Gaza smugglers say Egypt tightening tunnel trade by Joseph Krauss FEB 08,09
RAFAH, Gaza Strip (AFP) – In the dunes of rubble along the Gaza border work crews are excavating scores of bombed tunnels, but smugglers say Egyptian forces on the other side are gradually choking off their trade.The Egyptians have deployed everywhere on the other side and they have set up cameras. We haven't been able to bring anything in since Thursday, said Abu Mohammed, a Gaza tunnel owner who declined to give his real name.The bombed border area a few metres from his house resembles a vast mining camp, with scores of crews repairing the tunnels -- many using earthmovers. No one expects the new security measures to last for long.The thriving tunnel trade survived Israel's three-week onslaught last month and most diggers expect the tunnels will remain as long as Israel and Egypt refuse to open the border crossings of the Hamas-ruled enclave.Abu Mohammed's tunnel was still intact after the war, and he said that until Thursday he was bringing in 15 tonnes of goods each day, a shipment worth around 12,000 dollars (9,400 euros).They forced the tunnels on us with the siege. How else are we supposed to feed our families? How else are we supposed to get fuel and cement? he said.Israel and Egypt have sealed the Gaza Strip off from all but vital humanitarian aid since the Islamist Hamas movement seized power in June 2007.Since then the tunnels beneath the 14-kilometre (eight-mile) border -- which were mostly used for smuggling weapons before Israeli forces withdrew from Gaza in 2005 -- have become a mainstay of the local economy.
Israel accuses Hamas of using the tunnels to bring in advanced weapons supplied by Iran, but smugglers say with the exception of a few secret Hamas-run tunnels the passages are used only for food and basic goods.Israeli warplanes pounded the Gaza side of the Rafah border during the offensive and the military said it destroyed 60 to 70 percent of the tunnels.Israeli forces have struck the tunnels on several occasions since the war ended on January 18 -- but to little effect, according to smugglers.Abu Mahmud, another tunnel owner, said the diggers receive tip-offs from people in Egypt before each strike. Everyone knows when it is going to happen. We all leave the area, he said.Of greater concern to the smugglers are developments on the other side of the border, where Egyptian forces have redoubled efforts to combat the tunnels.As Egypt has tried in recent weeks to mediate a long-term truce between Israel and Hamas its security forces have fanned out along the border and installed alarms and surveillance cameras.In the last week Egyptian forces have blown up 15 tunnels and placed large rocks over several others, an Egyptian security official in Rafah told AFP.Egypt is building a high-tech security system with US assistance aimed at halting arms smuggling -- a key Israeli demand in the current truce talks.
The United States has pledged 25 million euros (32 million dollars) in detection equipment to unearth smuggling tunnels, and US army engineers have been providing technical assistance on the ground.Abu Mohammed suspects the heightened Egyptian efforts are aimed at pressuring Hamas into accepting a truce. If Hamas agrees to the truce the Egyptians will turn a blind eye. If not there could be problems, he said.
In the meantime, hundreds of diggers are working to rebuild the network. The Egyptians are using everything they have, said Abu Anna as he watches a group of boys hoisting buckets of dirt out of one of the shafts. But I don't think they are serious. They cannot close all the tunnels, he said. We were operating tunnels when the Jews were right here, where we are standing. Only the (Hamas-run) government could stop the tunnels.Hamas police patrol the tunnels, forbidding the import of drugs and weapons and collecting an annual tax of 2,500 dollars (2,000 euros) per tunnel, according to tunnel owners. The tunnels remain lucrative, however, providing jobs, money, and goods to thousands of people on both sides of the border town of Rafah. In the Al-Nijma market in the centre of Rafah vendors hawk stoves, microwaves, generators, and washing machines, many still coated in dirt from the underground passage. The prices have crept up since the end of the war, Abu Dawud says from behind a table lined with boxes of Egyptian-made cookies and crisps.
There have been less goods in the last two or three days. The prices are going to go up because the tunnel owners are afraid. They know their tunnels could be closed at any time.Abu Haithem, another vendor, said washing machines fetching 480 shekels (120dollars) before the war are now going for 570 shekels (140 dollars). But he says he is not concerned about the future of the underground pipeline. We will always figure out a way. If the Egyptians set up cameras we will just dig the tunnels another kilometre past them.
