In Ramadan, the best dates in Egypt are Obama By HADEEL AL-SHALCHI, Associated Press Writer – Fri Aug 21, 12:46 pm ET
CAIRO – For the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, Egyptian fruit sellers have named their best dates of the year after President Barack Obama in a sweet tribute to the American leader for his outreach to the Muslim world.Dates are a traditional food for Ramadan — which begins Saturday in most of the Islamic world — since the Prophet Muhammad is said to have used them to break the month's sunrise-to-sunset fast each evening.In Egypt, shops have created a new tradition of naming their best and worst dates to catch attention and boost sales — giving a little reflection of the political mood.Obama's vault to the top of the Egyptian date-scale comes after he delivered a landmark address in Cairo in June, saying he wants to improve American ties with Muslims around the world. Those ties were deeply strained under his predecessor, George W. Bush, who was widely resented in the Arab world — and whose name was given to the worst quality dates in Egypt in past Ramadans.We love Obama and so we named our best dates for him, said Atif Hashim at his busy shop in downtown Cairo.Huge barrels in his shop were piled with "Obama" dates, selling for just under $2.50 a pound ($5 a kilogram). For an additional dollar, there is an even better date, labeled on a sign as Super Obama.We put a sweet date in Mr. Obama's mouth and a message in his ear, Hashim said.Please help to bring peace to the world. We have a lot of hope in you.Hashim named his poorer dates after Israeli Foreign Minister Avidgor Lieberman, a hard-liner who is particularly disliked in Egypt for once saying its president, Hosni Mubarak, can go to hell.
Other low-quality dates were named after Lieberman's predecessor, Tzipi Livni, and after Bush. They all go for about 17 cents a pound (36 cents a kilogram).In 2006, many sellers in Egypt named their best dates after the leader of the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, whose popularity soared among Arabs because his militants battled Israel in a devastating war that summer.During the lunar month of Ramadan, observant Muslims refrain from eating, drinking, smoking and sex from sunrise to sunset. It is believed that God began revealing the Quran to Muhammad during Ramadan, and the faithful are supposed to spend the month in religious reflection, prayer and remembrance of the poor.It's also a time of celebrations, late nights out with friends and family and elaborate meals for iftar, the sunset dinner that breaks the fast.This year, Ramadan starts in August for the first time in 33 years — meaning a long, hot day for those fasting. In a bid to bring up the time for iftar, Egypt went off daylight savings time on Friday.The fast begins Saturday for most of the Mideast and Asia, although Libya, Turkey, and some Lebanese Shiites began fasting Friday. The month begins when each Muslim country's Islamic authorities sight the crescent moon that marks the beginning of the lunar month — sometimes using only the naked eye, leading to some discrepancies in the timing.In the West Bank town of Ramallah, Palestinians decorated their houses with lights in the shape of crescents and stars and shops began preparing special pastries and traditional Ramadan drinks like kharoub, made of carobs. The Israeli military said it would keep checkpoints open longer hours to allow more people to cross.In Hamas-controlled Gaza City, officials hung signs reading Welcome Ramadan and provided mosques with large carpets to accommodate the increased number of worshippers.Shops sold little electric lamps, a traditional children's toy during Ramadan — made in China and brought through smuggling tunnels under the Egypt-Gaza border to circumvent the blockade imposed on Gaza by Israel and Egypt after Hamas seized power two years ago.In Turkey, the mosques were jam-packed and municipalities set up soup kitchens to serve iftar to the poor. Holiday-makers began deserting beach resorts to return home. Newspapers carried recommendations from dietitians and Mehmet Emin Ozafsar, the deputy head of Turkey's department for religious affairs, urged people observing the fast not to use it as an excuse for aggressive behavior or abstinence from work. Fasting is patience and tolerance,Ozafsar said.Associated Press reporters in the Mideast and Turkey contributed to this report.
Ramadan begins on Saturday amid swine flu worries Fri Aug 21, 7:34 am ET
RIYADH (AFP) – Islam's fasting month of Ramadan begins on Saturday in most of the Arab world and Iran, but swine flu has cast a cloud over pilgrimages to Mecca and might also dampen enthusiasm for the popular evening get-togethers to break the fast.
