiations relaunched in the US city of Annapolis last November that have failed to achieve their target of an agreement by the end of this year.I will reinforce the UK's support for the Annapolis peace process and a viable two-state solution when I meet Israeli and Palestinian representatives, Miliband has said.I do not underestimate the scale of the challenge or the size of the task to realise the goal of a two-state solution -- a goal shared by the Israeli and Palestinian leaderships, as well as the entire international community. It is precisely the scale of this challenge that makes our engagement all the more necessary.
Jewish settlers given 72 hours to leave Hebron house Sun Nov 16, 9:54 am ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – Israel's High Court on Sunday ordered Jewish settlers to evacuate within three days a house in the flashpoint West Bank town of Hebron whose ownership is contested.The ruling, which was slammed by settler leaders, follows a series of violent clashes between Israeli security forces and hardline Jews seeking to erect unauthorised outposts in the West Bank, which Israel occupied in 1967.The court rejected an appeal by two rightwing organisations against an order issued by the state to evacuate the Hebron house, which the settlers claim they had purchased from a Palestinian, who denies selling the house.The controversial house was occupied by dozens of hardline Jewish settlers in March 2007. They have remained in the four-storey building which they dubbed the house of peace despite the evacuation order.
The court ruling said the settlers should turn to the appropriate legal bodies to prove their ownership over the house and refrain from taking the law into their own hands by occupying the property against the will of its owner.It ordered the settlers to leave the house within three days. If they are not out by then, the ruling said, they can be subject to forceful evacuation by police.The settler representatives claimed the house had been bought for 700,000 dollars, but Palestinian Faez Rajabi said he had documents proving he was the legal owner and that the deal had never been completed.While the ruling said there were contradictions and queries in Rajabi's claims, it also said that documents presented by the settlers in a bid to show ownership of the house were found by police investigators to be forged.A spokesman for the Yesha Council, the main settler organisation, called on interim Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to meet them and urged him to allow the settlers to stay in the house.The settlers have proved beyond any doubt that they bought the house, but still the government, the state prosecution and the High Court collude to remove them from the house, Yishai Hollander said.The Yesha Council and the settler representatives will together examine their actions in view of the ruling.
Gaza militant killed readying rocket Sat Nov 15, 5:52 am ET
GAZA CITY (AFP) – A Palestinian militant was killed and another wounded in an explosion as a group prepared to fire a rocket, medics and witnesses said on Saturday.The witnesses said that the blast in northern Gaza was the result of an Israeli air strike but the Israeli army denied that they had undertaken any attack in the area.We haven't carried out a strike in northern Gaza in recent hours. The explosion might be due to mishandling of weapons, an army spokesman said.A doctor at Beit Lahiya hospital said that the wounded militant was in a critical condition.
Israeli, Palestinian leaders to meet Monday Sat Nov 15, 4:54 am ET
JERUSALEM, (AFP) – Outgoing Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert will meet Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas on Monday to discuss tensions in the Gaza Strip and the sluggish peace talks, officials said on Saturday.Senior Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat told AFP that the two leaders will meet on Monday at Olmert's Jerusalem residence. A senior Israeli official confirmed the meeting's timing and location.The meeting, the first in over two months, will focus on the five-month-old ceasefire between Israel and the Islamist Hamas movement that seized power in the Gaza Strip in June 2007, ousting forces loyal to Abbas, the two officials said.The fragile Egyptian-brokered truce is under severe strain following 12 days of tit-for-tat skirmishes between the Israeli army and Gaza militants.Abbas was expected to ask Olmert to alleviate Israel's punishing blockade on Gaza, which it completely sealed off last week in response to renewed rocket fire against southern Israel, Erekat said.The Palestinian leader will also discuss Israel's ongoing settlement activity in the occupied West Bank, notably in the wake of reports that (Defence Minister Ehud) Barak has authorised new construction, Erekat added.The two leaders, who last met on September 16, will also continue the Middle East peace talks, which were practically suspended after Olmert stepped down in September over corruption allegations.The US-backed talks, launched nearly a year ago at an international summit in Annapolis, Maryland, has made little visible progress as both leaders have conceded that they would not meet their declared goal of inking a deal before President George W. Bush leaves office on January 20.
Hamas fires long-range rockets at Israel By Abed Shana Abed Shana – Fri Nov 14, 1:00 pm
GAZA (Reuters) – Hamas Islamists fired long-range rockets at a southern Israel city on Friday after an Israeli air strike on their Gaza stronghold in the 11th day of skirmishes that threaten a five-month-old truce.The armed wing of the Islamist group said it fired five Grad rockets, the longest-range weapon it has used against the Jewish state. Israel said they hit Ashkelon, north of Gaza on the Mediterranean coast, with no casualties.Israel and Hamas blamed each other for the flare-up since November 4, in which 12 Hamas militants have been killed by Israeli forces and scores of rockets fired into Israel. But both shied away from declaring an end to the Egyptian-brokered truce.We will continue to forcefully defend Israeli soldiers and citizens, to thwart attempts to stage attacks when we discover them, Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak said. At the same time, if the other side wants to continue the calm we will definitely give it positive consideration.
