CLINTON MEETS WITH BUDDY MUBARAK

Clinton sees Mubarak ahead of White House talks
Mon Aug 17, 4:52 pm ET

WASHINGTON – The Obama administration is hopeful that groundwork can be laid soon to allow the resumption of stalled peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians, the State Department said Monday.We're trying to work hard to create conditions for negotiation to continue and we hope to have this phase of this process completed in the next few weeks,spokesman P.J. Crowley told reporters, a day before President Barack Obama and Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak are to meet at the White House.

Crowley spoke after an hour-long meeting between Mubarak and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. He said Egypt and the United States agreed that all sides — Israel, the Palestinians and Arab states — need to take parallel steps to set the stage for a return to negotiations.Those include a halt to settlement activity by Israel, Palestinian moves to improve security and gestures by Arab nations toward normalization of relations with Israel.I think Egypt and the United States share the view that we have to have parallel steps here,Crowley said.Only Egypt and Jordan have peace treaties with Israel. Arab states without relations with Israel have rebuffed U.S. appeals to take certain steps toward normalizing ties until Israel makes the first move.

Palestinians prefer Abbas and Fatah to Hamas: poll Mon Aug 17, 10:47 am ET

JERUSALEM (AFP) – Support among Palestinians for president Mahmud Abbas and his secular Fatah party is greater than that for his Islamist Hamas rivals, according to the results of a poll released on Monday.The survey carried out by the Palestinian Centre for Policy and Survey Research (PSR) found that 52 percent of Palestinians would vote for Abbas to remain president, up three percentage points from three months ago.The same poll found that just 38 percent of Palestinians would vote for Ismail Haniya, the prime minister of the Hamas-run government in the Gaza Strip, down from 44 percent in the previous poll.Support for Fatah, meanwhile, climbed to 44 percent from 41 percent, while support for Hamas dropped from 33 percent to 28 percent, the poll indicated.When Palestinian elections were last held in 2006 Hamas won an unexpected landslide of 74 parliamentary seats compared with 45 for Fatah.

Abbas may have enjoyed a boost in popularity following the Fatah party congress in the West Bank earlier this month -- the first since 1989 -- which saw a raft of new leaders elected to key positions.The poll found that if Marwan Barghuti -- a popular Fatah leader elected to the party's governing body -- were to run for president he would win 62 percent of the vote compared with 31 percent for Haniya.Barghuti, who helped mastermind the 2000 Palestinian uprising, is currently serving five life sentences in an Israeli jail for his role in deadly attacks.Abbas has said that he plans to call a general election in January 2010 at the end of the mandate of the current Hamas-dominated legislature.After 18 months of uneasy coexistence, Hamas violently ousted Fatah from the Gaza Strip when it seized power in the coastal enclave in June 2007. The last two years have seen several failed attempts at reconciliation.The poll was carried out August 13-15 in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip and surveyed 1,270 people in 127 separate locations. It had a margin of error of 3 percent.

Israel removes disputed Lebanon border post Mon Aug 17, 5:11 am ET

KFAR SHUBA, Lebanon (AFP) – Israeli soldiers moved in at dawn on Monday to dismantle an observation post in a disputed border area occupied by Israel and claimed by Lebanon, security officials in Beirut said.They said the Israeli troops took down the lookout post set up last month in the Kfar Shuba hills in southeast Lebanon, but that sandbags on the site was not removed.A month ago, dozens of Lebanese protesters briefly took over the unmanned post and hoisted Lebanese and Hezbollah flags before being asked by UN peacekeepers to leave the area.Shortly afterwards three Israeli tanks approached and soldiers were seen removing the flags.The observation post is in the Kfar Shuba hills 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 when it captured the neighbouring Golan Heights which it later annexed.The area has since been caught in a tug-of-war over ownership, with Israel and the United Nations saying they are part of Syria, while Damascus and Beirut insist the territory is Lebanese.

Abbas to convene PLO council for first time in decade Sun Aug 16, 9:50 am ET

RAMALLAH, West Bank (AFP) – Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas will convene the Palestinian National Council (PNC) later this month for the first time in more than a decade, the head of the body said on Sunday.We will invite members of the Palestinian National Council to an extraordinary meeting on the 26th and 27th of this month at the presidential residence in Ramallah, Salim al-Zaanoun said.The legislative body of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) includes hundreds of representatives from the Israeli-occupied West Bank, the Gaza Strip and the diaspora, and has not convened since 1998.The body will meet to elect six new members to its executive committee following the deaths over the past several years of the incumbents, including Samir Ghosheh, who died at the age of 70 earlier this month.The meeting of the council follows a congress of Abbas's secular Fatah party, which has dominated the PLO since its founding in 1964 and elected a raft of new leaders earlier this month.As part of the Middle East peace process, the PNC met in 1996 to change its charter to remove references to destroying Israel, and it briefly met in Gaza to reaffirm the changes in 1998.

