Palestinian PM urges US to draft Mideast peace plan
Sat Jul 18, 1:38 pm ET
RAMALLAH, West Bank (AFP) – Palestinian prime minister Salam Fayyad made a fresh appeal on Saturday to the United States for a plan and a timetable aimed at resolving the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.I call anew on the United States to come up with a plan and a timetable for its application that will contribute to put an end to Jewish settlements and Israeli offensives, and lead to serious negotiations,Fayyad said.In a speech at the Qalandiya refugee camp he also said that the international community must bear its responsibilities in pushing Israel to respects its peace commitments.
Israel is turning its back on international legitimacy,he told hundreds of Palestinian refugees in the camp between the West Bank city of Ramallah and Jerusalem.
Palestinian-Israeli peace talks relaunched at a US-hosted conference in November 2008 have been frozen since the end of 2008.During a landmark speech in Cairo in June, US President Barack Obama pledged to forge a state for Palestinians and rebuked Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's refusal to halt West Bank settlement expansion.At the time Fayyad said he saw hope for a new era in the speech.Last week the hawkish Netanyahu invited Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas to meet him to restart the stalled peace negotiations.But the Palestinians have said they will not resume talks unless Israel freezes all Jewish settlement activity in the occupied West Bank in line with US demands.The presence of more than 280,000 Jewish settlers in communities across the West Bank and another 200,000 in mostly Arab east Jerusalem has been a major stumbling block in past peace negotiations.
14 UN peacekeepers injured in Lebanon protest Sat Jul 18, 3:39 pm ET
BEIRUT (AFP) – Fourteen UN peacekeepers were injured in south Lebanon on Saturday when protesters tried to stop an investigation into an arms cache that exploded in a Hezbollah stronghold last week, a spokeswoman said.During the entire course of the incident, 14 UNIFIL soldiers were lightly injured and some UNIFIL vehicles were damaged, among them one ambulance from the investigation team,spokeswoman Yasmina Bouziane told AFP.Ammunition stored in an abandoned house in the village of Khirbet Selm, 20 kilometres (12 miles) from the Israeli border, exploded on Tuesday. The area is widely considered to be a Hezbollah stronghold.The UN had launched an investigation into the cause of the blast in coordination with the Lebanese army, and Bouziane said around 100 people gathered on Saturday and tried to stop it by throwing stones at the troops.UNIFIL -- the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon -- called for reinforcements and one patrol was forced to fire warning shots into the air before it could pass, she added.The peacekeeping force has said the blasts marked a serious violation of UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended a devastating 34-day war between Israel and the Shiite militant group in the summer of 2006.Hezbollah has refused to disarm although Resolution 1701 reaffirms the need for militias in Lebanon to turn in their weapons. The Shiite group argues that its arsenal is needed to defend the country against Israel.Lebanese soldiers deployed in the south in the wake of the 2006 war for the first time in 30 years.UNIFIL, set up in 1978 to monitor the border between Israel and Lebanon, was considerably expanded after the 2006 conflict, which Israel launched after Hezbollah captured two of its soldiers in a deadly cross-border raid.
Israel slams civilian occupation of army post Sat Jul 18, 8:40 am ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – The Israeli army strongly criticised on Saturday the brief occupation of one its observation posts by Lebanese civilian demonstrators, saying that they had put themselves in danger.An army spokesman charged that Friday's action in the unmanned post in a disputed area near the ceasefire line between the two neighbours was a breach of the UN Security Council truce resolution that brought an end to the devastating 2006 war between Israel and Shiite militant group Hezbollah.We consider this intrusion by Lebanese civilians to be a gross violation of UN Resolution 1701,the spokesman said.These civilians, who included children, put themselves in danger through their actions.Our forces deliberately refrained from intervening after establishing that these civilians were unarmed,the spokesman added.
Around 70 Lebanese, led by Shiite MP Qassem Hashem, cut through barbed wire and marched on the post in the Kfar Shuba hills which Israel set up earlier this week, an AFP correspondent said.The protesters put up Lebanese and Hezbollah flags just outside the post, before being asked by UN peacekeepers to evacuate the area.Shortly afterwards three Israeli tanks approached and soldiers were seen removing the flags.