Hamas took a similar stand.
Up to this moment we are committed to the ceasefire, said Mahmoud al-Zahar, a Hamas leader. Self-defense and resistance would continue. We are waiting for the Israelis. If they are really committed (to a truce) we have to address that frankly.The 1960s-era Soviet-made Grad rocket has a range of 25 km (15 miles). Two of them struck Ashkelon.Earlier, Palestinian medics said two Hamas fighters were wounded in an Israeli air strike, which a military spokesman said was in response to an earlier rocket attack.After the air strike, Hamas said it fired eight shorter-range Qassam rockets aimed at the city of Sderot.Two Qassams hit, causing damage to buildings, an Israeli police spokesman said. One Israeli was treated for shrapnel wounds and a number of people suffered shock.
NEXT MOVE
Israel's caretaker prime minister, Ehud Olmert, said in a statement after consultations with defense chiefs that Israel would not tolerate the rocket fire. It would continue to apply economic pressure on Hamas through border crossings.Israel has not allowed humanitarian supplies into the Gaza Strip since November 4, when its troops raided the territory to destroy what the army described as a tunnel built by militants to kidnap Israeli soldiers.Six Hamas gunmen were killed in the raid. Militants responded to the incursion with rocket salvoes.Israel said the crossings would remain shut for now.United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called on Israel to allow urgently fuel and humanitarian aid into Gaza, where 750,000 Palestinians are in need of food.Short of fuel, Gaza shut down its sole power plant, and rationed electricity it gets from Israel and Egypt. Some Gaza bakeries posted notices on Friday limiting the purchase of bread, although no major shortages were reported.The EU also urged Israel to let aid supplies through. I am profoundly concerned about the consequences for the Gazan population of the complete closure of all Gaza crossings for deliveries of fuel and basic humanitarian assistance, External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner said. Israeli troops also killed four gunmen in a raid on Wednesday, prompting more rocket and mortar attacks from Gaza. Hamas is in conflict with the Fatah faction of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas which holds sway in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and is negotiating with Israel on peace terms. The rift between them widened in 2007 as Hamas took control of Gaza. Egypt brokered the Israel-Hamas truce, but Palestinian unity talks it is mediating faltered earlier this month. (Reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi and Allyn Fisher-Ilan; additional reporting by Patrick Worsnip at the United Nations and Mark John in Brussels; Writing by Douglas Hamilton; Editing by Angus MacSwan)
Israel's Barak approved settlement construction: report Fri Nov 14, 4:02 am ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak approved dozens of construction projects in Jewish settlements in the West Bank in recent months despite international commitments to freeze such activity, the Haaretz daily said on Friday.Some of the permits for construction were granted in areas beyond the large settlement blocs Israel wants to keep under any peace agreement reached with the Palestinians, the liberal newspaper said.Israel reiterated a commitment to freeze all settlement activity when Middle East peace talks were revived at a US-sponsored conference in November 2007.The defence ministry slammed the Haaretz article and its headline which read: Barak sanctioned settlement expansion.This article and its headline are riddled with erroneous and biased data, spokesman Ronen Moshe said.
Anyone can judge why such a biased and wrong article was published at this time and what's behind the timing, he said in apparent reference to campaigning for February 10 legislative elections.Ehud Barak, who heads the Labour party, had insisted in January that all Israeli construction projects in the West Bank should go to him for approval.Haaretz said that since April the minister had authorised the marketing of at least 400 homes and plots in the Jewish settlements in the West Bank, the construction of 60 homes several kilometres (miles) from the existing Eshkolot settlement and the registration of further construction projects.Palestinian prime minister Salam Fayyad on Thursday accused Israel of threatening the peace process by failing to comply with its commitments to freeze settlement activity in the occupied West Bank.
Israel not counting on Obama in peace talks: Livni By Claudia Parsons Claudia Parsons – Thu Nov 13, 12:00 pm ET
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Israel's chief negotiator with the Palestinians said on Thursday Israel did not need any dramatic intervention in the peace process from U.S. President-elect Barack Obama when he takes office in January.Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, who could become prime minister after Israel's general election in February, told Jewish leaders in New York the international community should limit itself to backing the talks according to parameters set out at a peace conference in Annapolis, Maryland, nearly a year ago.The talks have been hobbled by violence and bitter disputes over Jewish settlement building and the future of Jerusalem.Livni said she welcomed the outcome of a meeting she attended last weekend in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, with the Quartet -- the European Union, Russia, the United Nations and the United States -- and Arab and Palestinian leaders.Livni said she had told them: We don't ask you to intervene. Please, this is bilateral. We don't want you to try to bridge gaps between us. Don't put new ideas on the table.We know what we are doing, we are responsible enough. We need your help just in supporting the process according to the parameters and the provisions we all set between us.Always remote, the chances of a peace deal this year appeared to evaporate entirely when Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert announced his decision to resign because of a corruption scandal, triggering plans for a February 10 election in Israel.
