Abbas to meet Bush in Washington DEC 12,08
RAMALLAH, West Bank (AFP) – Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas will travel to Washington on December 19 for talks with US President George W. Bush and will fly to Moscow a few days later, his spokesman said on Friday.Abbas and Bush will discuss the status of Middle East peace efforts since Israeli-Palestinian talks were relaunched at a conference in Annapolis, Maryland in November 2007, Nabil abu Rudeina said.The Palestinian leader will fly on to Moscow on December 22 for talks with President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, Rudeina said.
Obama slammed in Iran over stand on Hezbollah DEC 12,08
TEHRAN (AFP) – A top Iranian cleric on Friday slammed US president-elect Barack Obama's criticism of Hezbollah and defended the Islamic republic's support of the Lebanese Shiite group.We are announcing it frankly, that we will defend the Lebanese Hezbollah resistance and its brave leader Hassan Nasrallah with pride, the Friday prayers leader at Tehran University, Ahmad Khatami, told worshippers.They are not terrorists since they are defending their honour and independence, he said.If Obama wants to decrease hatred, he has to stop making worthless comments. Most probably the Zionists have put down a banana skin for him, Khatami said.In an interview broadcast on Sunday, Obama said he would make clear to Tehran that its nuclear programme was unacceptable, along with support of Hezbollah and the Palestinian group Hamas, and its threats against Israel.Shiite majority Iran is a staunch supporter of Hezbollah and maintains that it provides them with moral support and not arms as alleged by two of its arch-foes, Washington and Israel.After the summer 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah, Iran sent money and technical expertise for reconstruction and to compensate victims. Israel says the Shiite group is now three times stronger than during the war.
Olmert quizzed for 11th time in graft probes Fri Dec 12, 7:19 am ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – Israeli police questioned interim Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Friday for the 11th time since accusations against him of corruption emerged in May.
The interrogation focused on allegations that Olmert was involved in cronyism when he was trade and industry minister in 2006, police spokesman Mickey Rosenfeld said.
The interview at the prime minister's official residence in Jerusalem lasted about two and a half hours, Rosenfeld said.Last month the justice ministry announced that Attorney General Menachem Mazuz intends to press charges over allegations that Olmert multiple-billed foreign trips and used the proceeds to pay for private travel.
Police had also recommended indicting Olmert over suspicions he unlawfully accepted cash-stuffed envelopes from US businessman Morris Talansky.Olmert has been questioned by police 10 times previously on several different alleged cases of corruption since the Talansky affair emerged seven months ago.All of the allegations date back to the 13 years before Olmert took office, when he was mayor of Jerusalem and trade and industry minister.He handed in his resignation on September 21 but plans to remain at the head of a caretaker government until after early general elections scheduled for Israel on February 10.Olmert insists he is innocent.
Iranians chant death to Israel in support of Gaza by Farhad Pouladi Farhad Pouladi – Fri Dec 12, 6:35 am ET
TEHRAN (AFP) – Thousands of Iranians on Friday chanted Death to Israel and Death to America as they demonstrated in Tehran against Israel's blockade of the Gaza Strip.
The demonstration took place on streets leading to the Tehran University compound where the weekly Friday prayers is held.The Jewish state's blockade of Islamist Hamas-ruled Gaza has been tightened since the start of November in retaliation for rocket fire on southern Israel from the coastal strip.I am sure victory is close and that the breaking of the Zionist regime's bones can be heard, said Mohammad Hassanian, a student with the Basiji, Iran's volunteer militia.I am here to show my sympathy and support to the Palestinian mothers who are under mounting pressure to provide food for their children, said Akram Maghrebi, a housewife clad in traditional black chador, as scores of women chanted anti-US slogans and Death to Israel.Tehran, which does not recognise the Jewish state, is a staunch supporter of Hamas but rejects allegations that it is supplying arms to the Palestinian Islamist movement, saying it only provides moral backing.President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has repeatedly called for Israel to be wiped off the map and even called the Holocaust a myth.