Hamas: Gaza order restored after bloody weekend By IBRAHIM BARZAK, Associated Press Writer – Sun Aug 16, 9:22 am ET

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip – Gaza's Hamas rulers said they had restored law and order to the seaside territory Sunday after a bloody weekend of clashes with an al-Qaida-inspired group.The militant Palestinian group crushed a challenge from Jund Ansar Allah, or the Soldiers of the Companions of God, one of a number of small, shadowy factions that are even more radical than Hamas.At least 24 people were killed in the confrontations in the southern town of Rafah, including the group's leader, Abdel-Latif Moussa, who provoked Hamas by declaring Gaza an Islamic emirate.His death ended the greatest internal challenge to Hamas' rule since it took control of Gaza two years ago and helped distance the territory's Islamic rulers from more radical groups that seek to expand the Palestinians' battle beyond Israel to include the Western World as well.Hamas spokesman Ihab Al Ghussien said the group would not allow the return of security chaos to Gaza.Hamas authorities arrested some 100 people during the clashes and continue their search for other Jund Ansar Allah members.The crackdown solidified Hamas' strong hold on power in Gaza. However, a previously unknown group named Suyouf al-Haq, or the Swords of Truth, called for revenge against Hamas and a boycott of its mosques in a statement posted on several Palestinian sites.

Rafah remained a closed military area Sunday, and journalists were kept away as Hamas security checked vehicles in and around the combat zone.At least 150 people were wounded in the fighting, which began Friday afternoon after Moussa's fiery speech and continued throughout the night in two fierce gunbattles outside his mosque and his home.Early Saturday, an explosion went off in Moussa's home as Hamas was trying to persuade him to surrender. He was buried Saturday night, but Hamas still has his home closed off. Gaza human rights groups expect the death toll to rise once medical teams are allowed access to the remains of Moussa's home.Jund Ansar Allah first came to public attention in June after it claimed responsibility for a failed attempt to attack Israel from Gaza on horseback. The group claims inspiration from al-Qaida's ultraconservative brand of Islam, but no direct links have been confirmed.The group has been critical of Hamas for not imposing a more severe form of Islamic law and for maintaining a cease-fire with Israel for the past seven months.

Hamas chief: Iran turmoil won't affect support By ZEINA KARAM, Associated Press Writer – Sat Aug 15, 2:53 pm ET

BEIRUT – The top Hamas leader said he is concerned about the postelection turmoil in Iran but does not think it will endanger Tehran's support for the Palestinian militant group.The unrest triggered by the Iranian president's disputed June 12 re-election has consumed the country's leadership, raising questions about whether it can maintain its strong influence in other parts of the Middle East, including through its support for groups like Hamas and Lebanon's Hezbollah.Iran is a top supporter of Hamas, and its leader, Khaled Mashaal, traveled to Tehran in February to thank the government for its backing during Israel's offensive in Gaza, calling it a partner in victory.Mashaal said in an interview with Qatari newspaper al-Watan that is to be published Sunday that he did not think that support was in danger.No doubt what is happening in Iran concerns and worries us, but we consider it to be an internal affair,Mashaal said, according to an advance copy of the interview.But we are definitely not worried about the relationship with Iran or the support that Iran offers us.Mashaal's office in Syria, where he lives in exile, confirmed the comments, his first public remarks on the turmoil in Iran.Israel and the United States accuse Iran of supplying Hamas with weapons, including rockets. Tehran denies it, but says it does support Hamas financially with what is believed to be hundreds of millions of dollars. The funding has been vital for sustaining Hamas under the crippling blockade that Israel and Egypt have imposed on Gaza since Hamas took over the Palestinian territory by force in 2007.Mashaal said that, like Iran's cleric-led regime, he believed Western powers were fueling the unrest in Iran. He said the turmoil was largely a result of domestic Iranian dynamics but that Western fingers were fanning the flames.Mashaal also denied talk that Hamas was seeking to impose a strict Islamic lifestyle in the Gaza Strip through a virtue campaign that would include pressuring women to wear head scarves.