Israeli warplanes strike Gaza Strip: witnesses Sun Feb 8, 7:19 pm ET
GAZA CITY (AFP) – Israeli warplanes carried out air strikes Monday on the Gaza Strip that caused damage but no injuries, witnesses and Palestinian security sources said.
An Israeli F-16 fired two missiles against a police post near the southern city of Khan Yunis, sparking a fire.An Israeli helicopter also carried out a raid in a unpopulated area of Beit Lahiya in northern Gaza, but caused no casualties.Aircraft intervened against a Hamas position in Hamas near Khan Yunis and another at Beit Lahiya, an Israeli military spokesman confirmed.Palestinian militants fired two rockets Sunday from the Hamas-run Gaza Strip into southern Israel that caused no injuries, the military spokesman said.Militants have fired about 40 rockets and mortar rounds since Israel ended on January 18 its 22-day military offensive against the territory which caused 1,330 Palestinian deaths.Israel, which launched its assault on December 27 with the stated aim of stemming rocket attacks, has warned of the severest riposte to any further rocket fire.
Military: 2 Gaza rockets hit southern Israel By AMY TEIBEL, Associated Press Writer –Sun Feb 8, 4:06 pm ET
JERUSALEM – Two rockets fired by Palestinian militants struck southern Israel on Sunday, Israel's military said, violating an informal truce even as Israel and Gaza's Hamas rulers appeared to hurry closer to a long-term cease-fire deal two days before Israeli elections.The Gaza Strip's strongman was in Syria, consulting with his Hamas bosses about the truce talks, while Israel's defense minister warned Israelis they would have to pay a painful price as part of any deal. The flurry of activity came just two days before Israelis elect a new government expected to take a harder line in talks with the Palestinians.The Hamas representative in Lebanon, Osama Hamadan, said negotiations would continue in Cairo on Tuesday and Wednesday.
I believe it is more logical to discuss the issue of truce with a new (Israeli) government instead of one which is leaving in hours, he said in an interview on the Lebanese TV station ANB, though a new Israeli government would not take office until several weeks after the election.Israel unilaterally ended a blistering, three-week offensive in Gaza, meant to halt years of rocket fire on southern Israeli communities, last month. Some 1,300 Palestinians were killed, according to Gaza health officials, and the government said 13 Israelis also died. Vast areas of Gaza were destroyed or heavily damaged. Hamas announced its own cease-fire the same day.
While Egypt has been trying to broker a long-term cease-fire, sporadic violence has persisted. In separate attacks, Palestinian rockets exploded in the Nir Am communal farm and the southern city of Ashkelon. No injuries were reported, though cars and buildings were damaged, authorities said.There was no immediate claim of responsibility for either attack.With Israeli elections approaching Tuesday, both sides appeared to be racing to reach some sort of arrangement. Polls show that Israel's next government would be much more hawkish than the current coalition, adding urgency to seal a deal.Israel wants militants to halt their attacks, end arms smuggling into Gaza and release an Israeli soldier Hamas has held captive for more than 2 1/2 years.Hamas wants an end to Israel's economic blockade of Gaza, which has severely restricted the movement of goods since Hamas seized power in June 2007. It also has demanded the release of more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners held by Israel in return for the soldier, Sgt. Gilad Schalit. Hundreds of the prisoners have been involved in deadly attacks on Israel, and their release would likely generate unease if not outright controversy.Mahmoud Zahar, Hamas' Gaza strongman, was in the Syrian capital, Damascus, on Sunday to discuss truce prospects with the group's exiled leadership. Israel allowed Zahar, who had been in hiding since the Israeli offensive, to leave Gaza on Saturday.Mohammed Nazzal, a member of Hamas' exiled leadership, said Hamas would not rush an agreement just because of the Israeli election.We do not set our agenda according to others' calendars or schedules, meaning that we are not concerned about the Israeli elections ... we are concerned about signing a decent deal, he told al-Jazeera. He also said there was nothing new to report in the Schalit case.Speaking to reporters in Israel, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said he was doing his utmost to bring Schalit home.We're not talking about hocus-pocus in which we roll the dice and get Gilad Schalit in return for a nice smile or a gesture, he said. In the end, attached to it is a heavy and painful price that we'll have to decide on.Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said media reports in recent days of an impending release were overblown and damaging.In Gaza, the Palestinian Center for Human Rights demanded an investigation into the death of a man who appeared to have been tortured by Hamas. The man, 51-year-old Jamil Shakoura, was not believed to be affiliated with any opposition group.Rights groups frequently charge that Gaza's Hamas rulers use detentions and beatings to intimidate opponents. A Hamas official said the matter is under investigation. In the West Bank, ruled by the main Hamas rival Fatah, security officials said a Hamas loyalist, 30-year-old Mohammed Hajj, used his shirt as a noose to hang himself two days after he was arrested in the northern town of Jenin. Their brief statement did not say why he was arrested.Associated Press writer Diaa Hadid in Jerusalem contributed to this report.