The Lebanese army asked the UN on Tuesday to remove the Israeli outpost.But the UN Interim Force in Lebanon, which is charged with overseeing the 2006 ceasefire resolution, has said that it lies outside the area of its mandate.The post lies just outside the disputed Shebaa Farms -- a sliver of land rich in water resources located at the junction of southeast Lebanon, southwest Syria and north Israel.Israel seized the Shebaa Farms from Syria in the 1967 Middle East war as part of the Golan Heights, a territory it then annexed in 1981 in a move never recognised by the international community.The area has since been caught in a tug-of-war over ownership, with the UN saying it is part of the Syria Golan Heights, while Damascus and Beirut insist it is Lebanese.
Arabs must talk to Israeli media: Bahrain's crown prince Fri Jul 17, 2:06 pm ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) – Arab leaders must begin talking to the Israeli media to better communicate their desire for a lasting Middle East peace, Bahrain's crown prince said on Friday.We as Arabs have not done enough to communicate directly with the people of Israel,Sheikh Salman bin Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa wrote in an opinion article published in the Washington Post.The article was published alongside a commentary by former Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert in Friday's paper.Al Khalifa said Arab leaders must tell our story more directly to the Israeli people by getting the message out to their media" and emphasizing support for the so-called Arab Initiative, which promises normalized relations between Israel and the Arab world in exchange for the creation of a Palestinian state.Essentially, we have not done a good enough job demonstrating to Israelis how our initiative can form part of a peace between equals in a trouble land holy to three great faiths,he wrote.The call came two days after US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called on the Arab world to take meaningful steps in support of Israeli-Palestinian peace.On Friday, State Department spokesman Philip Crowley described Al Khalifa's call for more engagement as a very, very welcome step.These are important gestures,he said.Last month, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak called in The Wall Street Journal for Arab leaders to reach out to Israel in support of peace in the region.The Egyptian head of state called for leadership and concerted effort from all sides,and pledged that his country -- one of only two in the region to have signed a peace deal with Israel -- would continue to support efforts to negotiate an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement.
Turkey warns on EU call for Palestinian state deadline Fri Jul 17, 12:49 pm ET
ANKARA (AFP) – Turkish President Abdullah Gul Friday cast doubt on a European Union call for a deadline for the creation of a Palestinian state, warning such a move could be counter-productive.Speaking after talks with visiting Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas, Gul reiterated Turkey's support for an independent Palestinian state.
But we believe that any efforts to achieve that without the consent of the main players will not be of any use, and can even be harmful,Gul told a joint press conference.He said Turkey, which currently holds a non-permanent seat at the UN Security Council, will do its best for the creation of Palestinian state on condition that a compromise is secured.EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said last week that a deadline should be set for resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He said that if the two sides fail to meet it, the Security Council should proclaim a Palestinian state under a settlement backed by the international community.
Turkey has close ties with Israel and the Palestinians.
Abbas renewed calls on Israel to abide by the internationally adopted 2003 roadmap which requires Israel to halt all settlement activity and for the Palestinians to halt attacks against Israel.The Palestinians say they will not resume peace talks unless Israel ends settlement activity in the occupied West Bank in line with US demands, something that Israel's hawkish Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has so far rejected.Before wrapping up his visit later Friday, Abbas was to meet with Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu and inaugurate the new Palestinian mission building in Ankara, which was financed by Turkish government.Turkey has sought an active role in Middle East affairs, including efforts to bridge the gap between Abbas' Fatah faction and the radical movement Hamas. It also mediated four rounds of indirect peace talks between Israel and Syria.
Israel's Peres to visit Russia in mid-August
Fri Jul 17, 7:40 am ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – Israel President Shimon Peres will visit Russia in mid-August at the invitation of Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev, the president's office in Jerusalem announced on Friday.President Peres will meet President (Dmitry) Medvedev on August 18 at his summer residence on the Black Sea as part of a working visit, a presidential spokeswoman said.With the visit in mind, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman on Thursday briefed Peres on talks he had held with Medvedev in Moscow in June, foreign ministry spokesman Tzahi Moshe told AFP.Lieberman had reiterated at that meeting that he was not opposed to Israel's participation in a Middle East conference which Russia wants to stage in Moscow, on condition that (Palestinian group) Hamas and (Lebanon's) Hezbollah are kept out,Moshe said.Israel will not agree to take part in such a conference if Hamas or Hezbollah are represented in a direct or indirect way,he added.Hamas, which rules the Gaza enclave, and Hezbollah both advocate armed struggle against Israel.
