ISRAEL SUMMONS US ENVOY OVER SETTLEMENTS

Israel summons U.S. envoy over settlement dispute By Allyn Fisher-Ilan – Sun Aug 9, 6:38 pm ET

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel summoned one of its diplomats from the United States on Sunday after he circulated a memorandum accusing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government of doing strategic damage to ties with Washington.Israel's Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon said a disciplinary measure was being taken with the Israeli consul in Boston, Nadav Tamir, after publication last week of his very regrettable memorandum.Tamir's criticism appeared in a brief intended for internal circulation and was leaked in a Thursday newscast by Israel's Channel 10 television, which quoted him as saying differences with Washington over Jewish settlements had hurt relations.

The settlement issue has opened a rift between Israel and its main ally, with Netanyahu resisting President Barack Obama's calls to freeze the expansion of enclaves Israel has built in territory it captured in a 1967 war.Western-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has said that peace negotiations, stalled since December, cannot resume until settlement activity ceases in the occupied West Bank.

Tamir wrote that Israel's handling of the dispute was doing strategic damage to its ties with Washington and had given Israel a negative opinion rating in the United States, similar to those of Iran and North Korea.Ayalon said any friction with Washington had declined in the past several months, with frequent contacts between Obama's Middle East envoy George Mitchell, who has been holding talks with Israeli and Palestinian leaders to resume negotiations.Taking the rare step of dressing down a diplomat publicly, Ayalon told Army Radio no decision had been made as to whether Tamir should be dismissed.Ayalon said Tamir's document was not the work of a professional,contained more opinion than data. He called Boston, a liberal bastion, a bubble,unrepresentative of other U.S. regions where Ayalon insisted support for Israel had grown.

NETANYAHU: WE WON'T REPEAT GAZA ERROR

Netanyahu, who has said he wouldn't build additional settlements but wants to continue construction in existing enclaves to accommodate what he calls natural growth, said Sunday he would not remove any settlements before a peace deal.Remarking on the fourth anniversary since a Gaza pullout when Israel removed some 9,000 Jewish settlers and soldiers from the Gaza Strip and northern West Bank, Netanyahu told cabinet ministers we will not repeat this mistake.Netanyahu said Israel's withdrawal from coastal Gaza had not brought about peace and led ultimately to Iranian-backed Hamas Islamists who reject Israel's existence, to seize control.Israel has kept up an economic blockade of the coastal territory since shortly after the withdrawal, following Hamas' rise to power after a 2006 election. Palestinians say the policy creates hardship for many of the 1.5 million who live in Gaza.Some 500,000 Israelis live in the settlements built in occupied territory that is home to some 3 million Palestinians. The World Court has ruled that the settlements are illegal. Israel disputes this.

Israel PM vows never to evict settlers Sun Aug 9, 11:07 am ET

JERUSALEM (AFP) – Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledged on Sunday that he will never evict Jewish settlers from occupied Palestinian land as Israel did in 2005 in the Gaza Strip.The withdrawal from the Gaza Strip brought us neither peace nor security. The territory has become a base for the pro-Iranian Hamas movement and we will never make the same mistake again,Netanyahu said at the weekly cabinet meeting.

We will not evict any more people from their homes,he added in comments carried by public radio.In September 2005, the government of prime minister Ariel Sharon unilaterally removed all Jewish settlements from Gaza in a move aimed at ending Israel's costly 38-year military presence in the Gaza Strip.Sharon vowed to follow up that withdrawal with further pullbacks from the West Bank, but a massive stroke incapacitated him and his successor Ehud Olmert abandoned the policy in the wake of the June 2006 capture of an Israeli soldier by Gaza-based militants in a deadly cross-border raid.An opinion poll published on Sunday showed Israeli Jews back Netanyahu's stance against halting construction of settlements in occupied territory, with 66 percent endorsing his view that Israel has the right to build in east Jerusalem, which Palestinians want as the capital of their proposed state.The survey of 512 people by Tel Aviv University's BI Cohen Institute found that only 27 percent of Israeli Jews, mostly supporters of the leftwing Meretz and Labour parties, oppose Netanyahu?s position.Netanyahu has risked a rift with Israel's strongest ally, the United States, by refusing to heed Washington's calls to freeze building of settlements, which the international community considers illegal.Deputy Foreign Minister Dany Ayalon on Sunday rejected UN protests against last week's expulsion of two Palestinian families from their homes in occupied east Jerusalem.In a meeting with UN Middle East envoy Robert Serry, Ayalon told him the expulsion followed a decision in an Israeli court and that Israeli jurisdiction applied to the entire city, a senior diplomat told AFP.On August 2 club-wielding Israeli riot police evicted two Palestinian families from their houses in Jerusalem's Sheikh Jarrah district.US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the European Union condemned the evictions, which followed an announcement by Israel that it planned to build Jewish homes in the Arab neighborhood.Israel annexed the eastern part of the city in 1967 but Israeli sovereignty over the conquered territory has not been recognised internationally.Around 200,000 Jewish people are estimated to have moved into the dozen or so Israeli settlements in east Jerusalem, home to 270,000 Palestinians.