Egypt hopes for Gaza truce deal in few days by Mona Salem Mona Salem – Sun Feb 8, 3:25 pm ET
CAIRO (AFP) – Egypt is hopeful that a Gaza truce accord between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas can be reached in coming days, foreign ministry spokesman Hossam Zaki told AFP on Sunday.There are positive signs that in the next few days we will reach an understanding on a truce and a partial reopening of crossing points (into Gaza), Zaki said.Egypt has been mediating indirect talks for a lasting truce since the end of Israel's massive 22-day onslaught on the Gaza Strip, which killed at least 1,330 Palestinians and 13 Israelis.The fighting ended when both Israel and Hamas, the enclave's rulers, called separate ceasefires on January 18.However, the fragile calm has been tested by Palestinian rocket attacks on Israel and retaliatory air strikes.On Saturday, a spokesman for Hamas said it expects agreement with Israel on the reopening of border crossings into the Gaza Strip within the next few days.Israeli and Palestinian officials have been shuttling to Cairo for talks with Egypt's intelligence chief and Middle East mediator Omar Suleiman, hoping for a truce deal with just two days until Israel's election.A Hamas delegation from Gaza led by firebrand Mahmud Zahar travelled to Syria on Sunday for consultations on the truce negotiations with Damascus-based members of the group's powerful politburo, Hamas official Mohammed Nasr told AFP.After Damascus, Zahar headed on Sunday evening to Qatar, a Gulf state which supports Hamas, according to the Qatar News Agency (QNA).The agency gave no indication of Zahar's programme nor how long he would stay in Qatar.
Mohammad Nazzal, a senior Hamas official based in Damascus, told the Qatar-based Al-Jazeera television station that there are still obstacles in the truce talks.He said Egypt is linking the opening of its Rafah border crossing to Gaza with Palestinian reconciliation.Egypt has refused to permanently open the crossing in the absence of EU monitors and representatives of Palestinian Authority president Mahmud Abbas.
Israel is insisting on an open ended truce and is only willing to allow 80 percent of goods into Gaza, Nazzal said, noting that Israel has not said how it would define the 80 percent.If these problems are solved we would be prepared to accept an agreement within two days or three days, he told Al-Jazeera.The delegation is due to return to the Egyptian capital on Monday, the Egyptian foreign ministry spokesman said.Israel, which controls all border crossings except Rafah, has kept the densely populated strip closed to all but essential supplies since June 2007 when Hamas violently seized power, ousting forces loyal to Abbas.Egypt closed Rafah on Thursday, after opening it to aid and to Palestinians who were wounded during the war. Besides opening Gaza's borders, Egypt's truce plan also calls for Hamas and Abbas's Fatah to reconcile and form a government that would be acceptable to the international community. Hamas has called in the past for the Palestine Liberation Organisation, considered the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people in the eyes of the international community and which dominates the Palestinian Authority, to be replaced. But Zahar, thought to be the Islamists' overall leader in the Palestinian territories, told Al-Jazeera television on Sunday that his group wanted changes to the PLO's programme, not its structure. We want to preserve the structure of the PLO but not its political programme, of which 28 clauses were cancelled to conform to the 1993 Oslo accords, he said. The Oslo accords, which paved the way for the creation of the Palestinian Authority, removed clauses in the PLO charter which called the state of Israel invalid because it was created by force on Palestinian soil.
Netanyahu: No return of Golan Heights to Syria By MARK LAVIE, Associated Press Writer – Sun Feb 8, 12:55 pm ET
JERUSALEM – Benjamin Netanyahu, the front-runner in polls ahead of Israel's election this week, declared Sunday he would not give up the strategic Golan Heights for peace with Syria, an apparent attempt to toughen his right-wing credentials after a last-minute charge by a hardline party.Israelis go to the polls Tuesday after one of the calmest campaigns in the nation's history, despite the vital issues facing Israel — war, peace, terrorism and economic recession. The electorate has appeared fatigued after Israel's three-week offensive against Gaza's Hamas rulers last month.