Because Islam follows a lunar calendar, this holiest of months begins each year about 11 days earlier, its commencement traditionally determined by the appearance of the new moon.After the crescent failed to be spotted on Thursday night, the first possible sighting, it is expected on Friday, with fasting to begin at daybreak on Saturday.This will apply in Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, the Palestinian territories, Qatar, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates and Yemen.However, all Libyans as well Shiite Muslims in Lebanon, who determine the lunar month according to astronomical calculations, begun their fasting on Friday, clerics said.
In Mecca, the Saudi birthplace of Islam, pilgrim arrivals surged this week ahead of Ramadan, but the numbers were well below usual.Egypt, Iran and Iraq are among countries that have placed restrictions on those permitted to undertake the minor pilgrimage, or umrah, during Ramadan because of swine flu.Normally several hundred thousand people perform the umrah, a shortened version of the major hajj pilgrimage that takes place this year in November.The umrah is popular because the faithful can arrive at any time and do not need the permits that are assigned to countries by quota for the hajj, which is required of Muslims once in their lifetime if they have the means.However, with flu cases rising, and with the disease having touched nearly all the region, warnings from governments and the World Health Organisation have heightened fears of being in crowded places.After the region's first death in July, health ministers and WHO officials met in Cairo and recommended discouraging or banning people over 65, pregnant women and children under 12 from joining either the umrah or the hajj.Saudi Arabia did not apply mandatory controls but has urged countries to voluntarily implement restrictions.The impact of the pandemic on Ramadan iftar dinners when people sometimes invite hundreds to break the fast together in homes, tents or hotel ballrooms just after sunset has yet to be seen.But Kuwait's health minister has already advised people to stop shaking hands and kissing each other at such gatherings to stem the spread of the disease.While fasting and iftar are the most well-known elements of Ramadan in the popular mind, this ninth month of the Muslim calendar is meant to be a deeply prayerful. It includes the day on which Muslim's believe God gave the Koran, their holy book, to Mohammed.
Similar to the Christian season of Lent, Ramadan is a time for greater reflection and more frequent worship, with the faithful focusing on purifying not only their bodies but their souls.Sexual relations are banned during hours of fasting, and Muslims are enjoined to concentrate on self-discipline, sacrifice and charity toward those who are less fortunate.Many pious Muslims will endeavour to read the entire Koran, or attend the nightly readings at a mosque that accomplish the same end.Ramadan ends with the holiday known as Eid al-Fitr. On this Festival of Breaking the Fast, communal prayers are held early in the morning. Then people wearing their finest clothes, often bought for the occasion, begin feasting, visiting relatives and friends, giving gifts to children and donating food to the poor.
Israel, Palestinians trade blame for peace deadlock By Joseph Nasr and Mohammed Assadi Joseph Nasr And Mohammed Assadi – Fri Aug 21, 5:11 am ET
JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel and the Palestinians on Friday traded blame for failure to resume stalled peace talks after President Barack Obama renewed his call on both sides to resume negotiations as soon as possible.A senior Israeli official said the Palestinians had rejected repeated calls by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to resume talks that have been frozen for eight months.The government of Israel has been calling for weeks to the Palestinians to return to the negotiation table, he said. It is the Palestinian side that has prevented the return to talks by making unprecedented preconditions.Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat rejected the charge, saying it was not the Palestinians who were setting new conditions but the Israelis who were flouting obligations to stop settlement in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.We don't have any conditions. Stopping settlement activity and resuming permanent status negotiations are Israeli obligations and not Palestinian conditions,Erekat said.The impasse over settlements has created the most serious rift in U.S.-Israeli relations in a decade.Obama made a fresh bid on Thursday to break the deadlock on Middle East peace, calling on Israel, the Palestinians and Arab states to act simultaneously to help kick-start negotiations. He made the appeal during a phone call with Jordan's King Abdullah.Obama's proposal seeks to overcome deep disagreement between Israelis and Arabs on which side should go first in making conciliatory gestures to revive a peace process the president has promised to relaunch.
