IRAN MASS PROTESTS

Iran opposition chiefs attacked as mass protests hit regime by Jay Deshmukh – Fri Sep 18, 3:15 pm ET

TEHRAN (AFP) – Iranian opposition chiefs were attacked on Friday as their supporters battled riot police, with tens of thousands mounting the first protest in two months against the re-election of hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.Main opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi had to abandon plans to take part after an angry crowd of hardliners shouting Death to the hypocrite Mousavi attacked his car, the official IRNA news agency said.Former president Mohammad Khatami, a key Mousavi supporter whose 1997-2005 term saw a mild thaw in relations with the West, was also assaulted before being rescued by riot police, reformist website parlemannews.ir said.During the scuffle, his turban fell off and they wanted to beat him but supporters resisted them and the riot police promptly intervened,it said.

Khatami's brother, Mohammad Reza, said he was uninjured.

Some people shouted slogans against him,he told AFP.He is home now. He is not hurt and he is fine.As Ahmadinejad gave the keynote speech at Tehran University, renewing comments about Israel and the myth of the Holocaust that have sparked an international outcry, tens of thousands chanted Death to the dictator in nearby streets, witnesses said.Protesters defied dire warnings against demonstrating during Iran's annual mass display of solidarity with the Palestinians.Shouting slogans in support of Mousavi, Ahmadinejad's main challenger in the June 12 election, they gathered in major squares around the capital before heading to the university.

Supporters of the regime among the more than 100,000 people who joined the Quds (Jerusalem) Day rally mounted counter-demonstrations, leading to repeated scuffles, the witnesses said.Baton-wielding riot police beat protesters who were pelting them with stones in central Haft-e Tir Square, they told AFP.Police fired tear gas to disperse the demonstrators who chanted: Torture and rape are not effective any more, one witness said.That was a reference to opposition allegations of abuses against some of the more than 4,000 activists and reformist politicians detained during the post-election disturbances.

The attacks on Mousavi and Khatami drew criticism both at home and abroad.

I don't accept such aggressions and illegal acts. I don't approve of them,deputy parliament speaker Mohammad Reza Bahonar said.French foreign ministry spokesman Bernard Valero said Paris is highly concerned by reports of violence committed against leaders of the Iranian opposition.There were also reports of clashes in other cities, as unrest over the presidential election flared again for the first time since July 19 in a sign of the seriousness of the challenge facing the regime.
Members of the Basij Islamic militia attacked and seized demonstrators in both Tabriz in the northwest and Isfahan south of the capital, the mowjcamp.com opposition website said.

State television played down the unrest.A few demonstrators protested against Ahmadinejad but they were drowned in the massive crowds of people expressing solidarity with the Palestinians,it said.The protests came despite a threat from the elite Revolutionary Guards Corps to crush any renewed attempt to contest the official election results giving Ahmadinejad a landslide victory.In his address, the hardline president again described the mass extermination of Jews during World War II as a myth and said Israel was heading for collapse.They (Western powers) launched the myth of the Holocaust. They lied, they put on a show and then they support the Jews,he said to chants of Death to Israel from his supporters among the crowd. The pretext for establishing the Zionist regime is a lie ... a lie which relies on an unreliable claim, a mythical claim, and the occupation of Palestine has nothing to do with the Holocaust.This regime's days are numbered and it is on its way to collapse. This regime is dying.Britain, France, Germany and the United States condemned Ahmadinejad's comments.British Foreign Secretary David Miliband called them abhorrent as well as ignorant,while White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said that denying the Holocaust was baseless, ignorant and hateful.In Paris, Valero called the Iranian president's remarks unacceptable and shocking,and in Berlin German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said Ahmadinejad shamed Iran. With his intolerable tirades, he shames his country,and his anti-Semitism ... must be collectively condemned,he said.