Netanyahu has been leading in the polls since shortly after the Feb. 10 election was called in November, but his lead has been shrinking in recent weeks as another hawkish party, Yisrael Beitenu, or Israel is our home, surges with its campaign against Israel's minority Arab citizens.Israel captured the Golan Heights from Syria in the 1967 war, after Syria gunners shelled northern Israeli villages for 19 years. Syria demands return of the territory as a prerequisite for peace, but many Israelis hesitate to give up such a strategic asset.In moving further to the right, Netanyahu could be setting up a confrontation with the Obama administration if he becomes Israel's leader. Netanyahu opposes talks on a peace treaty with the Palestinians and favors allowing Israeli settlements in the West Bank to expand, two points that are likely to clash with Washington policy.Netanyahu's Likud Party has been the mainstream voice of Israel's right wing for decades, but the erosion in its support has led him to underline his hawkish positions in the final hours of campaigning.
With polls showing him holding a slim lead over Kadima, the present ruling party, and its candidate, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, Netanyahu traveled to the Golan Heights on Sunday to emphasize their policy differences.While Livni has not ruled out returning the Golan Heights in exchange for full peace, and the third candidate for premier, Defense Minister Ehud Barak of Labor, offered the Syrians that deal when he was premier in 2000, Netanyahu insisted he would say no.The Golan will never be divided again, the Golan will never fall again, the Golan will remain in our hands, he declared during his campaign stop there. Netanyahu and his backers consider the strategic value of the territory as more important than a peace treaty.
Netanyahu has carefully not criticized Yisrael Beitenu or its leader, Avigdor Lieberman, who was Netanyahu's chief aide when he was premier from 1996-1999, hoping for a partnership after the election.Lieberman's main campaign plank is to force Arabs, who make up about 20 percent of Israel's population, to swear loyalty to the Jewish state or relinquish their citizenship. Some polls show Lieberman's party approaching 20 seats in the 120-seat parliament, trailing Likud and Kadima, polling less than 30 seats each, but well ahead of Labor, with about 15. Israelis vote for parties, not candidates.His support could catapult him into a key role in the new government, giving him a large voice in peace moves and domestic policy as well.
However, polls are notoriously inaccurate in Israel. This time the pollsters' task is even more difficult because the gaps among the parties are relatively small, turnout is expected to be the lowest in Israel's history and a plethora of small parties could upset the equation.
Rift Between Hamas and Fatah Grows After Gaza Sun Feb 8, 1:40 am ET
Children and the trauma of war BBC Reconciling Hamas with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is viewed as a precondition for rebuilding Gaza, but the prospect of unity isn't helped by the news that the Islamist militants are accusing the president's men of collaborating with the recent Israeli offensive - and punishing them by summary execution or shooting off their kneecaps. The Islamists and Abbas' secular Fatah movement have struggled for control of the Palestinian territories since Hamas won the elections of January 2006, but after Israel's 22-day pummeling of Gaza, their quarrel has become intensely personal. Hamas officials have accused Abbas' former national security chief, Mohamed Dahlan, of colluding with Israelis in advance of the invasion in a bid to weaken Hamas' resistance. (View images of Fatah-Hamas conflict) A senior Hamas official alleged to TIME that Dahlan appeared in El Arish, an Egyptian coastal town near Gaza, shortly before the Israel attack, and had sent in Fatah loyalists to cooperate with the Israelis in hunting down Hamas commanders. Hamas officials say their allegation is based on interrogation of suspected collaborators accused of helping to pinpoint Hamas' hideouts and weapons caches for Israeli targeting. The objective, say Hamas officials, was to help Israel decimate the Islamists in the hope of reestablishing Fatah control in Gaza. Aides to Dahlan deny the allegations. Dahlan certainly has a score to settle with Hamas, which routed his U.S.-funded security forces in a 2007 showdown and drove them out of Gaza. And the Islamists have long loathed the Fatah strongman, whom they blame for alleged torture of Hamas detainees in Gaza during the late 1990s - an accusation Dahlan denies. But Hamas appears to be in no mood for unity talks with Dahlan's boss, either, despite Arab efforts to broker a reconciliation. And that could imperil the flow of international aid to Gaza, battered by Israel's 19-month economic blockade and the war that killed over 1,300 Palestinians, wounded 5,300 others and caused over $2 billion in damage. The international community stands ready to deliver hundreds of millions of dollars in aid, but it refuses to channel that aid directly through Hamas, which controls Gaza but is listed as a terrorist organization by the U.S. and European Union. An Abbas administration that excludes Hamas - still the ruling party in the Palestinian Authority's legislature, and whose security control of Gaza remains intact despite the Israeli offensive - is in no position to take charge of reconstruction on the ground. But a unity government with Abbas at its helm could provide the loophole that would allow Western donors to help Gaza rise from the rubble.