Also taking in the demonstration, Ahmadinejad told reporters: They have reached the end of the road and their abnormal behaviour is due to anger and even their supporters are shaky in backing them.By committing these atrocities they want to pressure the Palestinians to influence their elections.In November, Western-backed Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas warned that he would call snap parliamentary and presidential elections if Hamas does not rejoin reconciliation talks with his Fatah party which it drove out of Gaza.The Friday prayers leader at Tehran University, Ahmad Khatami, slammed the United Nations, Organisation of Islamic Conference, Egypt, the Europeans and United States for their inaction on Gaza.Why is the UN and OIC keeping silent? Where are the European nations who are the defenders of human rights? Khatami asked in his sermon, broadcast live on state-run radio.We can see the hands of (US George W.) Bush and (president-elect Barack) Obama in these crimes, he said.Khatami critisised Egypt's leadership for closing down the Rafah crossing with the Gaza Strip. By doing this they are cooperating with them (Israel), he charged.I am telling the Gazans and Palestinians in the occupied terrotories that the only way for salvation is by resisting the way Hezbollah did, he said, referring to Lebanon's Shiite militia which fought a 2006 war with Israel.Earlier this week, Iran's Red Crescent announced plans to send 1,000 tonnes of relief supplies on a ship to Gaza, in the face of an Israeli sea blockade of the territory. On Friday, Red Crescent booths were collecting cash donations.
Israeli Arabs should live in Palestinian state: Livni Thu Dec 11, 3:26 pm ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, a frontrunner in the race to become premier, said on Thursday that Arab Israelis should move to a Palestinian state when it is eventually created.My solution for maintaining a Jewish and democratic state of Israel is to have two distinct national entities, she told a group of secondary school students in Tel Aviv in remarks broadcast by army radio.
And among other things I will also be able to approach the Palestinian residents of Israel, those whom we call Arab Israelis, and tell them: your national aspirations lie elsewhere.The remarks drew an angry rebuttal from Arab Israeli MP Ahmed Tibi and from the Palestinian Authority of president Mahmud Abbas.She must decide whether she means to leave a million Arabs without political rights or a national identity, or whether she really intends to transfer a million Arab citizens to the Palestinian state that will be established, he said.Livni must be straightforward and open as is appropriate for someone running for prime minister, Tibi told army radio.Palestinian presidency spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeina told AFP Livni's remarks put obstacles on the way of the peace process and will not lead to a peace agreement and a just and comprehensive solution.These statements don't serve the cause of peace or efforts being made to reach a comprehensive peace in the region. They show that Israel is not serious about a solution or the negotiations with the Palestinians, he said.The way to peace is by respecting international legislation. The Israeli election campaign should not be exploited to create tensions, Abu Rudeina added by telephone from Amman.Livni leads the centrist Kadima party. She is in a close race with former premier Benjamin Netanyahu of the right-wing Likud party ahead of legislative elections set for February 10.The polls were called after Prime Minister Ehud Olmert resigned over a series of graft scandals.The 1.4-million-strong Arab-Israeli community makes up about 20 percent of the Jewish state's population, and consists of the descendants of the 160,000 Palestinians who remained on their land after the creation of Israel in 1948.
Anti-Arab hopeful irks Israel's Netanyahu by Patrick Anidjar Patrick Anidjar – Thu Dec 11, 2:31 pm ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – A far-right Likud party member has become a thorn in the side of party leader Benjamin Netanyahu, a frontrunner in the race to become Israel's prime minister, as media reprint comments he made praising the Nazi system and denigrating Arabs.Moshe Feiglin, 46, had a strong chance of winning a parliamentary seat after gaining significant support within Likud, at a time when Netanyahu is seeking to soften the image of the right-wing opposition party.But Likud's governing body on Thursday pushed Feiglin down to the 36th place on the election slate from the 20th slot following an appeal by a Netanyahu ally citing irregularities in Monday's party primary.The support that Feiglin and other far right-wing Likud members won at a party election to name parliamentary candidates for February's legislative elections was a sharp blow for Netanyahu, a former prime minister.To make matters worse for the party leader, the Israeli media has since highlighted comments Feiglin made in a 1995 interview with the Haaretz daily, in which he spoke highly of Hitler and disparagingly of Arabs.An observant yarmulke-wearing Jew, Feiglin called the man responsible for the Holocaust an unparalleled military genius.Hitler savoured good music. He would paint. This was no bunch of thugs. They merely used thugs and homosexuals, Feiglin was quoted as saying at the time.Nazism promoted Germany from a low to a fantastic physical and ideological status.The ragged, trashy youth body turned into a neat and orderly part of society and Germany received an exemplary regime, a proper justice system and public order, he said.