Anti-Zionist ultra-Orthodox Jews visit Gaza By DIAA HADID, Associated Press Writer – Thu Jul 16, 3:39 pm ET
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip – Representatives of an anti-Zionist, ultra-Orthodox Jewish sect paid a brief visit to the Gaza Strip on Thursday on a solidarity mission with the area's militantly anti-Israel Hamas leaders.It was the first time envoys from the Neturei Karta have visited the Gaza Strip since Hamas seized control in June 2007.The sect denounces Israel's existence and traditionally embraces its enemies — including Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whom Neturei Karta members famously hugged at a Holocaust denial conference in December 2006.Four sect representatives from the U.S. sat down with Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh on Thursday, after crossing into the territory through Egypt the night before with dozens of other pro-Palestinian activists. Israel, which maintains a strict blockade of Gaza, would not let them cross through its passages with the territory.We feel your suffering, we cry your cry,said Rabbi Yisroel Weiss upon arriving Wednesday night.It is your land, it is occupied, illegitimately and unjustly by people who stole it, kidnapped the name of Judaism and our identity,said Weiss, wearing the black hat, black coat and long side-curls typical of ultra-Orthodox Jews. His delegation left early Thursday.Hamas seeks the destruction of the state of Israel and has killed more than 250 Israelis in suicide bombings. Israel, along with the U.S. and European Union, considers Hamas a terrorist group.During their Thursday meeting, Haniyeh told them he held no grudge against Jews, but against the state of Israel, according to a Hamas web site.Neturei Karta, Aramaic for Guardians of the City,was founded some 70 years ago in Jerusalem by Jews who opposed the drive to establish the state of Israel, believing only the Messiah could do that. Estimates of the group's size range from a few hundred to a few thousand.Representatives of the sect had previously visited Gaza when it was ruled by Fatah, Hamas' more secular rival.One acted as Yasser Arafat's adviser on Jewish affairs, and a delegation traveled to Paris in 2004 to pray for the Palestinian leader's health as he lay dying in a hospital. Months later, a group participated in a conference in Lebanon with Hamas and Hezbollah militants.
Syria tells US that it wants the Golan Heights back Thu Jul 16, 11:40 am ET
DAMASCUS (AFP) – Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem told visiting US official Frederic Hof on Thursday that Damascus wants the Golan Heights back as part of any Middle East peace deal.Muallem stressed Syria's wish to recover Golan as far as the border of June 4, 1967, before Israel occupied the upland region in that year's six-day war, Sana official news agency reported.The Syrian minister reaffirmed his country's support for achieving a fair and global peace (deal) in the region in line with the principle of exchanging land for peace,the news agency said.Hof, deputy to American special Middle East peace envoy George Mitchell, reiterated the desire of the United States to work for a peace deal in the Middle East, Sana added.The US wants to play an active and balanced role to relaunch peace talks on all Syrian and Palestinian issues with Israel, the report quoted him as saying.Relations between the United States and Syria have begun to improve since Barack Obama became US president.
Washington announced on June 24 its decision to send an ambassador back to Damascus, the latest of a series of cautious signals from the Obama administration.The United States recalled its ambassador to Syria in 2005 after the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri, which many blamed on Syria though it denies involvement.The embassy remained open directed by a charge d'affaires.Washington has accused Damascus of supporting terrorist groups, seeking to destabilise Lebanon and allowing transit through Syria of weapons for fighters in Iraq.