MOVEMENT
Netanyahu took office in March resisting pressure from Israel's main ally to halt settlement activity and avoiding commitment to a two-state solution. But he has moved way some since then to meet Washington's demands.Israel disclosed this month it had not given final approval for any new housing projects in the West Bank since Netanyahu's right-leaning coalition took office.The Israeli leader is due to hold talks with Obama's Middle East envoy, George Mitchell, in London next week.Obama said this week after talks with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak that he was seeing signs of progress on the thorny issue of Israeli settlement construction.The White House said the aim of Mitchell's talks was to finalize with the parties the steps they would take, and lay the groundwork for the resumption of negotiations.Netanyahu is trying to appease Washington without alienating hawks in his coalition government.He interrupted his summer holiday on Thursday to summon a minister of his own right-wing Likud party who described left-wing opponents of Jewish settlement as a virus.Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, leader of the ultra-nationalist Yisrael Beiteinu party, said this week that Israel could not halt settlement expansion forever.Israel Radio quoted him as saying Israel could not put up with such a suspension for an extended period of time.Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas suspended peace talks with Israel in December over its military offensive in the Gaza Strip. He has said repeatedly that talks cannot resume unless all settlement construction stops. Obama has appealed to Arab states to make peace overtures to Israel but they insist that Israel should act first.Arab leaders say they are committed to a 2002 Arab League peace initiative that offers Israel recognition in return for withdrawal from land occupied in 1967, creation of a Palestinian state and a just solution for Palestinian refugees.
(Editing by Douglas Hamilton and Ralph Boulton)
Mitchell to finalize gestures by Middle East powers: official Thu Aug 20, 2:37 pm ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) – The White House said Thursday that Middle East envoy George Mitchell will finalize steps all parties can take to pave the way for Israeli-Palestinian talks, in an upcoming visit to the region.President Barack Obama unveiled the scope of Mitchell's mission in a telephone call to Jordan's King Abdullah II, two days after his Oval Office talks with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.The President and the King agreed on the need to launch Israeli-Palestinian negotiations as soon as possible,said White House spokesman Robert Gibbs.They also agreed that all parties, Israel, the Palestinians and Arab states should take steps simultaneously to create a context in which these negotiations can succeed.The president said special envoy Mitchell will follow up with the parties in the next few weeks to finalize the steps that they would take and lay the groundwork for a resumption of negotiations.Obama has been pressing Israel for a halt in settlement expansion in the occupied West Bank and has called on Arab states to make a series of minor concessions towards Israel to improve chances of a resumption of peace talks.
Israel PM summons minister over call to defy US Thu Aug 20, 2:29 pm ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – Hawkish Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday reprimanded a cabinet minister who whipped up a political storm by suggesting the government oppose US demands for a settlement freeze.Netanyahu had told Strategic Affairs Minister Moshe Yaalon to report to him in the evening, after the premier returned from vacation, public radio said.Channel Ten private television said Netanyahu reprimanded Yaalon to demonstrate that there are lines that must not be crossed.In the controversial statements, Yaalon had said: I for one am not afraid of the Americans. There are issues on which one should say that's enough.He clearly rejected US calls for a freeze of settlement activity, insisting that Jews have a rightful claim to the biblical Land of Israel -- a term used to include the Palestinian territories.I believe that Jews have the right to live anywhere in the Land of Israel forever,he said at a meeting of far-right wing members of Netanyahu's Likud party on Sunday.The statements caused a stir after Channel Two television broadcast them on Wednesday night.Yaalon, who is also a vice premier, further called the Israeli anti-settlement Peace Now group a virus.
Netanyahu responded angrily to the statements.
The prime minister does not accept either the tone or the substance of minister Ayalon's statements. They do not reflect the position of the government,his office said.Netanyahu has rejected US calls for a total construction freeze in Israeli settlements in the West Bank, insisting new homes needed to be built in order to accommodate natural growth.But in a gesture to Washington he agreed on Tuesday to curtail settlement activity by not issuing any new construction tenders until early 2010.The US administration welcomed the announcement as a move in the right direction, but critics said it fell far short of demands for a settlement freeze as construction of homes for settlers will continue.Yaalon had already embarrassed the government by touring unauthorised settlement outposts on Monday. He and another three cabinet ministers with him criticised the government's decision to raze such wildcat settlements.The international community considers all Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank to be illegal. Israel rejects the claim, but has repeatedly vowed to demolish outposts built without government authorisation.
Hamas official upbeat on Fatah reconciliation Thu Aug 20, 2:10 pm ET
DAMASCUS (AFP) – A Hamas representative said on Thursday the Palestinian Islamist group was still positive about reconciliation with its rival Fatah, days ahead of an expected new round of Egyptian-brokered talks.We are going to continue the dialogue with a positive mentality, but we must settle the question of (Hamas) political prisoners in the West Bank, Hamas official Osama Abu Khaled told AFP.He spoke after meetings in the Syrian capital between the deputy to Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman, Cairo's pointman on the talks, Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal and Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine chief Nayef Hawatmeh.Abu Khaled said the visit to Syria by Mohammed Ibrahim was part of the efforts being made by Egypt towards Hamas-Fatah reconciliation.Cairo has been mediating between Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas's secular Fatah and Hamas with the aim of healing bitter divisions between the two, aggravated when the Islamists seized control of Gaza in 2007.Last month Egypt's official MENA news agency said talks between the feuding factions set for July 25 had been delayed for a month.