The mass-selling Yediot Aharonot daily said Feiglin was not ashamed of considering Hitler a genius.Ten years after the Haaretz interview, Feiglin told the Maariv newspaper that just because he considers Hitler a military genius, this doesn't mean I admire him.Feiglin, who lives in a Jewish settlement in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, has made similarly controversial comments on the Arab-Israeli conflict.He insists there is no such thing as a Palestinian people and that they and Israeli Arabs should relocate, media said, citing a text he had posted on the website of his Jewish leadership movement that was removed this week.They will have to seek the right to self-determination in Arab states. Israel will encourage the Arabs to emigrate to their countries and assist any Arab who wishes to do so, Feiglin was quoted as saying.In a 2004 interview with Yediot he spoke of a voluntary transfer to the 22 neighbouring Arab states of the some 1.4 million Israeli Arabs, who make up 20percent of Israel's population.Arabs don't live in the desert, they create it, he was quoted as saying.Netanyahu, who is viewed as a hawk with regard to the conflict, tried to put on a brave face following Feiglin's success in Monday's party election.
The entire faction is with me, Haaretz quoted Netanyahu as saying. Feiglin will fade away very quickly.Feiglin was sentenced to six months in prison in 1997 for sedition after leading a civil disobedience campaign in protest at the Israeli-Palestinian Oslo Accords of 1993, but the sentence was later commuted to community service.
Israel's Netanyahu tells EU he will pursue peace By STEVE WEIZMAN, Associated Press Writer – Thu Dec 11, 1:46 pm ET
JERUSALEM – Israeli opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu sought Thursday to reassure Europeans that he will continue peace talks with the Palestinians if he wins February's general election, despite a rightward tilt in his Likud Party.He was speaking to Israel-based EU ambassadors in the wake of Likud primaries, which catapulted several ultra-hawks into the top 30 places on the party's slate of candidates for Feb. 10 elections.Netanyahu was the guest speaker at a lunch hosted by the European Union and arranged long before Monday's primaries. He used the occasion to try to quell concerns fueled by the outcome, which delivered significant advances for a wing of Likud seeking to halt peace talks, ban minority Arab citizens of Israel from the parliament, encourage non-Jews to leave the country and pull Israel out of the United Nations.Following the primary results, outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of the rival Kadima Party warned that a victory for a Likud slate peppered with die-hard opponents of concessions to the Palestinians could plunge Israel into international isolation.Netanyahu resisted peace efforts when he was prime minister from 1996-1999 but says he will carry on existing negotiations with the Palestinians if he is returned to power, as polls indicate, though with more emphasis on encouraging Palestinian economic growth rather than a speedy transition to a sovereign Palestinian state.
I told them that a Likud government under my leadership will continue the peace talks, stressing security and economic development, Netanyahu said in a brief statement after Thursday's lunch. We intend to interlace them with economic development, rapid economic development for the Palestinians and regional cooperation with Jordan and Egypt.Likud spokeswoman Amit Koren said the party has dropped ultra-hawk Moshe Feiglin far down on its list of candidates for Feb. 10 elections despite his strong showing in the primary. Feiglin opposes peace talks with the Palestinians, encourages non-Jews to leave the country and advocates recapturing the Gaza Strip.Feiglin finished in 20th place in the voting, but Koren said Likud's court dropped him to the 36th position.
Netanyahu wants to postpone core issues in Mideast talks by Ron Bousso – Thu Dec 11, 1:20 pm ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – Israel's right-wing Likud party chairman Benjamin Netanyahu thinks Middle East peace talks should focus on improving Palestinian daily life and not on core issues, his spokeswoman said Thursday.The hawkish former premier, who polls say is likely to return to power after February elections, has been a staunch critic of the US-backed peace talks with the Palestinians that were relaunched in November 2007.Netanyahu does not oppose the continuation of the talks but he believes that the current negotiations are leading nowhere and their goal is not clear, spokeswoman Dina Libster told AFP.He wants to continue the talks on tangible issues that can be carried out on the ground, such as the Palestinian economy and Palestinian living conditions. At the moment, discussing core issues is irrelevant.The latest round of peace talks has shown little progress on the so-called core issues of the decades-old conflict, including the future status of Jerusalem, Palestinian refugees, Jewish settlements and final borders.