Ahmadinejad's Holocaust myth comments slammed Fri Sep 18, 2:28 pm ET

TEHRAN (AFP) – Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said the Holocaust was a myth as he addressed the annual Quds Day rally in Tehran on Friday, reiterating comments that sparked outrage around the world.The United States, Britain, France and Germany all issued statements slamming his latest outburst.The very existence of this regime is an insult to the dignity of the people,the hardline Ahmadinejad said of Iran's arch-foe Israel.They (Western powers) launched the myth of the Holocaust. They lied, they put on a show and then they support the Jews.If as you claim the Holocaust is true, why can a study not be allowed? he said to chants of Death to Israel from the crowd gathered for the annual display of solidarity with the Palestinians.The pretext for establishing the Zionist regime is a lie... a lie which relies on an unreliable claim, a mythical claim, and the occupation of Palestine has nothing to do with the Holocaust,he added.This claim is corrupt and the pretext is corrupt. This (the Israeli) regime's days are numbered and it is on its way to collapse. This regime is dying.

Washington condemned Ahmadinejad's comments as ignorant and hateful.Regardless that we've heard that type of rhetoric before, obviously we condemn what he said, and I would point to what the president (Barack Obama) said in Cairo: denying the Holocaust is baseless, ignorant and hateful,White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said.
Promoting those vicious lies serves only to isolate Iran further from the world.
British Foreign Secretary David Miliband branded Ahmadinejad's comments abhorrent as well as ignorant,and said they were not worthy of the leader of Iran.The coincidence of today's comments with the start of Jewish New Year only adds to the insult,he added.French foreign ministry spokesman Bernard Valero called the Iranian president's remarks unacceptable and shocking. We resolutely condemn them.In Berlin German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said Ahmadinejad's remarks shamed Iran. With his intolerable tirades, he shames his country,and his anti-semitism... must be collectively condemned,he said.Similar comments by Ahmadinejad shortly after his first election as president in 2005 also sparked an international outcry.Then he said Israel was doomed to be wiped off the map.

Hezbollah chief vows to destroy Israeli army if attacked Fri Sep 18, 12:36 pm ET

BEIRUT (AFP) – Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah vowed on Friday that his Shiite militant group was ready to destroy the Israeli army if it attacked Lebanon.I admit that Israel might launch a war on Lebanon and I declare that we do not want war,he said in a televised address marking Quds (Jerusalem) Day.I do not know what excuse they might use for this war, but if Israel attacks us, we must turn the threat into an opportunity,he said.Nasrallah said Israel was a state that centred on its military, adding: If we destroy their army here in Lebanon, what future does the state have? The next war will change the face of the region.Thousands of people, including women and children, also formed a human chain for five kilometres (three miles) along south Lebanon's border with Israel, waving Hezbollah and Palestinian flags to denounce Israel's creation in 1948.I declare that we... will not acknowledge, deal with, normalise ties with or surrender to Israel, even if the whole world acknowledges (its existence),Nasrallah said.Quds Day, the brainchild of the Islamic republic of Iran's late founder Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, is held each year on the last Friday of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan as a display of solidarity with the Palestinians.Hezbollah, which is backed by Iran and Syria, fought a devastating 34-day war with Israel in 2006. The fighting killed nearly 1,200Lebanese, a third of them children, and 160 Israelis, mainly soldiers.The conflict destroyed much of Lebanon's major infrastructure and also targeted Hezbollah strongholds in the south and the southern suburb of Beirut, where Friday's rally was held.The war ended with a UN-brokered ceasefire on August 14, 2006.