The talks hope to seal a deal on 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 a Palestinian election in 2010.Fatah and Hamas accuse each other of persecuting rival supporters in the territories under their control, while human rights groups have accused both groups of making arbitrary arrests and mistreating detainees.
US complains to Israel on Palestinian-American entry rules Wed Aug 19, 4:18 pm ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) – The United States said Wednesday it had complained to Israel about restrictions on the travel of US citizens of Palestinian origin, calling the measures unacceptable.The State Department said that Israel has been issuing entry stamps for some travelers, mostly those of Arab ancestry, stating that they are only allowed in the Palestinian Authority and cannot transit through Israel.We have made it quite known to the Israeli government ... that we expect all American citizens to be treated the same regardless of their national origin, State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said.These kinds of restrictions we consider unacceptable, Kelly told reporters.We will continue to protest.The State Department, in a recent travel advisory, warned that Israeli immigration authorities may write a Palestinian Authority identification number in a passport, regardless of whether the traveler has US citizenship or even held Palestinian documentation previously.Such travelers are then required to carry Palestinian travel documents and may be refused use of Ben Gurion airport near Tel Aviv, the country's main international gateway.Instead, the travelers must transit through the Allenby Bridge connecting the West Bank and Jordan. Due to Israeli checkpoints, this means they effectively cannot go to Jerusalem or the Gaza Strip.Israeli authorities recently started to stamp in visitors' passports whether they are heading to Israel or the Palestinian territories, potentially preventing them from travelling to both.Israel's tourism ministry on Monday denounced the restrictions introduced by the interior ministry, warning they would damage Israel's reputation and impede some of the millions of pilgrims who flock each year to religious sites across the region.In some cases, Israeli immigration has given such Palestinian Authority only stamps even to travelers with no apparent Palestinian origin, according to the State Department.
Israeli minister calls anti-settler group a virus Wed Aug 19, 4:10 pm ET
JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu interrupted his summer holiday to say on Wednesday he would summon a senior minister who described left-wing opponents of Jewish settlement building as a virus.Netanyahu's office issued a statement after Israel's Channel 2 television broadcast video footage in which Deputy Prime Minister Moshe Yaalon was shown making the remark to a forum of Netanyahu's right-wing Likud party.Whenever the politicians bring us the peace dove, we as the army have to go in and clean up after them,Yaalon, a former military chief and also a minister of strategic affairs, said.Replying to a question as to how Yaalon would rescue Israel, an allusion to U.S. President Barack Obama's demands to halt settlement construction in occupied land, Yaalon said:We are dealing again with a situation where the virus, which is Peace Now, and if you will, the elites, their damage is very great and that Jews should be permitted to live forever in all parts of Israel, which would include the West Bank.Peace Now, a watchdog that lobbies against building Jewish enclaves in territory Israel captured in a 1967 war, argues it is against Israel's security interests to control Palestinians seeking a state, is often the butt of rightist criticism.Netanyahu's office said the Israeli leader had plans to summon Minister Yaalon for a private meeting once he returns from vacation.
Yariv Oppenheimer, a Peace Now leader, called Yaalon's remarks dangerous and unacceptable and part of a government campaign to try and delegitimise left-wing views in the eyes of Israelis.
THE STUPID WORLD WILL BLAME ISRAEL FOR ANYTHING FROM THAT IDIOT MIKE RIVIERO TO JEFF RENSE ISRAEL HATERS WILL PAY BIGTIME WHEN GOD DESTROYS THEM IN WW3.