In a meeting on Thursday with 26 ambassadors who had requested clarification on Likud's electoral platform, Netanyahu said he would focus on repairing the Palestinian economy and creating a positive atmosphere for diplomacy.I believe that vigorous economic steps and a positive atmosphere that will be created on the ground will reflect on the future talks, Libster quoted him as saying.Most Israelis, including myself, are not interested in ruling another people. I support them having all the prerogatives to rule themselves except for those prerogatives that threaten or damage Israel's security.A close advisor to Netanyahu said a peace deal would not be possible in the near future due to chaos on the Palestinian side. That was a reference to strife between the moderate Fatah movement and the radical Hamas, which seized power in the Gaza Strip last year.It is commonly accepted that there is no possibility of reaching a permanent status agreement in the near future between Israel and the Palestinians, Dore Gold told AFP.Even the policy advocated by (US Secretary of State) Condoleezza Rice of reaching a shelf agreement acknowledged this situation, said Gold, a foreign policy advisor to Netanyahu.Earlier this week, Likud elected a candidate list dominated by hardliners, raising fears that a victory in the February elections could derail the peace process relaunched by interim Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, head of the centrist Kadima party and Netanyahu's chief rival, has been leading the talks with the Palestinians.Polls released earlier this week predicted Likud would win well over 30 seats in the 120-member assembly, putting Netanyahu on track to become Israel's next prime minister at the head of a coalition government.
Palestinians favour elections in 2009: poll by Hossam Ezzedine – Thu Dec 11, 1:17 pm ET
RAMALLAH, West Bank (AFP) – Most Palestinians believe that Western-backed president Mahmud Abbas's term ends in January and they support holding new elections next year, according to a poll released on Thursday.The same poll found that Abbas holds a 10-point lead over his rivals in the Islamist Hamas, which has said it will refuse to recognise him as president when his constitutionally mandated four-year term expires on January 9.The quarterly poll carried out by the Palestinian Centre for Policy and Survey Research (PSR) found that 64 percent of Palestinians in the West Bank and the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip think Abbas's term ends in January.But if parliamentary elections were held today 42 percent of Palestinians would vote for Abbas's secular Fatah party compared with 28 percent for Hamas, with each movement down one percentage point since September.If presidential elections were held today 48 percent would vote for Abbas compared with just 38 percent for Ismail Haniya, who heads the Hamas-run government in Gaza. Abbas led in both the West Bank and Gaza.
The gap between the two theoretical candidates has narrowed by four percentage points since the last PSR poll, which saw Abbas garnering 53 percent and Haniya 39 percent.The two main Palestinian movements have been bitterly estranged since Hamas seized power in Gaza in June 2007, driving out security forces loyal to Abbas and cleaving the two territories into hostile rival camps.Hamas and Fatah have made several attempts at reconciliation, most recently in November when representatives from every major Palestinian faction were to meet for talks in Cairo before Hamas pulled out at the last minute.Abbas has since said that if national reconciliation talks are not held by the end of the year he will call for snap presidential and parliamentary elections when his term expires next month.Hamas has said that under the Palestinian constitution Abbas does not have the power to dissolve parliament before its term expires in January 2010.The survey found that 73 percent support Abbas's call for new elections if the dialogue fails, but just 40 percent support holding the elections only in the occupied West Bank.The poll questioned 1,270 people at 127 locations in the West Bank and Gaza Strip at the beginning of December, and had a margin of error of 3 percent.
Carter offers to monitor Lebanese election By BASSEM MROUE, Associated Press Writer –Thu Dec 11, 11:52 am ET
BEIRUT, Lebanon – Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter offered on Thursday to monitor Lebanon's parliament elections next year, a vote that will be fiercely contested between the militant Hezbollah group and its rival pro-Western parties.Carter proposed a monitoring mission by his Atlanta-based Carter Center during a Beirut meeting with the interior minister, Ziad Baroud, who welcomed the offer but said the Cabinet must approve it. The vote has to be held between April 20 and June 20, though no specific date has been set. The Interior Ministry is in charge of organizing and overseeing the elections.Carter also met members of parliamentary blocs, but he did not meet with lawmakers from Hezbollah. The Shiite militant group is on the U.S. State Department's terrorist list. Carter said he is ready to meet with Hezbollah but they refuse to meet current or former U.S. presidents.In the upcoming elections, the Western-backed anti-Syrian groups are trying to maintain their majority in the 128-seat parliament against a Hezbollah-led coalition backed by Syria and Iran.
Carter heads to Syria on Saturday.
A senior Hamas official in the Syrian capital, Damascus, said Carter will meet the militant Palestinian group's exiled leadership on Sunday to discuss the fate of Israeli soldier Gilad Schalit, captured by Hamas-linked militants near Gaza in 2006. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not permitted to speak publicly about the meeting.Carter was widely criticized in April when he met in Syria with the exiled Hamas leader, Khaled Mashaal. The U.S. also labels Hamas as a terrorist organization.Associated Press writer Albert Aji contributed to this report from Damascus, Syria.
