Europe raises pressure on Israel to stop settlements By Allyn Fisher-Ilan – Tue Jul 21, 3:06 pm ET
JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Germany, France and EU president Sweden on Tuesday joined Western nations pressing Israel to stop building settlements in East Jerusalem and the West Bank under a U.S.-led effort to resume stalled peace talks.Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has resisted international calls to freeze building in occupied territory, seemed to show a sign of flexibility as a newspaper reported a secret plan to remove two dozen unauthorized settler outposts.Israel has long pledged to dismantle hilltop outposts that it never approved, but has continued building larger settlements in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, land it captured in a 1967 war, and where Palestinians want to build a future state.Western-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has said he would not resume peace talks with Israel, stalled since Israel elected Netanyahu, a right-wing settler champion in February, unless all settlement construction stopped.In Berlin, Ruprecht Polenz, a senior member of German Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative party, was quoted as saying Israel ran the risk of gradually committing suicide as a democratic state if it did not stop the construction.Polenz, head of the German parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee, further told the Rheinische Post daily that Israel is overlooking the fact that neither Palestinians nor Arab states will agree to a solution without East Jerusalem.
The French Foreign Ministry summoned Israel's ambassador, Daniel Shek, in Paris, to protest against a planned Israeli housing project for East Jerusalem, which Israel considers part of its capital and which Palestinians also seek to make their capital.
Israel annexed East Jerusalem shortly after its capture, in a move never recognized internationally.
THOUSANDS THREATENED WITH DISPLACEMENT
European Union president Sweden urged from Stockholm that Israel refrain from demolishing homes in East Jerusalem where thousands are threatened with displacement.
Jerusalem has emerged as a focal point of the settlement controversy since Israeli officials accused the U.S. State Department on Sunday of telling Israel's ambassador to Washington, Michael Oren, Israel should suspend plans to build about 20 housing units in the city's eastern sector.The United States has never confirmed it made this demand, but Netanyahu rejected it in televised remarks to his cabinet, a move analysts saw as capitalizing on broad popular support in the country for Israel's continued control of the disputed city.Israel shut a hotel fair in East Jerusalem in the latest of several Palestinian cultural events it has disrupted in recent months saying an interim peace deal permits it to bar the Palestinian government from holding events in the city.They want us to leave Jerusalem, but we will not,Rafiq al-Husseini, an aide to Abbas, said.Neither Netanyahu's office nor the Israeli army would comment on a report in the respected Haaretz daily that the military was preparing to forcibly evacuate 23 illegal outposts in one day, in a plan drawn up with Netanyahu's knowledge.The same Haaretz columnist disclosed plans to remove troops and Jewish settlers from the Gaza Strip before that pullout occurred in 2005.
Separately, a report by the Macro Center of the Israeli European Policy Network said settlements were receiving a larger share of government funding than municipalities inside Israel, and the settler population was also growing three times as fast.While Israeli municipalities as a whole receive 34.7 percent of their income from (the government) and obtain another 64.3 percent from their own income, settlement municipalities obtain 57 percent from the (government) and only 42.8 percent from their own income,the report said.(Additional reporting by Madeline Chambers in Berlin, Niklas Pollard in Stockholm, Mohammed Assadi in Ramallah, and Douglas Hamilton and Ali Sawafta in Jerusalem)
Israeli settlements political suicide: Merkel ally Tue Jul 21, 10:55 am ET
BERLIN (Reuters) – A senior member of German Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative party on Tuesday urged Israel not to build more settlements, warning it risked political suicide if it continued to do so.In unusually strong comments for a German politician, Ruprecht Polenz, the head of parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee, was quoted as saying Israel's aim of having secure borders would only be possible with a two-state solution.If Israel did not stop building settlements it ran the risk of gradually committing suicide as a democratic state,Polenz told the Rheinische Post daily.Enjoying safe borders would only be conceivable for Israel if East Jerusalem could operate as the capital of a Palestinian state, said Polenz. But he added Israel was trying to cut off East Jerusalem from the West Bank by building more settlements.
