4 dead as Israelis, Palestinians battle in Gaza By DIAA HADID, Associated Press Writer NOV 12,08
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip – Israeli troops and Palestinian militants fought with missiles and mortars along the Gaza-Israel border on Wednesday, raising new concerns that an increasingly shaky five-month-old truce might collapse.Four Hamas militants were killed in the exchange, and the Hamas military wing said it would retaliate.
Gaza's Hamas rulers and Israeli leaders have said in recent days they're interested in restoring calm, but the latest fighting highlighted the persistent tensions along the border.Hamas seized control of Gaza in June 2007, and Israel later declared Gaza a hostile entity. An Egyptian-brokered truce took hold in June.The Israeli military and Palestinian militants gave conflicting versions of how the fighting started.
Israel's military said it began when Israeli forces spotted armed militants approaching Gaza's border fence, near the southern Gaza town of Khan Younis. The men were trying to lay an explosive device near the fence, the military said.An exchange of fire erupted. The militants set off an explosive device and fired three mortars at troops, the military said. Israeli soldiers hit four militants and an Israeli soldier was slightly injured, the army said.Later, Israeli aircraft fired two missiles at open fields, the army said.Palestinian militants said the battle began when they spotted Israeli forces crossing into Gaza and fired upon them.The military would not say whether Israeli forces entered Gaza.Palestinian Health Ministry official Dr. Moawiya Hassanain said ambulances later retrieved the bodies of four Hamas militants from the area of fighting.Hamas' military wing threatened retaliation. The anger of our people and our resistance will reach everybody, God willing, and our response to the enemy will be painful, and will spill the Zionists' blood, the wing's spokesman, Abu Obeida, said in a statement.Earlier Wednesday, Gaza's Hamas rulers stopped short of saying the truce was over but said militants would fight any entry of Israeli forces into Gaza. This is a clear violation of the truce, and the resistance has the right to respond to any attack, said Fawzi Barhoum, a Hamas spokesman.The truce began to unravel last week, after Israeli forces trying to destroy a militants' tunnel entered Gaza, setting off battles that killed seven Palestinian gunmen. The fighting unleased a wave of rocket attacks from Gaza at Israeli border towns.
Israeli officials have warned that truce might not last.We are looking at the relative calm around us and know that under the surface other things are brewing, said Israel's Defense Minister Ehud Barak said Tuesday in a visit to the army's Southern Command, in charge of Gaza operations.Associated Press writer Matti Friedman in Jerusalem contributed to this report.
Mayor-elect vows to bolster Israel's undivided capital by Ron Bousso Ron Bousso – Wed Nov 12, 3:49 am ET
JERUSALEM, (AFP) – A secular tycooon 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 votes in Tuesday's poll, routing an ultra-Orthodox rabbi, a scandal-plagued Russian-Israeli billionaire and a pro-cannabis candidate.Media hailed his triumph a secular revolution after five years under ultra-Orthodox Mayor Uri Lupolianski.Barkat, 49, swept to victory on a hardline ticket rejecting concessions to the Palestinians of any part of occupied 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.Tonight Jerusalem has won, tonight Israel has won, tonight the Jewish people have won, Barkat told supporters in a victory speech at his campaign headquarters.This victory belongs to all those who love and appreciate our incredible city, the eternal capital of the Jewish people. 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.
Jerusalem has to stay unified, he has told AFP.Barkat's 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 during his campaign to build new Jewish neighbourhoods in Arab east Jerusalem, which Palestinians want as their capital of their promised state.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.The status of Jerusalem is a main sticking point in the US-brokered Middle East peace talks.
The international community and the Palestinians have criticised Israel for continuing Jewish settlement activity in the eastern parts of the city, as well as in the rest of the occupied West Bank.The municipal election, which saw a relatively low turnout of 42 percent, was again boycotted by residents of east Jerusalem, home to some 250,000 Palestinians.Palestinians have shunned the municipal elections since Israel captured east Jerusalem in the 1967 Six-Day War and later annexed it in a move not recognised by the international community.In the municipal polls around the country, although candidates of the ruling Kadima won some 50 of the more than 150 local councils, the vote saw a sharp rise in support for environmentalist parties.