Israel furious over Swedish newspaper article By MATTI FRIEDMAN, Associated Press Writer - Wed Aug 19, 12:24 pm ET
JERUSALEM – Israel and the Swedish Embassy responded furiously Wednesday to a Swedish newspaper article that suggested Israeli troops killed Palestinians and harvested their organs.The article published Monday in Aftonbladet, Sweden's largest circulation daily, implies a link between those charges and the recent arrest in the U.S. of an American Jew for illicit organ trafficking. Later the reporter told Israel Radio he did not know if the allegations were true.Headlined Our sons are plundered for their organs,the story made news in Israel, where some commentators compared it to medieval libels that Jews killed Christian children for their blood. Daniel Seaman, who heads Israel's government press office, said the article played on vile anti-Semitic themes.The article was illustrated with a photograph of a dead Palestinian man with a line of surgical stitches running the length of his torso, apparently taken after an autopsy, as well as pictures of stone-throwing youths and Levy Izhak Rosenbaum, a New York resident arrested in an FBI sting last month and charged with plotting to buy a kidney from an Israeli and sell it to an American patient for $160,000.The writer, Donald Bostrom, based the story on accounts from Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza whom he identified only by their first names. It quotes an Israeli military spokesman denying the charges and saying that Palestinians killed by Israeli forces are routinely subjected to autopsies.
Interviewed on Israel Radio on Wednesday, Bostrom said he was worried by the allegations he reported but could not vouch for their accuracy.It concerns me, to the extent that I want it to be investigated, that's true. But whether it's true or not — I have no idea, I have no clue,he told the station.Aftonbladet Editor Jan Helin said, The article poses a question — why has this body been autopsied when the cause of death is obvious? There I think Israeli authorities owe us an answer.Israeli legal expert Moshe Negbi said that according to Israeli law, Autopsies are immediately performed after every unnatural death, and this is true for most other countries as well.Helin also objected to what he called the hate campaign that has been expressed in e-mails to me and the editorial office, but also through Israeli media.Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor said,This piece is so blatantly racist and can induce to hate crimes in such a way that we think authorities need to take care of the matter.In a statement Wednesday, the Swedish embassy in Tel Aviv said the article was as shocking and appalling to us Swedes as it is to Israeli citizens.In Stockholm, the Swedish Foreign Ministry distanced itself from that statement.We obviously don't think it is great to comment on what is written in the media, ministry spokesman Anders Jorle told The Associated Press.In Sweden, the article drew a critical editorial from a rival daily, Sydsvenskan, which said it followed the usual template of a conspiracy theory.Israel's ambassador to Sweden, Benny Dagan, said the piece did not indicate a climate of general hostility toward Israel.It's certain elements,he told Israel Radio.It's not all Sweden or mainstream Sweden or the Swedish parliament.Associated Press Writer Malin Rising reported from Stockholm.
Turkey, Jordan warn Israel on Jerusalem settlements Wed Aug 19, 10:00 am ET
ANKARA (AFP) – Turkey and Jordan warned Israel Wednesday that settlements in east Jerusalem threatened peace efforts, amid press reports that the Jewish state is to revive construction plans in the annexed region.Israel needs to act with responsibility on the issue of settlers and especially developments in east Jerusalem,Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu told a news conference with his visiting Jordanian counterpart Nasser Judeh.If there is genuine will for peace, it is time to openly display it,he added.Judeh, for his part, said: We agreed that unilateral moves in east Jerusalem will harm the peace process because such moves are not only confidence-shattering but also illegal.Israel's hawkish Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday agreed to curtail construction in the occupied West Bank that fell short of US demands for a settlement freeze.Critics, however, say construction continues on the ground in a number of settlements in Palestinian territory.TheMarker, a supplement to the Haaretz newspaper, reported Wednesday that Israeli authorities reversed a decision to reject bids for a 2008 project in east Jerusalem, paving the way for the construction of 450 housing units.Israel captured the territory in the 1967 Six Day War and subsequently annexed it in a move the international community has not recognized.
Obama speech in Cairo allayed Muslim concerns: Mubarak Tue Aug 18, 1:46 pm ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) – Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak hailed Tuesday US President Barack Obama's keynote speech in Cairo in June, saying the address had allayed the concerns of the Islamic world about US intentions.He came to give his address, it was a very strong address and it removed all doubts about the United States and the Muslim world,Mubarak said after meeting Obama at a White House summit.The importance of the Cairo visit was very appreciated by the Muslim Islamic world because the Islamic world had thoughts that the US was against Islam... But his great, fantastic address there has removed all those doubts.Obama has made relaunching the Middle East peace process a top priority, pledging a new beginning for Islam and the United States in his landmark speech to the world's Muslims in Cairo.He has also bluntly called for Israel to halt settlement activity while urging Arabs to move closer to making peace with Israel.