Israel anti-missile system passes live fire test By STEVE WEIZMAN, Associated Press Writer – Wed Jul 15, 3:48 pm ET
JERUSALEM – A homegrown Israeli missile defense system performed well in its first live trial, bringing down a short-range rocket similar to those used by Palestinian and Lebanese militants, an Israeli Defense Minister official said Wednesday.Spokesman Shlomo Dror told The Associated Press that a missile from the Iron Dome system intercepted and destroyed a Grad rocket. He did not say when or exactly where the system was tested, but the Web site of local daily Yediot Ahronot said the trials were held during the past week.Dror said that while the missile's guidance and control systems have been tested several times in the past, this was the first trial under live battle conditions.The laser-based system is scheduled to be fully-operational by the end of next year.Palestinians in the Gaza Strip fired dozens of Grads, and hundreds of smaller homemade rockets, into southern Israel during a three-week Israeli offensive last winter. Dror said Iron Dome was equally effective against both types of rockets.The Grad is also similar to the Katyusha rockets used by the Lebanese Hezbollah militia, which fired almost 4,000 of them across Israel's northern border during fierce fighting in 2006.Israel has been looking at anti-rocket systems since 2003 but put the search into high gear after the summer 2006 war.Developed at a cost of over $200 million, the Iron Dome system is intended to eventually be integrated into a multilayered defense umbrella to meet all missile threats.Its manufacturer, state-owned Rafael is also working with U.S. company Raytheon Co. to develop a system against medium-range missiles.
To meet long-range threats, such as an Iranian attack, Israel Aerospace Industries Ltd. and Chicago-based Boeing Co. are producing the Arrow missile, which has been successfully tested and partially deployed.The most advanced version, the Arrow II, was specifically designed to counter Iran's Shahab ballistic missile, which is capable of carrying a nuclear warhead.The Shahab-3 has a range of up to 1,250 miles (2,000 kilometers), putting Israel well within striking distance.Israel sees Iran as its biggest threat, citing the country's nuclear program and its development of long-range ballistic missiles. Those fears have been compounded by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's repeated references to the destruction of the Jewish state.
Israel says Lebanon blast a secret Hezbollah cache By Dan Williams Dan Williams – Wed Jul 15, 1:53 pm ET
JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Hezbollah guerrillas have secretly stockpiled rockets and other arms in southern Lebanon, Israel said on Wednesday, citing as proof the explosion of a suspected cache in the U.N.-patrolled truce zone.Tuesday morning's blast hit a Hezbollah arsenal in the village of Khirbet Selim, near the Israeli border, a Lebanese security source said, adding that it was not clear how old the ordnance was.
Hezbollah had no comment on the incident. UNIFIL, the U.N. peacekeeper force that was beefed up after Israel and Hezbollah fought a 2006 war in south Lebanon, said it and the Lebanese army were conducting an investigation.Israel has accused Iranian- and Syrian-sponsored Hezbollah of rearming in the former battlegrounds, a violation of the U.N. Security Council ceasefire resolution. Israel has itself been in breach by continuing military overflights of the area.Briefing reporters, a top Israeli military official said Tuesday's blast had rocked the area and destroyed a building.
Denying knowledge of what had caused the explosion, the official described the site as one of dozens of ammunition and rocket storage (sites) in south Lebanon.Hezbollah quickly cordoned off the blast site and took items away, the Israeli official said, adding that the Lebanese army let Hezbollah manage this event and (did) not help UNIFIL do its job in the area.Even if the UNIFIL forces want to go somewhere, the Hezbollah forces do not let them do so. There is a kind of understanding among all the forces that everyone knows who is the strong one,the official said in English.
Asked about the incident, UNIFIL said it was investigating in line with its mandate.
Yesterday we couldn't access the area because of security reasons. The area was not safe enough because there was still a potential risk of fire or explosion. But we cordoned off the area and this morning we were able to access the area,said a UNIFIL spokesman, Andrea Tenenti.From preliminary information that we have, the incident was an explosion caused by a deflagration of ammunitions.The Lebanese army said in a statement that it had secured the area after the explosion, which it described as having taken place in one of the deserted buildings of Khirbet Selim.Prime Minister-designate Saad al-Hariri's U.S.-backed coalition secured a victory in Lebanon's June 7parliamentary election.Hariri has been holding talks over the shape of the new government which is expected to group his March 14 alliance, backed by countries like Saudi Arabia, with rivals including Hezbollah.(Additional reporting by Yara Bayoumy in Beirut, Editing by Matthew Jones)
Hebrew-only road signs racist: Arab League
Wed Jul 15, 12:56 pm ET
CAIRO (AFP) – The Cairo-based Arab League denounced on Wednesday an Israeli decision to scrap Arabic and English names on road signs and keep only Hebrew ones, branding the move as racist.This is a grave racist move,said Mohammed Sobeih, the deputy secretary general in charge of Palestinian affairs at the 22-member organisation, in a statement carried by the official Egyptian news agency MENA.The Israeli transport ministry said on Monday that it will get rid of Arabic and English names for cities and towns on road signs, keeping only the Hebrew ones.This decision is part of a series of measures and Israeli policies aimed at imposing the Jewish state motto, Sobeih said.He also urged all international organisations... to oppose, as firmly as possible, this racist decision,MENA reported.Israeli Transport Minister Yisrael Katz told the mass-selling Yediot Aharonot newspaper that the move was a response to the Palestinian refusal to use Hebrew names for some Israeli towns.On Palestinian maps, Israeli towns are often still identified with the Arabic names used before the 1948 war when Israel was created, he said.Currently Israeli road signs are written in Hebrew, Arabic and English, with the city names in each language.Jerusalem is identified as Yerushalaim in Hebrew, Jerusalem in English and Al-Quds in Arabic but under the new policy the Holy City will only be identified as Yerushalaim in all three languages.Israel gave Hebrew names, often of biblical origin, to many villages, towns and areas that came under its control following the 1948 war.