Thousands rally in Gaza on Quds Day Fri Sep 18, 9:09 am ET

GAZA CITY (AFP) – Thousands of Palestinians joined protests across the Gaza Strip on Friday organised by the territory's Hamas rulers to mark the Iranian-inspired Quds (Jerusalem) Day.Demonstrations were held after the weekly Friday prayers in several cities of the besieged territory where Iranian-backed Hamas seized power in June 2007.Jerusalem is ours and the Zionists are destined to disappear,Ahmad Bahar, a deputy speaker of the Palestinian parliament told the crowd in Gaza City.Quds Day, held each year on the last Friday of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, is the brainchild of Iran's founder Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini as a display of solidarity with the Palestinians.It is marked by mass demonstrations across Iran to denounce the Jewish state and its main ally, Washington.During Friday's Quds rally in Tehran, President Mahmud Ahmadinejad once again called the Holocaust a myth in comments that have sparked outrage around the world.

UN report on Gaza war a kangaroo court: Netanyahu by Gavin Rabinowitz – Thu Sep 17, 1:34 pm ET

JERUSALEM (AFP) – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday condemned a damning UN report on the Gaza war as a kangaroo court,saying it was biased from the start.The UN probe said both Israel and Palestinian groups committed war crimes and possible crimes against humanity during the 22-day war in December-January that Israel launched in response to rocket fire from the Palestinian enclave.The report was a kangaroo court; it was fixed from the start, Netanyahu told Israel's privately-owned Channel Two television, speaking publicly for the first time on the report.

Netanyahu called on the international community to condemn the report, which reserved some of its harshest language for the actions taken by Israel against the civilian population in the densely populated Gaza Strip.The report encourages terrorism and undermines the natural right of states to defend themselves, Netanyahu said.If you support our right to self-defence, say so now.Earlier on Thursday, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman denied that Israeli forces committed atrocities during the Gaza war, describing the report as hypocrisy.We share very human values and Israel's army is maybe the most human army in the world. We are fighting for our independence since 1948, he said in Podgorica, Montenegro.But South African judge Richard Goldstone, who headed the commission that issued the report, rejected Israeli criticism that it was biased.I deny that completely,Goldstone said in remarks broadcast on public radio.I was completely independent, nobody dictated any outcome, and the outcome was a result of the independent inquiries that our mission made,he said.The UN report, which Goldstone presented at the UN on Tuesday and which accused both Israel and Palestinian militants of committing war crimes, has faced stinging criticism in Israel for being one-sided and biased.But Goldstone, former chief prosecutor on the International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, rejected the charges and said the only thing he regretted was that Israel refused to cooperate with his team.There is really nothing I can think of that I would do differently,he said.If there is any difference that I would have preferred, (it) would have been that we could have got cooperation from Israel and, in particular, I would have liked the Israeli government to assist us and decide what we should investigate because that's what I asked them to do.In the wake of the UN report, numerous Israeli commentators have launched personal attacks on Goldstone, with one rightwing paper writing: the liberal anti-Semitism strides delicately, appoints a hostile commission and finds an obsequious Jew, to dance to the tune of the gentile landowner.Goldstone, 70, is a South African judge who also headed the public inquiry into violence and intimidation in the run-up to that country's first post-apartheid elections in 1994.The impartial inquiry, which became known as the Goldstone Commission, was widely credited with preventing South Africa's slide into widespread violence with the demise of the whites-only apartheid regime.

Israel sees hypocrisy in UN's Gaza report Thu Sep 17, 9:53 am ET

PODGORICA (AFP) – Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman denied on Thursday that his country's forces committed atrocities during the Gaza war, describing a United Nations report on the conflict as hypocrisy.We share very human values and Israel's army is maybe the most human army in the world. We are fighting for our independence since 1948, he said.I would call that report a hypocrisy of the modern world, Lieberman said during an official visit to Podgorica, Montenegro's capital.He insisted that the real reasons behind such reports are not war crimes but the price of oil, gas and interests in markets.When leaders like (Libyan Moamer) Kadhafi and (Iranian President Mahmoud) Ahmadinejad try to condemn Israel for war crimes that is really ironic and cynical,said Lieberman.The minister said he was surprised that international community did such kind of a report and was interested not in a terror against Israel and atrocities perpetrated on people in Gaza Strip and on political opponents of Palestinian authorities.The UN probe said both Israel and Palestinian groups committed war crimes and possible crimes against humanity during the 22-day war in December-January that Israel launched in response to rocket fire from the Palestinian enclave.It reserved some of its harshest language for the actions taken by Israel against the civilian population in the densely-populated Gaza Strip.