Hamas officials in Gaza say they will not interfere with any international agency that wants to help rebuild Gaza. But the inter-Palestinian tug-of-war over aid has already begun: On Wednesday, Hamas police stormed a United Nations warehouse and commandeered blankets and emergency supplies, claiming that the U.N. was relying on pro-Fatah agencies who were only distributing aid to their own supporters. The U.N. on Friday suspended deliveries until it has guarantees that it can distribute aid unfettered. So far, Hamas has only offered a macabre concession to Fatah. The bodies of those it has executed on suspicion of collaboration, according to one Gazan close to Hamas, were then carted to the battlefield so that their families might believe they had been martyred in the battle against the Israelis. But in the claustrophobic world of Gaza's clans and families, nobody is under any illusions about how and why they died. But those executed in Gaza are not the only casualties from the fallout of Israel's offensive: President Abbas himself and his U.S.-sponsored peace negotiations with the Israelis have also suffered. Abbas' behavior during the conflict, when he tried to score points against Hamas instead of rallying support against Israel's assault, has shrunk his already low credibility among Palestinians and the Arab world. At the start of Israel's offensive, one of Abbas' top aides said Hamas was 110 per cent to blame for the Gaza attack - an unpopular, if not suicidal, stance among Palestinians, whose ire was directed at Israel. Even as the civilian death toll climbed, Abbas delayed several days before criticizing the Israeli offensive. In the West Bank, which Abbas controls by dint of the presence of the Israeli army, his security forces cracked down brutally on fellow Palestinians protesting the Israeli offensive. Palestinians ask why Abbas did not go to Gaza during the fighting to show solidarity with its residents, or organize blood or food help for Gaza's victims. Says Diana Buttu, a lawyer and ex-adviser on the Palestinian team that negotiated with Israelis, The problems of Palestine are much bigger than Fatah versus Hamas, but Abbas tried to turn it into that. He couldn't see beyond the petty differences, even as his people were dying in Gaza.Many Palestinians view Abbas' regime as corrupt, and are outraged that his Ramallah bureaucrats continue to charge the 17% import tax on relief goods being sent to needy Gazans that was in place before the Israeli blockade was imposed. An opinion survey released Thursday by an independent Palestinian polling organization found that Hamas would beat Fatah if a new Palestinian Authority election were held today, and that Hamas acting premier Ismail Haniyeh is the leader most trusted in the West Bank and Gaza. And, as Abbas' own standing falls, so do his prospects of convincing Hamas and other Palestinians that peace may still be possible with the Israelis.
- With reporting by Jamil Hamad/Bethlehem.
Mubarak to meet Sarkozy Monday: Elysee Sat Feb 7, 3:08 pm ET
PARIS (AFP) – Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak will hold talks on Middle East peace initiatives Monday lunchtime with French counterpart Nicolas Sarkozy, the Elysee palace said Saturday in a statement.The meeting comes on the eve of Sarkozy's latest diplomatic tour to the region, with talks scheduled for Tuesday and Wednesday with the leaders of Oman, Bahrain and Kuwait.The French president has already twice travelled to Egypt, in early January, and subsequently co-chaired a mini international summit with Mubarak before hosting US envoy George Mitchell and Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas at the beginning of February.Egypt has been mediating indirect talks between Israeli and Palestinian officials for a lasting truce since the end of the 22-day Gaza war, which killed at least 1,330 Palestinians and 13 Israelis.The fighting ended when both Israel and the Gaza Strip's Islamist rulers called separate ceasefires on January 18.However, the fragile calm has been tested by Palestinian rocket attacks on Israel and retaliatory air strikes.