Jewish Israelis back PM on settlements: poll Sun Aug 9, 8:37 am ET

JERUSALEM (AFP) – Two thirds of Jewish Israelis support the government's refusal to freeze settlement building in Israeli-occupied east Jerusalem, a poll showed on Sunday.Sixty-six percent endorsed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu?s view that Israel has the right to build anywhere in Jerusalem, according to Ephraim Yaar and Tamar Hermann, two professors who carried out the survey.Only 27 percent of Israeli Jews, most of them supporters of the leftwing Meretz and Labour parties, opposed Netanyahu?s position.Netanyahu has risked a rift with Israel's strongest ally, the United States, by refusing to heed Washington's calls to freeze building in the occupied territories, which the international community considers illegal.Despite the diplomatic tensions, 53 percent of those polled backed the prime minister's foreign policy, compared with 33 percent who judged it negatively.Forty-six percent of respondents viewed US President Barack Obama as biased towards the Palestinians, while 31 percent saw his stance as neutral. Only seven percent perceived Obama as favouring Israel.However, 38 percent of Jewish Israelis now say they trust the president, up from 26 percent two months ago.Tel Aviv University's BI Cohen Institute polled 512 Israelis by telephone on July 27 and July 28. The poll has a margin of error of 4.5 percent.

Israel warns Hezbollah over assassination report By Dan Williams – Sun Aug 9, 8:34 am ET

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel will hold Lebanese guerrilla group Hezbollah and Lebanon itself responsible for any attempt to assassinate Israelis abroad, and will retaliate, Israel's deputy foreign minister said Sunday.Hezbollah blamed Israel for the Feb 12, 2008 killing of its military mastermind, Imad Moughniyeh, in Syria and vowed revenge. Israel has since reported failed bids by Hezbollah agents to target its citizens in Africa and Central Asia.An Egyptian newspaper Saturday reported the capture of several men linked to al Qaeda -- an exclusively Sunni Muslim group -- intent on assassinating Israel's ambassador to Cairo.But Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon said the alleged plot was certainly the work of Iranian-backed, Shi'ite Hezbollah.And I have one message here: If, God forbid, one hair falls off the head of any Israeli representative abroad, or of even an Israeli who is not an official representative, tourists, etc., we will consider Hezbollah responsible,he told Israel Radio.The outcome, for Hezbollah, will, I think, be of the utmost gravity,Ayalon said.For Lebanon too.It is important ... to relay this warning to Lebanon, which is responsible for Hezbollah -- that they will suffer the consequences if they carry out assassinations of Israelis.Egypt's independent daily Al Masry Al Youm reported that the al Qaeda-linked men had been arrested and confessed to monitoring the Israeli embassy and ambassador's house with a view to killing him, but had been foiled by tight security.Egyptian officials could not immediately be reached for comment and the report could not be independently confirmed.

Hezbollah had no comment on Ayalon's remarks.

Asked how he could assert that it was Hezbollah who were behind the plot rather than al Qaeda, Ayalon told Israel Radio:I don't want to get into the intelligence or operational issues here, but certainly there is both an ideological connection and a professional connection of sorts here.Al Qaeda, which follows Osama bin Laden's strict interpretation of Sunni militant Islam, considers Shi'ites heretics. The group is widely blamed for deadly attacks against Shi'ites in Iraq and it has repeatedly criticized Hezbollah. Hezbollah in turn regularly condemns al Qaeda for its attacks against Iraqis.Egypt, one of two Arab countries to have made peace with the Jewish state, sent shockwaves across the Middle East in April by accusing Hezbollah of planning attacks against Israeli targets on Egyptian soil.Hezbollah denied that charge, saying only that it had run agents in the Egyptian Sinai to provide arms and other support to Palestinians in the neighboring Gaza Strip.Israel drove Hezbollah from its southern Lebanon strongholds in a 2006 war but has since complained that the militia has been secretly regrouping, despite a beefed-up U.N. peacekeeper force.