Barkat's victory in Jerusalem highlights the growing rift between religious and secular Jews in Israel's poorest city. I see the big picture for Jerusalem, said Barkat, who says his role model is New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and who wants to turn the Holy City into an international metropolis.The incoming mayor has promised new legislation to attract companies, especially from Israel's large computer industry, and young families in a bid to reverse an exodus of young people from Jerusalem, where over one third of the population lives below the poverty line.
Olmert's change from hawk to dove seems complete By ARON HELLER, Associated Press Writer – Wed Nov 12, 2:44 am ET
JERUSALEM – Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, once one of Israel's leading hawks, is leaving office an outspoken dove.Forced out by corruption charges, Olmert is saying something that used to be fringe opinion among Israelis — that to make peace with the Palestinians, Israel must make sweeping territorial concessions, including Arab parts of Jerusalem.We must relinquish ... parts of our homeland as well as Arab neighborhoods in Jerusalem, and return to the seed of the territory that was the state of Israel up to 1967, with the necessary adjustments arising from the reality that has since been created, he said in one of two speeches this week in which he laid out his credo.The ideology he once espoused, of keeping the territory Israel captured in the 1967 Mideast war, will not work. It is already not working, he said in speeches Monday marking the 13th anniversary of the assassination of his dovish predecessor, Yitzhak Rabin, by a Jewish nationalist.We were wrong. We did not see the big picture, he said.Unless the land was partitioned into Jewish and Palestinian states, it would morph into one country in which an Arab majority would mean the end of Jewish statehood, he warned.The moment of truth has come, and there is no escaping it ... if God forbid, we drag our feet, we might lose the support for the idea of two states. The alternative is inconceivable.Never before has a serving Israeli prime minister spoken so forcefully for partitioning the land, and it was all the more striking given Olmert's background.Raised in a staunchly nationalist home on an ideology that opposed any territorial concessions to the Arabs, Olmert went on to serve in the hard-line governments of his former Likud Party.In recent years, though, he has come to publicly embrace a land-for-peace deal, but never the formula of complete withdrawal with border adjustments. As deputy prime minister, Olmert helped lead Israel's 2005 unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza Strip. He was elected prime minister in March 2006 on a platform calling for a broad withdrawal from the West Bank as well.His latest speeches go further, to the astonishment of the public. They sound close to what has long between the international formula for Mideast peace but is sharply at odds with past Israeli governments that demanded a substantial redrawing of borders to protect the country from surprise attack.
It's amazing, but it is tragic, says Moshe Amirav, a childhood friend of Olmert's who recalls being expelled from Likud 20 years ago for saying what Olmert is saying now.But I am optimistic about the future, added Amirav, a political scientist at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. If he, a right-wing prime minister, is saying this, there is hope.Olmert resigned in September because of corruption charges, but remains in office until a new government is formed after the Feb. 10 election.
Longtime Israeli doves fault him for not speaking up sooner. Lawmaker Yossi Sarid said he found the prime minister's comments to be heartfelt but delivered publicly only when he had nothing left to win and nothing left to lose.It's too bad he woke up so late, Sarid said.Olmert confidants say he couldn't speak out so frankly as long as he had to hold a shaky coalition government together.Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, her centrist Kadima party's candidate to succeed Olmert, quickly distanced herself from his remarks. I am not committed to the words of the outgoing prime minister, she told Israel's Army Radio Tuesday. We can conduct negotiations my way without having to reach the points the outgoing prime minister presented yesterday.
Polls regularly show most Israelis support a two-state solution with the Palestinians, though not necessarily a withdrawal to the 1967 borders. I am saying what this nation truly needs, not what it wants to hear, Olmert said at Rabin's grave. Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat praised Olmert for his candor and remembered their first encounter 20 years ago. The man I spoke with then is a totally different man than the one I see before me today, he said. And maybe I am a different man now, too.