Arab League chief starts regional tour Sat Feb 7, 12:01 pm ET
CAIRO (AFP) – Arab League chief Amr Mussa arrived in Yemen on Saturday in the first leg of a regional tour aimed at healing a rift that opened between Arab states during the 22-day war in Gaza, a spokesman said.Mussa will try to clear the air and to examine ways to deal with the current situation, Arab League official Hisham Yussef told reporters.Mussa will meet Jordanian King Abdullah on Sunday and then will travel to Qatar and Saudi Arabia, Yussef said.The war in Gaza, which ended on January 22, exposed deep divisions between Egypt and Saudi Arabia on the one hand and Syria and Qatar on the other.Egypt faced criticism for refusing to permanently open its Rafah border crossing with Gaza, while Syria accused it of bias towards the Palestinian Fatah movement in reconciliation talks with rival faction Hamas, Gaza's rulers.Cairo has lashed out at Arab countries it says have done nothing to help the Palestinian cause and offer only rhetoric. It has also criticised Iran, which backed Hamas during the war, for interfering in an Arab cause.Egypt has also said it foiled a summit on Gaza in Qatar last month, which it boycotted.The foreign ministers of eight Arab states, including Egypt, met in the UAE last week and said they will continue consultations on overcoming their differences in an upcoming Arab League meeting in Cairo on March 3.
Israel must embrace Arab peace plan: Abbas Sat Feb 7, 11:55 am ET
ANKARA (AFP) – Israel has no other choice than to embrace the Arab Peace Initiative set out in 2002 if it wants to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas said on Saturday.During a visit to Ankara in the wake of Israel's 22-day war on Hamas in the Gaza Strip, Abbas pointed to the Arab League initiative -- revived in March 2007 at a summit in Riyadh -- as the best way forward in the Middle East.Israel has no other choice than to accept the Arab peace plan, said Abbas during a meeting with Turkish President Koksal Toptan, the domestic Anatolia news agency reported.The Arab Peace Initiative would see all Arab nations establish normal relations with Israel in return for an Israeli pullout from occupied lands and the creation of a Palestinian state with its capital in east Jerusalem.While citing positive aspects in the initiative, Israel never formally accepted it, chiefly because it refers to a right of return for Palestinians made refugees by the 1948 founding of the Jewish state.Promoted by Saudi Arabia, the initiative was embraced by all Arab League member nations at a summit in Beirut in March 2002. Abbas said Turkey -- which is not a league member -- supports it.
Later Saturday, during a televised press conference with Turkish President Abdullah Gul, Abbas said he hoped to see a Palestinian government of unity or reconciliation that would give no pretext to Israel to maintain its crippling blockade of Gaza.But he rejected a Hamas call for a new body to represent the Palestinians, saying his Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) -- the cornerstone of the Palestinian Authority -- remains the house of Palestinians.Several Palestinian nationalist groups, notably as Abbas's own Fatah party, make up the PLO, but Hamas is not among them.All organisations that wish to participate in the PLO must first accept its statutes, Abbas said. Once a member of the PLO, a movement can always reform it from top to bottom if it holds a majority.For his part, Gul appealed for reconciliation between Fatah and Hamas, saying that was an unavoidable precondition for the eventual establishment of a Palestinian state.
Netanyahu ballot favorite as Israelis drift right By Dan Williams FEB 7,09
JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Politically disaffected and jittery over their security and economy, Israelis will likely slip right-ward in an election next week, pitching U.S.-backed peace efforts with the Palestinians into deeper uncertainty.Surveys predict a narrow win in Tuesday's vote for hawkish ex-premier Benjamin Netanyahu, his comeback fueled by the inconclusive wars in southern Lebanon and Gaza, formerly areas under Israel's control and now bastions of hostile Islamists.Many Israelis fear a similar takeover in the occupied West Bank, where secular Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas holds sway despite seeing his credibility sapped by failure to deliver his people independence in years of talks with the Jewish state.Yet new U.S. President Barack Obama has made clear he has no plan to surrender the vision of Israeli-Palestinian coexistence.It is past time for a secure and just two-state solution. We will work to achieve it, and to defeat the extremists who would perpetuate the conflict, Vice President Joe Biden told a security conference in Munich on Saturday.In another potential worry for Washington, Netanyahu has pledged to get tough on arch-foe Iran's nuclear plans. Obama champions engagement in the Middle East over confrontation.Even in beating his rivals, centrist Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and center-left Defense Minister Ehud Barak, Netanyahu would have to weigh bringing their Kadima and Labor parties into an alliance securing his Likud a parliamentary majority.