Huckabee says 2 states in Holy Land unrealistic By STEVEN GUTKIN, Associated Press Writer – Tue Aug 18, 11:18 am ET
JERUSALEM – Former U.S. presidential candidate Mike Huckabee said Tuesday there should be no Palestinian state in the West Bank and endorsed Israeli settlements there, sharply disagreeing with Washington and much of the world.A three-day tour of Israel, hosted by a far-right group of religious nationalists, is taking Huckabee to some of the most contentious hotspots in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict including a West Bank settlement outpost that even Israel's hard-line government considers illegal and an east Jerusalem housing project that the Obama administration has demanded be halted.Israel officially refuses to freeze its settlement activity, but officials have confirmed that approval is now being withheld from fresh projects.
Huckabee's opposition to a Palestinian state puts him at odds with the accepted wisdom of both Democrats and Republicans — and to some degree even with conservative Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has come out in favor of some form of Palestinian independence.Speaking to a small group of foreign reporters in Jerusalem, Huckabee said the international community should consider establishing a Palestinian state some place else.The question is should the Palestinians have a place to call their own? Yes, I have no problem with that. Should it be in the middle of the Jewish homeland? That's what I think has to be honestly assessed as virtually unrealistic.
The politician, a Southern Baptist preacher and a two-time former governor of Arkansas, praised Israel for giving Muslims access to Jerusalem's Dome of the Rock — also once the site of the ancient Jewish temples — even though the presence of a mosque there could be considered an affront.Israel is a place where they're going to allow other cultures and religions, but don't ask the Jewish people whose homeland it is to completely yield over their ability to live within the context of their country,said Huckabee.President Barack Obama is calling for a complete freeze on Israeli settlement activity on lands the Palestinians claim for their would-be state.
Huckabee is being hosted by the Jerusalem Reclamation Project, a pro-settler group seeking to bolster the Jewish presence in traditionally Arab east Jerusalem, where Palestinians hope will serve as their future capital.Their activities, some of them funded by American millionaire Irving Moskowitz, are aimed at blocking the division of the city as part of any future peace deal.Huckabee said he welcomed a demonstration Monday night by anti-settlement protesters outside the Shepherd Hotel, the site of a planned housing project in east Jerusalem which the Obama administration has demanded be stopped and where the Moskowitz family hosted Huckabee for dinner.He called the freedom to protest an affirmation of everything that is wonderful and great about Israel and the United States.During his tour, Huckabee will also visit the site of a planned neighborhood near Jerusalem that has also drawn U.S. ire and which Palestinians say will slice their future state in half. He will also travel to Hebron, the traditional burial place of the Biblical patriarch Abraham and the focus of particularly acute tensions between Muslims and Jews.
Medvedev, Peres meet on Mideast tensions Tue Aug 18, 8:53 am ET
MOSCOW (AFP) – Russian President Dmitry Medvedev held talks Tuesday with Israeli President Shimon Peres on efforts to check Iran's nuclear program, stalled Mideast peace talks and other issues, the Kremlin said.The informal meeting got under way at Medvedev's official residence in Sochi on Russia's Black Sea coast and was also to focus on plans long in the works for Moscow to host an international Mideast peace conference.The situation in the Middle East, which raises serious concern in Russia, will be at the centre of attention in the meeting,the Kremlin said in a background paper distributed ahead of the Sochi meeting.Welcoming Peres to his residence, Medvedev said there were more problems than one would like in the Middle East at present that required discussion, ITAR-TASS news agency said.Peres also said he planned to discuss a range of issues concerning the Middle East peace process in general and Israeli-Russian relations in particular.
Russia is helping Iran build its first nuclear power station while Israel and the United States fear Tehran secretly intends to build atomic weapons under the guise of a civilian nuclear energy program.Tehran vehemently denies this suspicion. The Kremlin said the situation surrounding Iran would be on the agenda for the talks.The Medvedev-Peres meeting comes at a moment of unusually high tension between Israel and its chief ally, the United States, over differences on how to deal with Iran and control Jewish settlement activity.Russia was working actively to ease international tensions over Iran's nuclear program, the Kremlin said, and this issue would be examined in detail during Tuesday's talks.Russia and Israel were also in agreement on the need to fight efforts to falsify history,specifically denial of the Holocaust and of Russia's decisive role in defeating Nazi Germany in World War II, the Kremlin said.
Attempts to rehabilitate Nazis and their supporters are unacceptable for us,it added, without elaborating.Tuesday's visit to Russia was the first by Peres since he was elected Israeli president in June 2007.