Syrian president in Turkey for talks on Israel By SELCAN HACAOGLU, Associated Press Writer – Wed Sep 16, 2:54 pm ET

ANKARA, Turkey – Turkey encouraged Syria on Wednesday to think of ways to revive the stalled peace talks with Israel, but the Syrian president said Israel does not appear to be a partner in the process.Syrian President Bashar Assad sat down with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Istanbul to consider how to restart the talks.Israel has again showed that it does not want peace,Assad said after the iftar, the dinner that breaks the daily fast during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.Israel has dynamited all peace negotiations so far, it has massacred people in Lebanon, it has attacked Gaza.He said Israel's presence at the peace table is only virtual,echoing remarks Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem made through an interpreter earlier.On the peace issue, we don't think Israel is present as a partner,al-Moallem said. He accused Israel of maintaining construction of Israeli settlements and continuing its aggression against Gaza.Turkey, which mediated indirect Syrian-Israeli talks last year, has offered to help restart the peace negotiations after they broke off in March when a more hardline Israeli government came to power.

Turkey has also been trying to help defuse a spat between Syria and Iraq triggered by Iraqi allegations that Syria has been used as a launching pad for violence in Baghdad.Security talks held Tuesday by Iraqi and Syrian diplomats in Ankara ended with no agreement, after Syria refused to extradite suspects accused of deadly Baghdad bombings, Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said.The Iraqi and Syrian foreign ministers plan to meet Thursday in Istanbul. Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu and Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa will also attend.Iraq is demanding Syria hand over two members of Saddam Hussein's now-outlawed Baath Party who are blamed by Iraq for the Aug. 19 truck bombings that killed more than 100people in Baghdad. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has called on the U.N. Security Council to investigate the attacks.Syria rejected Iraq's request, saying it had failed to provide evidence implicating the two suspects.Turkey mediated another Syrian-Iraqi meeting last week in Cairo that ended with the Iraqi foreign minister accusing Syria of fueling sectarian tensions in Iraq and supporting terrorism. Syria denies the charges.Meanwhile, Turkey and Syria on Wednesday bilaterally waived visa requirements in a sign of improving ties, Davutoglu said.Associated Press Writer Gulden Alp in Ankara contributed to this report.

No three-way summit yet set for UN meet: Netanyahu Wed Sep 16, 2:14 pm ET

JERUSALEM (AFP) – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday that it was unclear if a three-way summit with the United States and Palestinian leaders would go ahead in New York.The three-way meeting has not been set yet. But I'll go anyway and give my speech on Thursday at the (UN General) Assembly,Netanyahu told reporters.Amid US mediation efforts, there was speculation Netanyahu might meet US President Barack Obama and Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas on the sidelines of the General Assembly in New York.US Middle East envoy George Mitchell has been meeting with Netanyahu and Abbas this week in an attempt to reach a compromise on the issue of Israeli settlement building in the West Bank.Mitchell is seeking Israeli agreement on some kind of a moratorium on settlement construction that would be acceptable to the Palestinians and enable the resumption of peace talks suspended in late December after Israel unleashed an assault on the Gaza Strip.Meanwhile, Netanyahu said he would not attend any General Assembly session, including Obama's speech, if Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad were taking part.Israel considers and Iran are arch-enemies, and Ahmadinejad has repeatedly said the Jewish state should be wiped off the map.