MINDFUL OF INFIGHTING
But mindful of the infighting that dogged his 1996-1999 term as prime minister, Netanyahu has spoken favorably of a coalition government including the ascendant ultranationalist party Yisrael Beiteinu and Shas, a powerful party run by rabbis. Both oppose ceding occupied West Bank land to the Palestinians.For there to be a stable government in Israel, it needs to be right-of-right, said Rina Matzliach, political correspondent for the top-rated Channel Two television news. Otherwise, we could see a new election in two or three years.Netanyahu, a former finance minister, has said he would continue negotiating with Abbas but with a focus on improving the West Bank's economy and security rather than any territorial handovers or solution to the problem of Palestinian refugees.Tuesday's ballot will formally replace Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who tendered his resignation last year over a corruption scandal that jaundiced his talks with Abbas and Turkish-mediated rapprochement with Syria.(Additional reporting by Ross Colvin in Munich)(For blogs and links on Israeli politics and other Israeli and Palestinian news, go to http://blogs.reuters.com/axismundi)
Israel planes hit Gaza arms smuggling tunnels: military Fri Feb 6, 6:18 pm ET
GAZA CITY (AFP) – Israel launched air strikes in Gaza late Friday to strike tunnels used to smuggle weapons and an arms depot in retaliation to Palestinian rocket attacks, an Israeli military spokesman said.Our planes attacked four tunnels that were dug under the border with Egypt and used for weapons smuggling, the spokesman told AFP.An arms depot was also targeted and the explosives that were stocked there exploded, he said, adding that the raids were a response to the firing of two Palestinian rockets in the morning.Palestinian security forces and witnesses earlier said that Israeli planes had launched raids on targets in the Rafah sector, near the border with Egypt, without causing injuries.The air strikes came hours after Palestinian militants fired two rockets at southern Israel without causing damage or victims, according to a military spokesman.Palestinian militants have fired about 40 rockets and mortar rounds since Israel ended its 22-day military offensive against the Palestinian territory on January 18.Israel, which launched its assault on December 27 with the stated aim of stemming rocket attacks, has warned of the severest riposte to any further rocket fire.
U.S. Jewish leader sees pandemic of anti-Semitism By Tom Brown FEB 6,09
PALM BEACH, Florida (Reuters) – Israel's recent war in Gaza has unleashed the worst outbreaks of anti-Semitism in decades, the U.S. head of the Anti-Defamation League said on Friday.This is the worst, the most intense, the most global that it's been in most of our memories. And the effort to get the good people to stand up is not easy, Abraham Foxman told Jewish community leaders in a speech in this south Florida resort city.Foxman said Israel's military offensive against the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, which began in the Gaza Strip in late December, had been answered with hatred and attacks against Jews from Austria to Zimbabwe.Most governments were doing too little to stem an epidemic, a pandemic of anti-Semitism, he said.Israel's military invaded Gaza in a three-week offensive launched in late December, which Israeli leaders said was intended to stop Hamas from launching rocket attacks on Israel from the small territory.Medical officials said the Israeli offensive killed 1,300 Palestinians, including 700 civilians, prompting widespread international complaints that Israel had used excessive force.The Anti-Defamation League said recent anti-Jewish attacks triggered by the Gaza conflict ranged from the shooting of two Israelis by a man of Palestinian descent in Denmark to attacks on synagogues in Venezuela, Greece, Chicago and elsewhere.In Turkey, an Israeli basketball team fled from the court after a crowd turned on them, calling them killers. In Toulouse, France, last month an attack on one synagogue involved two cars packed with fire bombs.
Foxman said that in protests around the world, the Star of David had been equated with the Nazi swastika and Jewish leaders were threatened. There had also been calls for boycotts of Jewish businesses in South Africa, Italy, Turkey and France.We need to insist that the civilized world stand up and say No in every single country in the international arena to condemn this vicious, hideous violence, said Foxman, whose organization is a global leader in the fight against anti-Jewish crime.(Editing by Pascal Fletcher and Vicki Allen)