West Bank economy on the mend, says IMF by Yana Dlugy – Wed Jul 15, 10:50 am ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – The West Bank economy can post its best result in several years if Israel continues to relax restrictions on internal trade and movement, the International Monetary Fund said on Wednesday.Macroeconomic conditions in the West Bank have improved, reflecting a relaxation of Israeli restrictions on internal trade and improved security conditions,the IMF said in a statement that marked a rare positive assessment of the Palestinian economy.Real GDP growth in the West Bank could stand at seven percent in 2009, compared with some four percent in 2008, if Israel continues easing the massive web of restrictions on the movement of goods and people that it imposed on the Palestinian territory in the wake of the second intifada in 2000.This would represent the first significant improvement in living standards in the West Bank since 2006,the statement said.The trade has been so restricted up till now, if all of the sudden you relax them, you're going to have growth,said Oussama Kanaan, the IMF chief of mission in the West Bank and Gaza.
The situation in Gaza however remains much more dismal, the statement said.
While the Gaza blockade has been relaxed somewhat compared to the situation before the war last January, including on the transfer of cash to banks, restrictions on a wide range of non-humanitarian goods remains tight and decisions by the Israeli authorities on cash entry are still being undertaken on an ad hoc basis.Unemployment in the Palestinian territories remains high, with 20 percent in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and 34 percent in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip, it said.If Israel continues to ease its restrictions, overall GDP growth in the West Bank and Gaza in 2009 is expected to stand at five percent, compared with the 2.3 percent in 2008.The IMF statement also praised steady progress that has been made by the Palestinian Authority in institution building and reforms since Salam Fayyad, a respected economist and a former Fund official, became prime minister in 2007.The Palestinian Authority also has made impressive strides in strengthening the public financial management system, which has helped prioritise and raise the quality of public expenditure.These economic and financial reforms have complemented the PA's security reforms to bolster confidence of both the private and public sectors.In order to sustain economic growth in the medium term, the PA must continue with reforms and a prudent fiscal policy, Israel must continue to ease trade restrictions and donors would have to make good on their pledges, it said.Sustainable GDP growth will require not only the removal of internal trade restrictions, but also the removal of trade restrictions between the Palestinian territories and Israel.Under this scenario, GDP growth would rise to some eight percent by 2012 and the deficit would fall to 10 percent from the 20 percent where it stood at 2008, it said.