Hezbollah has also boosted its political base in Beirut, and some analysts believe any threat it could pose to Israel would be as a retaliatory arm of Iran, should that country's nuclear facilities come under pre-emptive Israeli strikes.(Additional reporting by Aziz Kaissouni in Cairo and Nadim Ladki in Beirut; Editing by Patrick Graham)

Fatah endorses Abbas as party leader Sat Aug 8, 9:30 am ET

BETHLEHEM, West Bank (Reuters) – Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas received firm endorsement from his Fatah party on Saturday to remain its leader in an impromptu vote in which he was unchallenged.Abbas received the approval in a show of hands from the vast majority of Fatah's 2,300 delegates participating in the movement's first congress for 20 years and the first on Palestinian soil.Abbas succeeded the late Fatah founding father Yasser Arafat who led the movement for 40 years until his death in 2004.Fatah is seeking to throw off a reputation for corruption and cronyism that led in 2006 to an election loss to Islamist rival Hamas which opposes peace talks with Israel.The congress in Bethlehem began on Tuesday and has been marked by reformists' charges of vote-buying and nepotism by an old guard.(Reporting by Mohammed Assadi, writing by Ori Lewis in Jerusalem; Editing by Robert Woodward)

Clarification: BC-US--US-Mideast-Jordan Fri Aug 7, 2:25 pm ET

WASHINGTON – In an Aug. 3 story on American peace efforts in the Mideast, The Associated Press reported that Jordanian Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh rejected support for confidence-building measures that the U.S. wants Arab states to take to spur an accord. The story should have carried Judeh's remarks that voiced Jordan's approval for the overall U.S. peace effort. The principled approach taken by President Obama and his administration marks the kind of needed change that we can all believe in, reflect on and build upon,he said.

Yemeni cleric pleads guilty to aiding terrorists By TOM HAYS, Associated Press Writer – Fri Aug 7, 4:48 pm ET

NEW YORK – An ailing Yemeni cleric once sentenced to 75 years in prison in a high-profile U.S. terrorism prosecution quietly won his freedom Friday in a plea deal in federal court.Sheik Mohammed Ali Hasan Al-Moayad and his assistant pleaded guilty to conspiring to support violence by the Palestinian militant group Hamas. In exchange, they were sentenced to time served — more than six years — and will be sent back to Yemen within a few days.An appeals court had thrown out earlier convictions of al-Moayad and Mohammed Mohsen Zayed, who was serving a 45-year term. Prosecutors told the judge that they concluded another trial was unnecessary as long as the men finally admitted they were trying to raise money for terrorism.Al-Moayad, 60, responded, Yes, when asked by the judge if he knew Hamas engaged in politically motivated acts of violence targeting civilian populations,and that he associated and worked with Hamas leaders in Yemen and Hamas-related organizations to provide financial support to Hamas.The defendant, wearing a white kufi cap and prison smocks, turned down an offer to address the court before U.S. District Judge Dora Irizarry signed off on the deal in a nearly empty courtroom in Brooklyn. His lawyers asked that the cleric, who suffers from liver disease and a long list of other illnesses, be hospitalized until he leaves the country.This is an outrageous case,defense attorney Elizabeth Fink said afterward.It was a waste of American time. It was a waste of American dollars.Al-Moayad's reversal of fortune began last year when the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned his and Zayed's convictions. It found the defendants' rights were violated by what it called "highly inflammatory and irrelevant" testimony and evidence, including descriptions of a deadly suicide bombing on a bus in Tel Aviv and images of Osama bin Laden.

The pair had been arrested in an elaborate sting by two FBI informants who lured them to Germany in 2003. In meetings in a bugged hotel room, al-Moayad was recorded as promising to funnel $2 million to Hamas and al-Qaida; he also boasted that bin Laden called him my sheik.One of the informants, Mohamed Alanssi, set himself on fire in Washington before the trial in what he later described as an attempt to get more attention from the FBI. He recovered in time to take the witness stand in 2005 and describe al-Moayad as a dedicated funder of terrorism who boasted of giving bin Laden $20 million in the years before the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.Defense attorneys argued that al-Moayad was duped into the terror-financing scheme by Alanssi. They claimed the witness exploited their client's desire to fund a charitable bakery and other projects in Yemen, where he was a well-known cleric and high-ranking member of an Islamist opposition party.A jury cleared al-Moayad of supporting al-Qaida but convicted him and Zayed of conspiring to help Hamas. Then-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales hailed the convictions as another important step in the war on terror.

Israeli settlement freeze not enough for Saudis by Paul Handley – Fri Aug 7, 4:42 am ET

RIYADH (AFP) – Saudi Arabia believes that Arab recognition of Israel should only come after a final peace deal with the Palestinians and not simply be a quid-pro-quo for freezing settlement expansions, analysts say.Haaretz newspaper reported Thursday that Washington had proposed a one-year freeze last week to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as a way of persuading Arab states to move toward normalising ties with Israel.The proposal was made by US Middle East envoy George Mitchell in talks last week with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the newspaper said, although the premier's spokesman dismissed the report as mere media speculation.Middle East experts say Saudi Arabia, which is mostly calling the shots of Arab diplomacy toward Israel, would be deeply reticent to reward the Jewish state for anything short of a final peace deal with the Palestinians.In fact, says Robert Malley, the Middle East programme director at the International Crisis Group, Israel's desire for Arab recognition makes it more valuable as a final prize in the peace process.The ultimate signal for that recognition comes from Saudi Arabia,he said.It is very unlikely that they will expend their currency prior to the achievement of a final deal,he told AFP.