Mashaal was asked, in particular, about a recent order by Gaza's chief supreme court judge for female lawyers to wear head scarves and dark robes or be barred from courtrooms when their work resumes Sept. 1.He said the order was made by the judge, not the Hamas government, adding that Hamas was still dealing with the matter.We will not impose a strict interpretation of religion on anyone,he said.Mashaal also said there is no real progress in talks for the release of captive Israeli soldier Gilad Schalit, who was seized by militants linked to Hamas three years ago.Talks to trade Schalit for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners in Israel have been unsuccessful.

Gulf Arab money behind purchases of Israeli land Sat Aug 15, 9:55 am ET

JERUSALEM (AFP) – Vast tracts of Israeli agricultural land in north Israel's Galilee area have been bought up by Arabs with financial backing from the Gulf, Israeli public radio reported on Saturday.It said dozens of hectares (acres) have been bought and that a local farmers' association had tried in vain to warn the Israeli authorities about the sale.The radio station quoted Agriculture Minister Shalom Simhon as saying the affair was not a matter for his department since it concerns private land.Galilee and the Negev desert in the south are relatively lightly populated, and Israel has a minister, Sylvan Shalom, charged specifically with development.Much of the country's Israeli Arab population of around 1.4 million people lives in the Galilee.On August 3 the Israeli parliament passed a controversial land reform law that allows local officials to privatise publicly owned land, triggering the ire of the Arab minority.Arab MPs said the law, which is backed by hardline Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, would block efforts by Palestinians who fled the creation of Israel in 1948 to recover their property or seek compensation for what they have lost.The new law allows local municipal officials to sell off state land in urban centres and maintains a previous ban on the sale to non-Jews of land controlled by the Keren Kayemet LeIsrael Jewish agency.

Hamas, pro-al Qaeda group clash in Gaza By Nidal al-Mughrabi – Fri Aug 14, 6:04 pm ET

GAZA (Reuters) – Islamist radicals from a pan-Arab group defied the Hamas rulers of Gaza Friday by declaring an Islamic emirate, prompting clashes that killed 16 gunmen.
Although Jund Ansar Allah (Warriors of God) rallied only a few hundred men for an event at a Gaza mosque, it marked a clear challenge to Hamas's nationalist brand of Palestinian Islam by groups espousing a pan-Arab militancy aligned with al Qaeda.It was followed by clashes between Hamas policemen and supporters of the leader of the movement in the southern town of Rafah, near the Egyptian border.Medical workers said 16 gunmen, including at least three Hamas policemen, were killed and about 85 people injured.Hamas said its gunmen stormed the movement's stronghold, including the mosque where Abdel-Latif Moussa -- known to followers by the al Qaeda-style nom de guerre Abu al-Nour al-Maqdessi -- had announced before weekly prayers the start of theocratic rule in the Gaza Strip, starting at Rafah.

Hamas also stormed Moussa's house but did not find him.

We declare the birth of the Islamic Emirate,said Maqdessi, a heavily-bearded, middle-aged cleric in a red robe who was guarded by four black-clad, masked men with assault rifles. One wore what appeared to be an explosive suicide belt.An audience of several hundred men filled the mosque with cheers and shouts. Al Qaeda uses the historical term emirate to mean clerical rule across the Islamic world.

ZIONIST PROPAGANDA

Ismail Haniyeh, who heads Gaza's Hamas government, denied in his sermon Friday that any non-Palestinian gunmen were in the territory, as alleged by Israel which says veterans of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have taken up residence.Such groups do not exist on the soil of the Gaza Strip ... there are no fighters in Gaza except Gazan fighters,he said.Such Zionist propaganda from Israel was designed to turn the world against Hamas, he said.Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri called Maqdessi's speech wrong thinking and the Interior Ministry said he was mad.His group announced its presence in Gaza two months ago after three of its members were killed in a border raid on an Israeli base in which gunmen rode on horseback.Outside the mosque Friday, nearly 100 of the group's masked fighters in Pakistani-style dress, and with long hair in a style believed to imitate the Prophet Mohammad, carried automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenade launchers.Hamas's leaders say it is a moderate movement while independent analysts say it gives priority to Palestinian nationalist goals over the international religious aims that are typical of al Qaeda's network.Israel unilaterally ended its occupation of the Gaza Strip in 2005 and withdrew its forces. Islamist radicals began to surface in Gaza following the takeover of the Israeli-blockaded enclave by Hamas in 2007, when it routed the forces of the secular Fatah movement of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.(Editing by Douglas Hamilton and Andrew Dobbie)