Israel starts removing 100 West Bank roadblocks: army Wed Sep 16, 1:58 pm ET

JERUSALEM (AFP) – Israel has started removing 100 of its roadblocks in the West Bank as part of efforts to improve the economic situation in the Palestinian territory, the military announced on Wednesday.The armed forces would not say how many roadblocks will remain but recent UN figures put at more than 600 the number of such obstacles that restrict the movement of Palestinian people and goods in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.Today, following the directives given by the Israeli government, the Israel Defense Forces began removing 100 roadblocks,the military said in a statement.It said the process should be completed by the time Muslims celebrate the end of the fasting month of Ramadan next week.Israeli officials have long argued the heavy restrictions are essential to prevent violent attacks but say they have been eased in recent months as part of hawkish Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's much-vaunted plan for economic peace.The International Monetary Fund said earlier this month that continuation of new economic growth in the West Bank will depend on Israel lifting more restrictions, which international organisations say have stymied private sector investment in the Palestinian territory for almost a decade.

Evidence of Israel, Hamas war crimes in Gaza: U.N. By Louis Charbonneau – Tue Sep 15, 6:02 pm ET

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – Both the Israeli army and Palestinian militants committed war crimes, and possibly crimes against humanity, during the December-January Gaza war, the United Nations charged on Tuesday.A 575-page report by a fact-finding mission organized by the Geneva-based U.N. Human Rights Council called on both sides to thoroughly investigate the allegations. Israel did not cooperate with the investigation.The mission concluded that actions amounting to war crimes, and possibly in some respects crimes against humanity, were committed by the Israel Defense Force,U.N. investigator Richard Goldstone told reporters.The report also said rockets fired by Palestinian militants into Israel where there were no military targets would also constitute war crimes, and perhaps crimes against humanity.The rocket and mortar attacks have caused terror in the affected communities of southern Israel, causing loss of life and physical and mental injury to civilians, as well as damage to buildings and property,it said.In response, Israel's diplomatic mission in Geneva issued a statement that criticized Goldstone's mission and explained why Israel did not cooperate with it.Its mandate was clearly one-sided and ignored the thousands of Hamas (Palestinian militants) missile attacks on civilians in southern Israel that made the Gaza operation necessary,the statement said.A Hamas spokesman in the Gaza Strip rejected the suggestion that the Islamist group's firing of rockets into Israel could also amount to war crimes. He said it was self-defense, which is a right sacred under international law.Goldstone, a noted South African jurist, recommended that the U.N. Security Council call on Israel to fully investigate possible crimes committed by its forces. His report made clear that Palestinian authorities should do the same regarding crimes committed by Palestinian fighters.The probes should be independent and in conformity with international standards and establish a committee of human rights experts to monitor any such proceedings in Israel and the Palestinian territories.If either Israel or the Palestinians fail to do so, then the 15-nation council should refer the situation in Gaza to the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court in The Hague, the report said.Goldstone said Israeli efforts to investigate allegations of war crimes by its soldiers had so far been pusillanimous.The Gaza war, codenamed Operation Cast Lead, began on December 27, 2008, and ended on January 18.

GAZA BLOCKADE

An Israeli human rights group, B'Tselem, said last week that 773 of the 1,387 Palestinians killed were civilians.Israel has said 709 combatants, 295 civilians and 162 people whose status it was unable to clarify were killed. Thirteen Israelis, 10 soldiers and three civilians, died.Israel has rejected international criticism of an offensive it said was launched to curb Hamas rocket attacks on its towns. Israel says it is investigating allegations but has not yet found cause to prosecute any of its soldiers.Goldstone, a former South African Supreme Court and Constitutional Court judge and U.N. prosecutor, led a commission of inquiry into political violence and police hit squad activities in the early 1990s in his homeland. The investigator said verbal attacks on his mission by Israel and pro-Israeli groups were disappointing, though understandable given the politically charged atmosphere.