Was the U.S. Right About Syria Nukes? By ANDREW LEE BUTTERS / BEIRUT – Tue Nov 11, 6:55 pm ET
Hamas boycotts Palestinian talks BBC Given the Bush Administration's track record, no one ought to have been surprised when much of the Middle East raised a skeptical eyebrow in response to Washington's claim that the Syrian site bombed by Israeli warplanes in September of 2007 was part of a clandestine nuclear-weapons program. The Israelis kept mum about their reasons for attacking the site, but the U.S. let it be known that the target was a secret nuclear reactor being built with North Korean assistance - a claim that was widely viewed through the prism of false U.S. claims about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction and the Bush Administration's animus toward Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime over its support for Hizballah and Palestinian radical groups, as well as its failure to curb jihadist insurgents crossing into Iraq.It turns out, however, that the Bush Administration may well have been right about the Syrian site. Diplomats from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) told the press on Monday that the U.N. body's inspectors found traces of uranium when they inspected the site in June. Apparently, the amounts weren't large enough to make a definitive conclusion, but the IAEA is putting Syria - which has no publicly declared civilian nuclear program - on the formal agenda for its year-end meeting in late November. Diplomats at the IAEA say the Syrian government, which denies that it was trying to build nuclear weapons, has balked at the agency's requests for wider inspections. The findings at the Syrian site have yet to be declared in any official IAEA documentation, but whatever the conclusion of the IAEA's investigation, the deepening suspicions toward the Assad regime are coming at an increasingly complicated moment in relations between Damascus and Washington. Late last month, U.S. special forces launched a raid into eastern Syria targeting an alleged al-Qaeda weapons smuggler. In response, the Syrian government shut down an American school and cultural center in Damascus, and forced American Fulbright scholars based at Syrian institutions to leave the country. On Sunday, the New York Times reported that the most recent raid was simply one of dozens that had been conducted on Syrian territory by U.S. special forces under secret orders signed by then Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.
The sudden uptick in tension comes at a moment when Syria had begun to appear as one of the bright spots in a troubled region. U.S. officials had acknowledged that Syria had begun to stem the flow of insurgents into Iraq, while last spring, Damascus revealed that it had been holding indirect peace talks with Israel. President Assad, moreover, had said peace in the Middle East was possible within two years, if only the U.S. would sponsor direct talks, and hopes were high that the incoming Obama Administration would do just that. The news about the secret U.S. raids into Syria and the possibility of a Syrian nuclear weapons program paint a darker picture of just how deep hostility may have run between the U.S. and Syria. This was a real cold war, says Andrew J. Tabler, former editor of Syria Today, an English-language magazine in Damascus. Improving U.S.-Syrian relations could be a lot harder than we thought.
Obama urged to make Mideast peace top priority: Ban Tue Nov 11, 2:34 pm ET
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – The main players in the Middle East peace process hope Barack Obama will make the issue a top priority when he takes over the U.S. presidency in January, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said on Tuesday.Last weekend the Quartet of Middle East peace mediators -- the European Union, Russia, the United Nations and the United States -- met in Egypt to keep alive Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, even though political uncertainty in Israel has scotched hopes for a deal this year.Ban represented the United Nations at the meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana.It was expected to be Rice's last trip to the region before Obama takes office in January.We expect negotiations to continue uninterrupted through the coming period of transition, Ban told a news conference.
And all parties will be looking to the incoming U.S. administration to engage early, as a matter of highest priority, he said. The goal remains clear to all -- an end of conflict, an end of occupation, a two-state solution.He added that all members of the Quartet regret that an agreement is unlikely to be reached by ... the end of this year.Ban reiterated that it was important to support the Palestinian government's attempt to build security and improve living conditions for Palestinians.This required action on commitments under the 2003 road map peace framework, including on (Jewish) settlements, as well as a cessation of actions such as house demolitions that are contrary to international law or alter the status quo, including in East Jerusalem, he said.The Quartet members have strongly backed the talks launched at Annapolis, Maryland, nearly a year ago by President George W. Bush, despite expectations that he would fail to meet his year-end target.The Israeli-Palestinian talks have been hobbled from the start by violence and bitter disputes over Jewish settlement building and the future of Jerusalem. There are also worries that the process could fall apart amid political transitions in Israel and the United States.(Reporting by Louis Charbonneau; Editing by David Storey)
Olmert warns of looming confrontation with Hamas Tue Nov 11, 1:56 pm ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – Outgoing Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert warned on Tuesday of a looming confrontation with the Islamist Hamas movement which controls the Gaza Strip.