Blair says West Bank bottom-up effort gets result Tue Jul 14, 11:51 am ET
NABLUS, West Bank (Reuters) – Improving conditions for Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied West Bank prove that a Palestinian state can be built from the bottom up while it's being negotiated from the top down,Tony Blair said Tuesday.The Middle East envoy said on a visit to the central city of Nablus that the Palestinian Authority's improving security capability together with Israel's easing of some checkpoints had delivered some economic progress.Blair, representing the Quartet of Middle East mediators made up of the United States, the European Union, the United Nations and Russia, also said he believed U.S.-led efforts to revive the stalled peace process would soon lead to talks.The Americans are working very hard on this ... in the next few weeks, next few months, we're going to see the launch of credible political negotiations,he told Reuters in Nablus.Blair said the economy in Nablus was improving because the Palestinians are providing their own security today, and doing it well, and the Israelis are starting to lift the access and movement restrictions.There could be immense change here,he said, if talks went in parallel with bottom-up efforts, including providing the security, lifting the weight of occupation, allowing the Palestinians to move and getting the economy going.Palestinian militants were in control of Nablus, the former West Bank commercial hub, during a violent uprising that erupted in 2000. Until weeks ago Israeli troops operated a major checkpoint controlling access to the city.Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu proposes support for the Palestinian economy while negotiating the creation of a state with limited sovereignty, provided Palestinians recognize Israel as a Jewish state -- which they have rejected.(Additional reporting by Ali Sawafta and Atef Saad; Writing by Douglas Hamilton, editing by Dominic Evans)
Two Israeli warships cross Suez Canal Tue Jul 14, 11:21 am ET
ISMAILIA, Egypt (Reuters) – Two Israeli warships passed through Egypt's Suez Canal on Tuesday heading to the Red Sea on a mission to stop arms smuggling to Palestinian-ruled Gaza, sources said.A Suez Canal Authority source named the warships as the Eilat and Hanit and said the Hanit had passed through the canal twice in June.This is part of an Israeli effort to stop arms smuggling to Gaza,a security source, who declined to be identified by name or nationality, told Reuters.
Israel declined to comment.
The Jewish state has regular patrols to stop arms getting into the Palestinian enclave on the Mediterranean coast. The 193 km-long waterway links the Mediterranean and the Red Sea.In January, Sudanese authorities reported that a convoy of arms smugglers had been hit by the air in Sudan's eastern Red Sea state, a strike that some reports said may have been carried out by Israel to stop weapons bound for Gaza.
Egypt, the only country apart from Israel to border Gaza, says most of the arms smuggled into the Palestinian area arrive by sea rather than through tunnels on its land border.The Israeli submarine crossed the canal in June as part of a naval drill which Israeli defense sources described as a show of strategic reach in the face of a perceived threat from Iran.Israel, like many Western nations, accuses Iran of seeking to build nuclear bombs, a charge Tehran denies. Israel is the only Middle East state believed to possess nuclear weapons.Both ships are Saar-5 class corvettes. The Eilat is the second Israeli naval vessel of that name after the first, a destroyer, was sunk by the Egyptian navy after the 1967 war. The Hanit was damaged off Lebanon's coast in the 2006 war.(Reporting by Yusri Mohamed in Ismaili, Ori Lewis, Allyn Fisher-Ilan and Dan Williams in Jerusalem, writing by Edmund Blair; Editing by Angus MacSwan)
In Israel, US envoy maps peace with Syria By Ilene R. Prusher – Tue Jul 14, 5:00 am ET
Jerusalem – The arrival in Jerusalem of a US diplomat with a longstanding interest in bringing about Israeli-Syrian peace is fueling speculation that the Obama administration is trying to relaunch negotiations between Jerusalem and Damascus.
Frederic C. Hof, a conflict resolution expert and senior adviser to US Middle East envoy George Mitchell, arrived in Israel Sunday. He will remain through Wednesday, and is meeting with a variety of Israeli officials, including Defense Minister Ehud Barak and senior military officers, before continuing to Damascus for talks.Yediot Aharonoth, Israel's largest circulation newspaper, reports that Mr. Hof is in the process of presenting the draft of a plan for Israeli-Syrian peace that would find solutions to the two countries' dispute over the Golan Heights, a territory Israel occupied in the 1967 Middle East war and later annexed. While Israeli officials have declined to comment on whether such a plan is being floated, Mr. Hof's vision was outlined in part in March when he published a report, Mapping Peace Between Syria and Israel,with the United States Institute for Peace in Washington. (Click here for the full report in pdf format.)An American embassy official in Tel Aviv confirmed that Hof was here exploring peace concepts with various officials in the region.The status of the Golan Heights is the main obstacle to Israeli-Syrian peace, which various efforts have failed to secure in recent years. In 2008, Israel and Syria conducted back-channel discussions facilitated by Turkey, but Syrian President Bashar al-Assad suspended the talks in protest over the January war in Gaza.However, then-Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who left office in late January, was optimistic that the talks would resume and eventually produce an accord.We started negotiations with Syria and... at the end of the day, we will be able to reach an agreement that will end the conflict between us and the Syrians,he said in a speech.