Israel is overlooking the fact that neither Palestinians nor Arab states will agree to a solution without East Jerusalem,Polenz told the paper.German politicians, who feel they have a special obligation to the country due to the Nazi Holocaust in which six million Jews were killed, tend to be softer in their criticism of Israel than many other countries.Separately, European Union president Sweden urged Israel to refrain from evicting Palestinians and demolishing their homes in Arab East Jerusalem, where thousands are threatened with displacement.A U.N. report in May said some 1,500 demolition orders were pending for homes built without a permit from Israel's Jerusalem Municipality in the east of the city.The Swedish president said such actions were illegal under international law and called for them to end.These eviction notices follow other recent orders which adversely affect Palestinians living in East Jerusalem and, combined with the increase in settlement activity in East Jerusalem, further threaten the chances of peace.Israel considers Jerusalem as its capital, including East Jerusalem which it captured in an 1967 and annexed in a move not recognized internationally, and which Palestinian want to make the capital of their own future state.(Reporting by Madeline Chambers in Berlin and Niklas Pollard in Stockholm; Editing by Jon Boyle)
Israel to declare Dead Sea shore state land: Peace Now Tue Jul 21, 5:26 am ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – The Israeli government has decided to register as state property West Bank land that has emerged as a result of Dead Sea shrinkage, an anti-settlement group said on Tuesday.Israeli authorities have announced that they intend to declare as state land some 138,600 dunums (34,650 acres) that has appeared along the Dead Sea in the occupied West Bank due to the drop in the water level,Hagit Ofran of the Peace Now group told AFP.The government published its decision in the Arabic-language press on June 28 and the public has 45 days from that date to file any objections. The land is located along the shore of the Dead Sea in the West Bank.The group said that based on public announcements, the amount of land involved may go beyond the shoreline that has been exposed as a result of the drop in the sea's water level, an estimated metre (yard) every year.It would appear that the primary purpose of registering this area as 'state land' is to prevent Palestinian use of the land or any Palestinian assertion of ownership over it, the group said in a statement.The move goes against statements by hawkish Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as recently as mid-June that the state did not intend to expropriate any additional land in the occupied Palestinian territory.In the West Bank, the designation of state land -- land to be held in trust by the occupying power and to be used for the benefit of the indigenous population -- has been abused as a form of de facto expropriation,Peace Now said.
Since 1967, Israel has declared or registered huge areas of the West Bank as state land and virtually all of this land has been given over for the exclusive use and exclusive benefit of Israeli settlers and the Israeli military,it said.
Israel to Lebanon: stop border violations By EDITH M. LEDERER, Associated Press Writers – Mon Jul 20, 10:19 pm ET
UNITED NATIONS – Israel urged the Lebanese government and U.N. peacekeepers on Monday to prevent Hezbollah militants and their supporters from violating its territory and jeopardizing the fragile stability along the border.In identical letters to Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and the Security Council, Israel's U.N. ambassador also accused Hezbollah of violating a council resolution by building new military facilities and hiding arms in the zone between the Litani River and the Israeli border.The resolution, which ended the inconclusive 34-day war between Hezbollah and Israel in 2006, put the zone under the control of 15,000 Lebanese troops and a 13,300-member U.N. peacekeeping force. It prohibited Hezbollah from engaging in military activities in south Lebanon and banned weapon smuggling to the group.The region has been relatively quiet since the war although Hezbollah has boasted that it has returned to border areas, maintaining a clandestine presence.Israeli Ambassador Gabriela Shalev cited three recent incidents that she said were severe violations of the U.N. resolution.In the first, on July 14, a Hezbollah arms cache exploded in an abandoned building in Khirbet Silim, about 9 miles (15 kilometers) from the Israeli border, she said. Hezbollah has remained silent.Three days later, 15 Lebanese civilians crossed the U.N.-drawn Blue Line — the unofficial boundary with Israel — and penetrated 175 meters (yards) into Israel, planting three Hezbollah and Lebanese flags before crossing back into Lebanese territory, Shalev said.The July 17 incident took place near a position manned by U.N. peacekeepers, but Shalev said the force, known as UNIFIL, refrained from taking any action to prevent the crossing of these individuals into Israeli territory.She noted that Qassem Hashem, a member of the Lebanese parliament who helped organize the illegal action, claimed it was coordinated with relevant authorities including UNIFIL.Given the proximity of the violation to a UNIFIL position, Israel would have expected that UNIFIL intervene in time to prevent this violation,Shalev said.
Israel calls upon the government of Lebanon to exercise its authority and prevent such violations of the Blue Line that endanger the stability along our mutual border, she said.In addition, Israel calls upon the secretary-general to exercise his influence and to ensure that UNIFIL will prevent any future incidents from occurring.
A third serious incident took place the following day, July 18, in Khirbet Silim, the same place where the arms cache exploded.Villagers threw stones at U.N. peacekeeping troops, lightly injuring 14 soldiers, in an attempt to prevent an investigation near the site of the arms cache explosion, the U.N. said.Shalev said the presence of arms in southern Lebanon and actions to prevent UNIFIL from carrying out its mandate must be confronted.In order to ensure that there are no Hezbollah weapons,the Lebanese army and UNIFIL must re-adapt their activity to the new reality in which Hezbollah is rebuilding its military infrastructure south of the Litani River within the civilian population,she said.