I have no doubt that the situation between us and Hamas is an unavoidable pre-confrontation situation, Olmert said while touring the military headquarters responsible for the Gaza region.It's only a question of time and not a question of if, his office quoted him as saying on the tour.We are not eager for it but we are not afraid either and if there is a need to fight Hamas we will do so. In any event we should be alert and prepared.Israel imposed a blockade of Gaza after Hamas seized control of the territory from forces loyal to Western-backed Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas in June last year.A ceasefire in and around the territory went into effect on June 19, but militants have conducted sporadic rocket and mortar attacks to which Israel has responded by tightening the territory's closure.On Tuesday Israel reopened the terminal that handles all fuel supplies to Gaza to allow delivery of diesel to the Palestinian territory's sole power plant one day after it shuddered to a halt.But a UN agency warned it would have to suspend food distribution on which a majority of Gaza's 1.5 million population depends unless Israel also allows in vital foodstuffs.Olmert presented his resignation as premier amid persistent corruption allegations in September but will remain at the head of a caretaker government until after snap parliamentary elections in February.
Israel's Livni distances herself from Olmert on peace Tue Nov 11, 9:24 am ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni distanced herself on Tuesday from comments by outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert calling for painful territorial concessions for Middle East peace.In an interview with army radio, Livni, who will lead Olmert's centrist Kadima party into a snap February election, said she was not bound by his policies.I am bound by the Kadima platform that I drafted and in which I laid down principles for negotiations with the Palestinians that the whole world can support, said Livni, who is Israel's lead negotiator in the peace talks.It is possible to conduct the negotiations in my own way without having to arrive at the outcome raised by the outgoing prime minister.In a speech to parliament on Monday marking the anniversary of the assassination of prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, Olmert said Israel needed to give up large tracts of land in the West Bank, including Arab east Jerusalem, and on the Golan Heights, in exchange for peace.There were times when we wanted to seal our presence on every inch of land -- and I was one of those people -- but we were wrong, he said to jeers from right-wing MPs.Olmert had made similar comments at a memorial ceremony by Rabin's graveside on Monday.If we are determined to preserve the Jewish and democratic character of the state of Israel, we must inevitably relinquish, with great pain, parts of our homeland, and we must relinquish Arab neighbourhoods in Jerusalem, he said.The comments drew accusations from the right-wing opposition that the outgoing premier was abusing Rabin's memory for political ends.Olmert's speech was a disgraceful exploitation of the official occasion for a sermonising political speech in the spirit of the radical left, charged MP Gidon Saar, whose Likud party is running neck-and-neck in the opinion polls with Kadima.Rabin is turning over in his grave after Olmert overtook him from the left, said Zvulun Orlev from the pro-Jewish settler National Religious Party.
Israel's Netanyahu softens line on peace talks By STEVE WEIZMAN, Associated Press Writer – Mon Nov 10, 11:22 am ET
JERUSALEM – Israeli opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday pledged to continue negotiations with the Palestinians if he wins February elections, backing away from earlier hints he would abandon U.S.-backed peace talks.But Netanyahu gave no indication he would make significant concessions.Netanyahu refuses to discuss the future of the disputed city of Jerusalem, one of the core issues in negotiations for the past year. On Sunday, international Mideast mediators reaffirmed this framework, even as Netanyahu's office said he did not. Netanyahu's position on other key issues also falls far short of Palestinian and international demands.
His statement that peace talks would move forward if he is elected prime minister appeared to be aimed at easing international concerns and sending a message to the Israeli electorate that he can get along with the rest of the world.Speaking to reporters after meeting international peace envoy Tony Blair, Netanyahu said that if his hawkish Likud party returns to power in February elections, he would emphasize efforts to boost the ailing Palestinian economy but would not halt political talks.
We will move both the political negotiations forward and the economic peace that we've been working on, Netanyahu said.A day earlier, his office said there was no point continuing the talks the talks inaugurated at an international conference in Annapolis, Md., last November.The talks call on Israel and the Palestinians to resolve all outstanding issues between them, including the conflicting claims to the holy city of Jerusalem and a final border between Israel and a future Palestinian state.Netanyahu gave few details on his vision for peace. But in a recent speech to parliament, he said Israel would have to retain all of Jerusalem and large chunks of West Bank territory claimed by the Palestinians.In the West Bank, Palestinian Foreign Minister Riad Malki said if Netanyahu wins, we want to test these statements ... to see if he is serious or just maneuvering.Polls currently place Likud and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni's centrist Kadima neck and neck ahead of the Feb. 10 vote. Israel is holding the election, a year and a half ahead of schedule, because a corruption scandal is driving current Prime Minister Ehud Olmert from office.Livni has been leading Israel's negotiations for the past year and has acknowledged that Israel will have to make tough concessions for peace.