Hof envisions environmental preserve in Golan Heights
A key facet of the deal would involve shared water resources and the creation of a Jordan Valley-Golan Heights Environmental Preserve. While Israeli settlements would be dismantled, the plan envisions both Israelis and Syrians having free access to the territory for the purposes of tourism, among other things. In addition to mitigating Israeli concerns about the return of sensitive territories and providing a venue for informal people-to-people contacts, the Jordan Valley-Golan Heights Environmental Preserve approach would give the parties a good platform for practical bilateral cooperation even as the ink on a peace treaty is drying, allowing for a constructive, confidence-building start to the implementation phase of the withdrawal process," the report says, according to the USIP's website.
Israelis dampen expectations
Israeli officials have tried to downplay expectations over Hof's visit, noting that a meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is not on the schedule. Officials in Mr. Netanyahu's office have indicated that the emphasis should continue to be placed on reaching a two-state with the Palestinians. Uzi Arad, Netanyhau's national security adviser, said in a weekend interview with Israeli newspaper Haaretz that Israel would not consider any peace deal that would prevent it from staying deep into the Golan Heights,a definition sure to be off-putting to Syrian negotiators. The Syrians are certainly aware that the Netanyahu government and the majority of the public will not leave the Golan Heights,Dr. Arad said in the interview.There are more than two dozen Israeli settlements in the area, with 9,000 settlers living there.
Israeli spokesman: It's Syria that's stalling talks
A spokesman for Netanyahu says that Syria should not expect Israel to agree to preconditions – such as recognizing verbal agreements that are said to have been made by the late prime minister Yitzhak Rabin in the 1990s. Israel, in return, would be ready to talk to Syria, despite its disinclination to do so, given support in Damascus for Hamas and Hizbullah.We are ready for negotiations with the Syrians without preconditions, but it's the Syrians who are putting all sorts of preconditions on the talks that prevent them from happening, says Mark Regev, a spokesman for Netanyahu.They're actively supporting both Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza, not just political support but very tangible support. If we wanted to say no talks until that stops, we could.The Obama administration decided in June to send an ambassador to Damascus, ending a four-year hiatus in diplomatic ties.
Obama talks of progress on Israeli settlements Mon Jul 13, 10:07 pm ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Barack Obama indicated to Jewish-American leaders on Monday that the United States and Israel are making progress in bridging their differences on the issue of Jewish settlements.Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have differed sharply on Israeli settlements on the occupied West Bank. The United States wants a complete halt to settlement construction, a demand that has opened the most serious rift in U.S.-Israeli relations in a decade.Israel has raised the possibility it might temporarily refrain from starting new building projects -- while continuing many under way -- in return for steps toward a regional peace agreement, including progress on Arab states normalizing relations with Israel.
U.S. envoy George Mitchell and Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak have conducted a series of talks on the issue.Obama, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and political adviser David Axelrod sat down with 16 Jewish-American leaders to discuss the Middle East and other issues.He (Obama) said that there is more progress than appears in the negotiations and spoke quite positively of the tracks between Mitchell and Barak and between the two administrations, said one participant, Malcolm Hoenlein, executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations.One major obstacle has been Israel's insistence on allowing some natural growth of existing settlements.Hoenlein said Obama indicated that there might be some opening for an understanding between the two parties. I don't know what the understanding is.Jeremy Ben-Ami, executive director of J Street, a pro-Israel lobby group in Washington, said Obama stressed that further expansion of settlements was not in the interest of the United States or Israel.The president said that the gaps are narrowing and he did allude to progress and his hope that an agreement would be reached. He definitely alluded to that,Ben-Ami said.
He said members of the group urged Obama to visit Israel.
Rabbi Steven Wernick, executive vice president of the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, said Obama stressed that he was also pressing the Palestinians to take steps necessary for peace.A spokesman for Stephen Savitsky, president of the Orthodox Union, said there was concern about what appeared to be one-sided pressure on Israel. The spokesman said Obama indicated that he intends in coming weeks to make more public what is being done to nudge the Palestinians as well.A White House statement said Obama reiterated his unshakable commitment to Israel's security, and reiterated his commitment to working to achieve Middle East peace.(Reporting by David Alexander and Steve Holland, editing by Vicki Allen)