Goldstone said Israel's blockade of Gaza, which began prior to the assault, amounted to collective punishment for the 1.5 million Gazans, most of whom rely on aid to survive. The summary said Israel's operation was directed at the people of Gaza as a whole, not just Hamas militants. His report said Israeli forces humiliated, dehumanized and carried out an assault on the dignity of the people in Gaza ... unlawful detentions, unacceptable conditions of detention ... obscenities and racist slogans.It said a court could find that the blockade of Gaza is itself a crime against humanity. Israel continues to tightly restrict goods entering Gaza to staples and humanitarian supplies, saying that lifting these restrictions would allow Hamas to smuggle weapons into the Strip. Goldstone's report also criticized Israel for firing white phosphorus incendiary shells over the U.N. compound in Gaza and for its intentional strike on the Al Quds hospital using high explosive artillery shells and white phosphorus. Israeli shells hit and damaged several U.N. facilities in the Gaza Strip during the conflict.The report said an Israeli soldier held by Hamas militants since June 2006, Gilad Shalit, has prisoner-of-war status and should be treated humanely according to the Geneva Convention.(Additional reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi in Gaza; Editing by Alan Elsner)

Israelis, Palestinians present peace blueprint By KARIN LAUB, Associated Press Writer – Tue Sep 15, 5:22 pm ET

TEL AVIV, Israel – Jerusalem divided by a series of fences, trenches and walls. The West Bank and Gaza linked by a sunken highway. Palestinians and Israelis trading land that would require 100,000 Jewish settlers to move.These proposals are part of a 424-page blueprint for Mideast peace presented Tuesday — the most detailed description yet of what an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal could look like.The plan was released as a new U.S. diplomatic effort was under way to restart peace talks and ahead of meetings next week at the annual gathering of world leaders at the U.N. General Assembly in New York.Created by teams of Israeli and Palestinian experts and former negotiators, the blueprint is meant to show it's still possible to establish a Palestinian state alongside Israel, despite many setbacks, said those involved in the drafting.If you want to resolve the conflict, here is the recipe, said Gadi Baltiansky, a leader of the Israeli team.The core of the plan is a Palestinian state in nearly 98 percent of the West Bank, all of the Gaza Strip and the Arab-populated areas of Jerusalem. By going into the tiniest details, it highlights the staggering challenges and expense of implementing any peace deal.The blueprint was presented Tuesday by Yossi Beilin, a former Israeli peace negotiator, and by Baltiansky, who served as an aide to former prime minister Ehud Barak.

The Palestinian participants kept a low profile. The most senior, Yasser Abed Rabbo, now a high-ranking aide to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, declined comment and did not attend the plan's unveiling in Tel Aviv.Israeli officials said the Palestinians planned their own presentation later, but it appeared the Palestinians also wanted to avoid giving the impression their government endorses the plan. Israeli government officials also declined comment.

The blueprint highlights how complex and expensive peace will be.

It had to resort to flow charts to describe a multilayered bureaucracy of thousands of international troops and monitors who would serve as referees. The partition of Jerusalem would require building border terminals inside the city and dividing a major thoroughfare between the two states.A sunken four-lane highway with bridges and tunnels would be built through Israel to link the West Bank and Gaza, administered by the Palestinians but under Israeli sovereignty. Israeli motorists would have to carry tracking devices on designated transit routes through Palestine to make sure they didn't go astray.The document builds on the 50-page outline of a peace deal published in 2003 by the same group, known as the Geneva Initiative. It is also close to the terms of a failed agreement suggested in late 2000 by then-President Bill Clinton.The blueprint goes into detail on issues that were only dealt with in broad strokes in the earlier efforts.For example, the 2003 plan said the West Bank and Gaza, which flank Israel, should be connected by a corridor running through the Jewish state. The expanded proposal describes a sunken four-lane highway with bridges and tunnels; it would also give the Palestinians the option of adding train tracks, underground fuel pipes and communications cables.

The partition of Jerusalem required perhaps the most creativity.