Jordan king urges Obama to work directly for peace Sun Nov 9, 2:15 pm ET
AMMAN (AFP) – Jordan's King Abdullah II on Sunday urged US president-elect Barack Obama's new administration to become directly involved in efforts to achieve peace in the Middle East.I look forward to working with US president-elect Barack Obama to end the (Palestinian-Israeli) conflict in the region and reach comprehensive peace based on a two-state solution, the king told editors of Jordanian dailies.We hope the new administration is going to be directly involved in regional peace efforts.
The king, a key US ally in the region, said that Jordan which signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1994 will continue its efforts to end the suffering of the Palestinians, according to a palace statement.The Middle East Quartet -- the European Union, Russia, United Nations and United States -- called on Sunday on Israel and the Palestinians to press on with peace negotiations, at a meeting in Egypt's resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.The Quartet has long backed a peace deal that would see the establishment of an independent Palestinian state living side by side in peace with Israel based on a so-called roadmap drafted in 2003.Meanwhile, the king discussed the Middle East peace process on Sunday with visiting Austrian President Heinz Fischer.There is a growing need for Palestinian-Israeli peace negotiations to continue at this very critical stage, the two leaders said in a joint statement after their talks.Fischer, whose country is poised to become a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council on January 1, is in Jordan on a three-day state visit that focuses on the peace process.He is is to attend the inauguration of two Austro-Jordanian chambers of commerce and discuss ecology technology, particularly solar power.
Quartet pushes Israel, Palestinians to stick to peace talks by Sylvie Lanteaume and Hala Boncompagni – Sun Nov 9, 11:25 am ET
SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt (AFP) – The Middle East Quartet called on Israel and the Palestinians on Sunday to press on with peace negotiations even though a year-end target date for a deal is dead in the water.It also called for a halt to Jewish settlement activity on occupied Palestinian land, one of the thorniest issues in the peace talks, and for the dismantling of terrorist infrastructure.The Quartet called for the continuing of the peace process in the framework of Annapolis, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said after a meeting of the Quartet in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.He was referring to the US city where negotiations were revived in November 2007 after a near seven-year hiatus, with both sides committing to reaching a long-elusive deal by the end of this year.But with Israel now counting down to early elections in February and rival Palestinian groups still locked in a damaging political feud, all sides have ruled out any chance of meeting the target.Without minimising the gaps and obstacles that remain the representatives of the parties shared their assessment that the present negotiations are substantial and promising, the final statement said.The Quartet reiterated its call to the parties to fully implement their obligations under phase one of the roadmap including in relation to freezing settlement activity and dismantlement of the infrastructure of terrorism.
The Quartet -- the European Union, Russia, the United Nations and the United States -- met to discuss progress in resolving core problems such as the status of Jerusalem, the borders of a future Palestinian state and refugees.Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said she would not sign any agreement that does not serve Israel's interest and that is not detailed enough to be put into effect. We are not there yet and it could take time.US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, on her 19 trip to the region in two years and what may be her last, has tacitly admitted that a deal is unlikely by the time US President George W. Bush leaves office in January.
But she said on Sunday: We have an international strategy now to finally establish the two-state solution which President Bush set as a goal several years ago.Both sides, Rice said, believe that their negotiations are producing an atmosphere of trust as well as the foundation in which to build.In the absence of a full accord, however, Rice is pushing the two sides to define the outlines of a deal before she hands over the dossier to the administration of president-elect Barack Obama.The Quartet has long backed a peace deal that would see the establishment of an independent Palestinian state living side by side in peace with Israel based on a so-called roadmap drafted in 2003.But the peace process has been clouded by the resignation of Israel's scandal-plagued Prime Minister Ehud Olmert that led to the scheduling of snap elections for February.It has also been complicated by the ongoing feud between the Islamist Hamas movement, which seized control of the Gaza Strip in 2007, and Abbas's Fatah party, which has held on to the West Bank.