Arabs urge Obama to focus on Mideast peace Thu Dec 11, 10:22 am ET
CAIRO (AFP) – The Arab League has urged US president-elect Barack Obama to focus on resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict after he takes office in January, spokesman Hisham Yussef said on Thursday.The 22-member pan-Arab institution detailed its vision for an end to the decades-old conflict in a letter signed by Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal and delivered to Obama via an aide, Yussef told AFP.The letter explains our stance on the conflict, focusing on the Arab peace proposal, he said.The League adopted a Saudi proposal in 2002 which called on Israel to withdraw from the territories it occupied in 1967, in return for diplomatic relations with Arab states.The plan was presented at an Arab summit in Beirut and relaunched at a Riyadh summit in 2007.This is a new administration. It is important that we follow up with it and that it assumes its responsibilities, Yussef said.
The new administration will be busy with other things, but we think that it is important for it to focus on the Arab-Israeli conflict.Arab foreign ministers reiterated their support for the Saudi initiative after a meeting in Cairo last month, and the Palestinian Authority has begun advertising it in Israeli and Arab newspapers.Israel initially responded warily to the plan, but President Shimon Peres recently praised the plan in meetings with his Egyptian counterpart Hosni Mubarak and with Saudi King Abdullah.Britain's Sunday Times newspaper reported that Obama pledged to support the Saudi plan during a visit to Israel and the occupied territories in July.But Dennis Ross, a Middle East adviser to Obama, denied the report last month. Then-senator Obama did not say this, the story is false, Israel's Haaretz daily quoted Ross as saying.
Vatican team discusses papal visit to Israel Thu Dec 11, 2:33 am ET
JERUSALEM, (AFP) – Israeli President Shimon Peres has met a Vatican delegation to discuss preparations for a possible visit by Pope Benedict XVI next year, his spokeswoman said on Thursday.We are waiting for the official declaration of this visit which must come from Rome, but the president on Wednesday started discussing with a Vatican delegation the programme of this visit which could take place in spring, said spokeswoman Ayelet Frish.During a visit to Italy in September 2007, Peres invited the pope to travel to Israel to strengthen the message of peace, reconciliation and hope throughout the Middle East.Uneasy relations between the Vatican and Israel have been further strained by plans to declare Nazi-era Pope Pius XII a saint, despite widespread criticism of his inaction during the Holocaust.The controversy, which has lingered for decades resurfaced in October as the pontiff defended the memory of his wartime predecessor and said he wanted him beatified soon -- a first step towards declaring him a saint.But, citing Jewish sensitivities, the Vatican later indicated Benedict was holding off the process of having Pius declared a saint.Peres has stressed the row should not affect plans for the proposed papal trip.Pope Paul VI was the first pontiff to visit Israel, in 1964, and Pope John Paul II visited in 2000.
Iran to send relief ship to Gaza Wed Dec 10, 8:54 am ET
TEHRAN (AFP) – Iran's Red Crescent announced on Wednesday that it is sending a relief ship to the Gaza Strip, in the face of an Israeli blockade of the Hamas-ruled territory.We are sending a consignment of a 1,000 tonnes on a ship to Gaza the beginning of next week, Red Crescent secretary general Ahmad Moussavi was quoted as saying on the organisation's website.There is the possibility of our ship being blocked just as the Libyan ship was blocked, he added referring to a vessel intercepted by Israel a month ago.Libya protested to the UN Security Council over Israel's interception of the cargo ship, which had sought to take 3,000 tonnes of humanitarian aid to Gaza.Israel said that because Libya does not recognise it, the interception was justified on grounds of national security.Unfortunately so far the Egyptian government had not allowed us to send the relief items to them by air, Moussavi said, referring to Gaza's southern neighbour.The official did not disclose the nationality of the ship, but said the cargo will include 500 tonnes of wheat, 200tonnes of sugar, 200 tonnes of rice, 50 tonnes of cooking oil and 50 tonnes of medical supplies.
The Israeli embargo was imposed after the Islamist Hamas seized power in Gaza in June 2007. The blockade has been tightened since the start of November in retaliation for rocket fire on southern Israel.Tehran is a staunch supporter of Hamas and has rejected all allegations that it is supplying arms to the movement, saying it only provides moral backing.Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has repeatedly called for Israel to be wiped off the map and even called the Jewish Holocaust a myth.