Israeli police press new case against ex-PM Olmert Mon Jul 20, 4:27 pm ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – Police in Israel have recommended that former prime minister Ehud Olmert face legal proceedings for alleged fraud and abuse of confidence in making unlawful appointments, police said on Monday.A recommendation to this effect has been passed to Attorney General Menahem Mazuz, a police official told AFP on condition of anonymity.The case relates to appointments made when the former premier was mayor of Jerusalem from 1993 to 2003 and then trade and industry minister between 2003 and 2006.Police suspect Olmert of appointing some 260 members of his former party, the right-wing Likud, to posts in an official body for investments in small and medium-sized businesses.On Sunday Mazuz also decided to finally close another file relating to Olmert for lack of evidence.That case concerned the so-called Cremieux Street affair involving the suspected purchase below market price of a Jerusalem apartment allegedly in exchange for political favours at a time when Olmert was mayor.Police investigators said in March they had failed to find significant evidence in the case.
Mazuz has previously notified Olmert of his intention to charge him over two separate allegations that he multiple-billed foreign trips and unlawfully accepted cash-stuffed envelopes from US financier Morris Talansky.Olmert, who insists he is innocent, resigned last September 21, staying on as interim prime minister until the formation of a new government in March.
Netanyahu defies U.S. on East Jerusalem settlement Jeffrey Heller – Sun Jul 19, 3:35 pm ET
JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, saying he would not take orders over Israeli settlement in East Jerusalem, rejected on Sunday a U.S. demand to halt plans to build more homes for Jews in the disputed area.New friction with Washington over the project to build 20 apartments in a part of Jerusalem captured by Israel in a 1967 war could deepen the most serious rift in relations between the two allies in a decade.Israeli officials said the State Department had summoned Michael Oren, Israel's ambassador to Washington, and told him plans for the construction approved this month by Israel's Jerusalem municipality should be suspended.We cannot accept the idea that Jews will not have the right to live and buy (homes) anywhere in Jerusalem,Netanyahu said, calling the city Israel's united capital, a claim that is not recognized internationally.I can only imagine what would happen if someone would suggest Jews could not live in certain neighborhoods of New York, London, Paris or Rome. There would certainly be a great international outcry, he told reporters at the weekly cabinet meeting. We cannot accept this edict in Jerusalem.
The White House declined to comment.
Netanyahu and President Barack Obama are already at loggerheads over the U.S. leader's call for Israel to freeze Jewish settlement on occupied land Palestinians want for a state.Obama's Middle East envoy, George Mitchell, due back in the region soon, and Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak have been trying to work out a settlement deal that would include initial steps by Arab countries to normalize relations with Israel.But constraints on Jewish settlement in Jerusalem could put a heavy strain on Netanyahu's coalition, in which the future of the holy city is a red-flag issue for Jewish religious and ultranationalist partners.Responding to Netanyahu's comments, Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erakat said the Israeli leader had to realize that settlements and peace are two parallels that do not go together.
ABANDONED HOTEL
Israel annexed East Jerusalem and declared all of the city its capital after the 1967 war. Palestinians say Jewish settlement on occupied land could deny them a viable state.The housing project is within a compound in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood where the now-defunct Shepherd Hotel stands. It was bought in 1985 by an American Jewish millionaire who has been funding Jewish housing projects in East Jerusalem.
Israel's Jerusalem municipality said its planning committee, acting in full transparency, gave approval for the 20 apartments and pledged to preserve the historic structure at the site.Palestinians have questioned the legality of the acquisition, saying the compound had belonged to the former grand mufti, the leading Muslim cleric in Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini. He went into exile in 1937 and died in 1974.Israel designated the plot as absentee property after the 1967 war.(Editing by Peter Millership)
Hamas and Fatah delay unity talks: report Sun Jul 19, 7:39 am ET
CAIRO (AFP) – Egyptian-mediated Palestinian reconciliation talks between rivals Fatah and Hamas set for next Saturday have been delayed for a month, Egypt's official MENA news agency said on Sunday.Egyptian officials decided that some issues required further discussion and efforts. The date for the last round of talks, July 25, does not leave enough time to resolve the differences,MENA quotes Palestinian officials as saying.So it was agreed to delay the talks until August 25,the officials said.The rival Palestinian factions resumed reconciliation talks in February and had agreed to begin what they said would be a final round on Saturday.Cairo has been mediating the talks between president Mahmud Abbas's secular Fatah party and the Islamists of Hamas aimed at healing bitter divisions between the two, aggravated when Hamas seized control of Gaza in 2007.Hamas and Fatah delegations have been meeting in Cairo over the last two days to discuss the talks' progress.The talks hope to seal a deal which will lay out a new electoral law as well as define the make-up of security forces and of a committee to liaise between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank ahead of an election in 2010.Hamas has demanded that Abbas's Palestinian Authority release all political prisoners -- referring to the scores of Hamas members arrested in the Israeli-occupied West Bank -- or provide a timetable for their release.
Both sides have since announced the release of dozens of prisoners.
Fatah and Hamas have accused each other of persecuting their rival's supporters in the territories under their control, while human rights groups have accused both groups of making arbitrary arrests and mistreating detainees.The two groups deny they make political arrests, saying the arrests are made on security grounds.
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.