SITUATION IS CALM
As leader of the Kadima party, Livni was unable to form a coalition government last month, but she could become prime minister after the election. She said Obama's top priority would be to address the financial crisis in the United States.She said that while there were expectations from Obama on the Middle East, her message to the new administration was: You don't need now to do nothing dramatic about it. The situation is calm. We have these peace talks.Addressing a meeting of the UJA-Federation of New York, she said the United States was a friend but that Israel was not a state that puts its problem on the American table the day after the new administration takes office.It is unclear how much emphasis Obama will place on the Israeli-Palestinian peace process and Palestinian officials have repeatedly said they are worried Israel would use any lull in talks to expand Jewish settlements in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, lands seized by Israel in a 1967 war.Livni said the only way for Israel to live as a democratic Jewish state in peace and security was to give up some of its land for a Palestinian state, in return for Palestinians dropping their insistence on the right of return of refugees.Some 700,000 people, half the Arab population of Palestine in May 1948, fled or were driven from their homes when Israel was created. Refugees and their descendants now number 4.5 million, with the largest refugee communities in Jordan, Syria and Lebanon, as well as the West Bank and Gaza Strip.Livni said the answer to the refugee issue was not to allow a return to Israel, not even to one of them.I'm willing to make this historical reconciliation as long as I know that the creation of a Palestinian state is the answer to their own national aspiration, she said.And if there is a problem of refugees that left in 1948, this is not an Israeli problem any more.Livni was in New York to attend a high-level U.N. General Assembly meeting on dialogue between different religions on the initiative of Saudi King Abdullah. She said King Abdullah had taken a courageous step in calling the meeting, which indicated a recognition that the enemy of Arab states was not Israel but extremism. (Editing by Doina Chiacu)
Mayor-elect vows to bolster Israel's undivided capital by Ron Bousso Ron Bousso – Wed Nov 12, 2:12 pm ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – A secular tycoon celebrating his election as Jerusalem mayor on Wednesday vowed to turn the Holy City into a world metropolis and bolster its disputed status as Israel's undivided capital.Nir Barkat won 52 percent of the vote in Tuesday's poll, routing an ultra-Orthodox rabbi, a scandal-plagued Russian-Israeli billionaire and a pro-cannabis candidate.Media hailed his triumph as a secular revolution after five years under ultra-Orthodox Mayor Uri Lupolianski.
Barkat, 49, swept to victory on a hardline ticket rejecting the cession to the Palestinians of any part of occupied Arab east Jerusalem as part of a peace deal.The successful businessman with a penchant for natty suits faces an uphill battle in a city struggling with rampant poverty, massive debt and a growing gap between Jewish and Palestinian neighbourhoods.This victory belongs to all those who love and appreciate our incredible city, the eternal capital of the Jewish people, Barkat told supporters in a victory speech at his campaign headquarters.The victory belongs to right and left, religious and secular, Jews and Arabs.A former member of caretaker Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's Kadima, Barkat prides himself on having quit the centrist party after exposing what he said was a plan to divide Jerusalem.His hardline stance won him the backing of the city's religious right-wing parties which represent a hefty part of Jerusalem's population of 700,000.He promised to build new Jewish settlements in east Jerusalem, which the Palestinians want as the capital of their promised state, saying it was essential to provide affordable housing to stem the exodus of young Jews.But he insisted there was no necessary contradiction between his determination to expand Jewish settlements and his pledge to serve all the city's residents, including the 250,000 Arabs who overwhelmingly boycotted the election.As someone who believes in a united Jerusalem I am more committed to helping people in east Jerusalem to improve their quality of life, he said.I believe that in building a united Jerusalem, everyone wins. There is no successful example of a split city in the world especially if we want to develop Jerusalem as a tourist site.The vast majority of Jerusalem's Jewish population considers Israel's designation of the city as its eternal and undivided capital a sacred mantra, even though it is rejected by the international community.World governments and and the Palestinians have criticised Israel for continuing Jewish settlement activity in the east of the city, as well as the rest of the occupied West Bank, seeing it as a major stumbling block to peace.The incoming mayor also promised new legislation to attract companies, especially from Israel's large computer industry, in a bid to encourage young families to stay.I see the big picture for Jerusalem, said Barkat, who says his role model is New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg.The mayor-elect said he also intends to press the government to rethink the light railway under construction in Jerusalem which has sparked traffic gridlock in large parts of the city. I argue that there are better solutions -- cheaper, faster and better-serving the people of Jerusalem, Barkat said. The Maariv daily commented in an editorial that Barkat had an enormous task in front of him to rebuild the city's economy and tax base. The capital city, which became the poorest and most neglected city in Israel, needs an earthquake that will leave no stone unturned, it said. The tens of thousands of people who abandoned the city have to come back and rebuild everything anew.