The Barack Obama administration has been pushing Saudi Arabia to make some gesture to Israel -- commercial openings, academic exchanges or overflight rights -- in exchange for a settlements freeze.But in a July 31 media conference in Washington, Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal flatly rejected such gestures.He said Riyadh had already placed on the table its Arab Peace Initiative, which offers blanket Arab recognition of Israel for a two state deal with the Palestinians.Israel is trying to distract by shifting attention from the core issue -- an end to the occupation that began in 1967 and the establishment of a Palestinian state -- to incidental issues, such as academic conferences and civil aviation matters,he said.The question is not what the Arab world will offer,he said.The question really is: what will Israel give in exchange for this comprehensive offer.Awadh al-Badi, a foreign affairs expert at the King Faisal Centre for research and Islamic Studies in Riyadh, said the Saudis believe that previous Arab gestures toward Israel -- recognition from Egypt, a peace treaty with Jordan, and various communications openings -- have not resulted in any improvement of the Palestinians' status.On the contrary, Israel has continued to push Palestinians from their lands and homes, he said.The Arab world has for 10 years done what the Israelis wanted,he said.There is nothing on the ground that proves Israel is willing to go all the way.The real issue is the Palestinians, and they are already talking to (Israel) directly,he added.Riyadh feels it made a generous step by reviving its 2002 Arab Peace Initiative early this year, in the wake of Israel's December-January assault on Gaza which killed more than 1,400 Palestinians, analysts say.This is a major gesture for the Saudis to have made, former US ambassador to Riyadh Charles Freeman said in a July 28 interview with the Washington-based independent Saudi-US Relations Information Service.

There is no predisposition whatsoever... on the Arab side to pay for what Israel, in its own interest, ought to do,he said. The American side is thinking that any gesture by Israel, of any kind, should be paid for with some gesture from the Arabs. You have the Arabs saying no, we've made it clear that we're not paying anything until something concrete happens.There have been some Saudi-preapproved gestures in recent weeks from Bahrain, but minor. The Gulf emirate at the end of June sent a team of officials to Israel to retrieve several of its nationals seized by the Israeli military.In July, Bahrain's crown prince wrote an opinion piece for the Washington Post which criticised Arabs for not communicating to the Israeli people their commitment to a peace deal.Hady Amr, director of the Brookings Doha think tank, says the Arabs need to do more to sway the Israeli street, including gestures of recognition that are easily reversible if the result is not a movement toward a peace settlement.The Arab side should also undertake a vigorous public relations campaign, so that it cannot be blamed for not doing everything in its power to promote peace.
This could include distributing their peace initiative in Hebrew and taking out advertisements in Israeli newspapers.Putting the Arab Peace Initiative back on the table is not enough,he said.You have to sell.

Iran is the problem, not Israeli settlements: US lawmaker Thu Aug 6, 10:56 am ET

JERUSALEM, Aug 6, 2009 (AFP) – Senior US Republican Congressman Eric Cantor said on Thursday that the world should stop pressuring Israel over settlements and concentrate instead on the threat from a nuclear Iran.Cantor, Republican Whip in the House of Representatives, said the main obstacle to Middle East peace is the Palestinian refusal to recognise Israel as a Jewish state and not the Israeli settlements in the West Bank.I don't quite know what is driving the focus on the issue of settlements,he told Israeli public radio.We believe the focus should be on the existential threat to Israel from a nuclear-armed Iran,said Cantor, who is leading a 25-strong delegation of Republican lawmakers on a weeklong visit.Since hawkish Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu won elections in February, Israel has come under increasing pressure from US President Barack Obama to freeze settlement construction in east Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank, considered illegal by the international community.But Netanyahu has tried to shift world attention to Iran, which both Israel and the United States suspect of using a civilian nuclear programme to mask a drive for a bomb.Cantor insisted Washington should push for tough sanctions on the terrorist regime in Iran.We share the view with Prime Minister Netanyahu that we do not want to see undue pressure placed on Israel.Cantor, the Republican party's only Jewish representative in Congress, said it is up to the Palestinians to make the running in reviving stalled peace talks with Israel.If we are interested in a two-state solution we have to accept, and the Palestinians have to accept, that Israel is a Jewish state,he said.Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas has so far refused to recognise Israel as the state of the Jewish people, which Netanyahu has said is a key condition for the eventual creation of a Palestinian state.The visiting delegation is the largest group of Republicans to visit Israel.A similar delegation of 30 Congressmen from President Barack Obama's Democratic party is to travel to Israel next week.