Earlier efforts called for Jewish neighborhoods to join Israel and Arab ones to become part of Palestine. However, traditionally Arab east Jerusalem has become a patchwork of Jewish and Arab neighborhoods since Israel captured it in the 1967 Mideast war and moved nearly 200,000 Israelis there.As a result, the border on the blueprint snakes around neighborhoods, divvying them between Israel and Palestine. A major thoroughfare that bisects the city would become a binational road, with Israeli and Palestinian motorists divided by a series of fences, trenches, walls and greenery.A pedestrian overpass in the downtown area, near the famed American Colony Hotel, would link the Palestinian part of Jerusalem with the Israeli sector, passing through a border checkpoint.Huge multilevel border terminals would be built in the northern and southern areas of the city, and planners included detailed architectural drawings of the crossings.Both sides would have access to the walled Old City with its major religious shrines, but from separate gates. The border puts the Jewish Quarter and the Western Wall, the holiest site in Judaism, in Israel, while the Palestinians would get the adjacent Al Aqsa Mosque compound, Islam's third-holiest shrine.The document does not have a detailed chapter on the fate of Palestinian refugees and their millions of descendants, one of the toughest issues facing peacemakers. The Palestinian team leader, Nidal Foqaha, said the issue was still too sensitive.The security annex was the most difficult to put together, Baltiansky said. He said the involvement of senior former Israeli military officials ensured the document addresses Israel's security concerns.Israel fears Palestinian militants would overrun the West Bank after a withdrawal and launch rockets at Israel. Gaza was seized by Hamas in 2007, two years after Israel's withdrawal, and militants there have fired thousands of rockets into southern Israel.Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wants a future Palestinian state to be demilitarized, and the security annex lists weapons the Palestinian security forces would be banned from having, including tanks, artillery, rockets, heavy machine guns and weapons of mass destruction.

The plan also stipulates that an Israeli infantry battalion of 800 soldiers would remain in the Jordan Valley, on the West Bank's border with Jordan, for three years after all other Israeli troops have left the Palestinian territory.When Netanyahu speaks about a non-militarized Palestine, in this book we write exactly what it means,Baltiansky said.We translate it into a detailed reality.The manual is being presented to Israeli and Palestinian leaders as well as top diplomats in the U.S., Europe and Egypt in hopes they will use it as a reference once peace talks resume, organizers said.http://www.geneva-accord.org/

Mousavi to join mass rally in Iran despite warnings Tue Sep 15, 11:50 am ET

TEHRAN (AFP) – Iranian opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi, who lost to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in June's disputed presidential election, will join Friday's annual pro-Palestinian Quds Day march, his website said Tuesday.Reformist Mousavi is the second opposition leader to say he and his supporters will attend the public rally, after another defeated presidential candidate, cleric Mehdi Karroubi, urged his backers to come out in force.Quds Day is a souvenir of the late Imam Khomeini and is the day of Islam, and he (Mousavi) along with people will attend the rally,Mousavi's office said on his website, referring to the Islamic republic's late founder.

No further details were given.Friday's rally will be the first mass demonstration in the capital's streets since July 9 when thousands of demonstrators defied government warnings and staged a march to commemorate the anniversary of bloody student unrest in 1999.Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's successor, all-powerful supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has already warned against using Friday's rally for anything other than demonstrating solidarity with the Palestinians.Be watchful so some who want to spread division do not succeed. No division should be created,he said on Friday.Iran's police chief, Brigadier General Esmail Ahmadi Moghadam, also warned a week ago against using the Quds Day march to stage anti-Ahmadinejad protests.

Opposition groups continue to reject Ahmadinejad's re-election, saying it was massively rigged, triggering the worst crisis in the Islamic republic's 30-year history.In the weeks following the June 12 election, thousands of people took to the streets in protest and some 4,000 were arrested in an ensuing crackdown by the authorities.Official figures say about 30 people were killed in street violence, while the opposition says 72 people died.Around 140 alleged protesters have gone on trial, including leading reformist politicians, activists and employees of the British and French embassies.