Reconciliation talks between the rival Palestinian groups due to begin on Monday in Cairo were called off after a Hamas boycott.Abbas adviser Nabil Shaath said in Cairo on Sunday the talks were now expected to resume within a fortnight. Based on available information we have from the Egyptians I expect the resumption of Palestinian talks in Cairo in 10 days, or two weeks at the most, he told reporters.
Israeli opposition leaders have said the peace process should be put on hold but Livni, who hopes to become premier, stressed that Washington should sustain the momentum. Abbas has also called on Obama to keep the peace process a US foreign policy priority and speed up efforts to help seal an agreement. We know that we are unable now to reach peace but we will continue in order to reach it, he said. Quartet envoy Tony Blair, Britain's former prime minister, echoed Abbas. The single most important thing for the new US administration is to press this issue from day one... knowing that for the first time we have comprehensive political negotiations through the Annapolis process, he said.
US, EU officials meet with Arabs on Iran By MATTHEW LEE, Associated Press Writer
SHARM EL-SHEIK, Egypt – Senior U.S. and European officials met with several Arab leaders Sunday who are worried about the international community negotiating a deal with Iran that would give the Islamic Republic more power in the Middle East, said a U.S. official and a meeting participant.The meeting comes less than a week after the victory of President-elect Obama, who has said he is more open to holding talks with Iran on the country's controversial nuclear program.The sentiment expressed in the meeting by the foreign ministers of Bahrain, Jordan, Egypt, Morocco and the United Arab Emirates indicates they are concerned about what Obama would be willing to offer Iran to strike a deal.Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who attended the meeting along with European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana and French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, assured the Arab foreign ministers that Washington would not offer Iran greater influence in exchange for nuclear concessions, said a meeting participant.The United States' view is that Iran should not gain a privileged role in the region, the meeting participant quoted Rice as saying during the discussions, which were held on the sidelines of a meeting on Israeli-Palestinian peace in the Egyptian Red Sea resort town of Sharm el-Sheik.
The Arab foreign ministers were most concerned about Iranian influence in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and other areas of the Gulf, said the meeting participant, who spoke on condition of anonymity along with the U.S. official because they were not authorized to talk to the media.Rice's assurances may mean little to Arab officials since she is not able to speak for the incoming administration. However, while Obama has signaled a greater willingness to talk to the Iranians, he has also said it is unacceptable for Iran to obtain a nuclear weapon.The U.S. and many of its allies have accused Iran of using its nuclear program as a cover for weapons development. Iran denies the charge, saying it is focused on building reactors to generate electricity.Many Arab countries in the Middle East, which are predominantly Sunni Muslim, have also expressed concern about Shiite Iran's intentions in the region.
Hamas leader says he is ready to talk to Obama Sat Nov 8, 3:42 pm ET
LONDON – Hamas is ready to open talks with U.S. President-elect Barack Obama, who must deal with the Palestinian militant group if he wants to address the wider conflict in the Middle East, the group's leader said in an interview broadcast Saturday.Khaled Mashaal said that Hamas is ready for dialogue with Obama and his new administration on the basis that the American administration respects our rights and our options.Hamas has controlled the Gaza Strip since seizing power by force in June 2007 from Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah movement.The administration of President George W. Bush has boycotted the Islamic militants, as has most of the international community. Hamas refuses to renounce violence or recognize Israel.
The American administration, if they want to deal with the region, Palestine and the Arab-Israeli conflict, they have no other option than deal with Hamas because we are a real force on the ground, effective, Mashaal told Sky News from Damascus, Syria.
The exiled militant leader said that the election of a U.S. president with African roots was a big change — political and psychological and congratulated him on his victory.Denis McDonough, senior foreign policy adviser to Obama, said Hamas had to change its policies before it could engage in any talks.President-elect Obama said throughout the campaign that he will only talk with Hamas if it renounces terrorism, recognizes Israel's right to exist and agrees to abide by past agreements, McDonough said.On Friday, Hamas Gaza strongman Mahmoud Zahar said he hoped Obama's victory would open a new page in relations between the U.S. and the Muslim world. But he said he did not expect the U.S. to talk to Hamas immediately.Obama visited Israel and the West Bank in July, meeting Israeli leaders and Abbas and traveling to an Israeli town that had been hit by Hamas rockets from Gaza.
