Israeli official: Clinton to hold Jerusalem talks By STEVE WEIZMAN, Associated Press Writer Steve Weizman, Associated Press Writer – OCT 27,09
JERUSALEM – An Israeli official says U.S. Secretary of State Hilary Rodham Clinton is expected to arrive in Israel at the weekend to meet Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a fresh attempt to revive stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.An aide to Netanyahu said she was due on Saturday night. He spoke on condition of anonymity pending an official announcement.Palestinian officials have said in local media interviews over the past few days that Clinton was expected to visit Palestinian leaders in the West Bank next week.In Washington, the State Department had no comment on Clinton's travel plans, other than to say she would be in Morocco early next week where she would be meeting with various Arab foreign ministers.
Rocket fired from Lebanon prompts Israeli barrage by Charly Wegman – OCT 27,09
JERUSALEM (AFP) – A Katyusha rocket fired from Lebanon hit northern Israel on Tuesday night without causing casualties, prompting Israel to retaliate with artillery, sources on both sides said.The attack, which was not immediately claimed, was the latest incident in growing cross-border tensions, and an Israeli military spokeswoman laid ultimate blame on the Beirut government.The rocket landed in open ground east of the Israeli town of Kiryat Shmona and started a fire but caused no serious damage, sources there said.A security source in Lebanon said eight rockets fired from Israel then hit near the border village of Hula. There were no immediate reports of casualties.At about the same time, witnesses in Kiryat Shmona said Israeli artillery retaliated by firing on southern Lebanon.An Israeli military spokeswoman later confirmed that artillery had opened fire on the sector from which the Katyusha rocket was fired.She said the army considered the attack as serious, and considers that responsibility for it falls on the Lebanese government.UN peacekeeping troops and the Lebanese army cut off the road to Hula and searched the area, an AFP correspondent said.
Hula residents said they heard a rocket being fired from the brush outside the village shortly before the rockets hit the area.While no group claimed responsibility, Israel will have its eyes on Shiite movement Hezbollah, which fought a devastating 34-day war with Israel in 2006 and which has its stronghold in south Lebanon.A rocket exploded in a village there on October 12 in the home of activist Abdel Nasser Issa.The Israeli military released footage from a drone that it said showed rockets being removed.But Hezbollah's Al-Manar television broadcast pictures it said showed men outside a garage putting a rolled up metal shutter into a truck, watched by a Lebanese soldier and two UN troops.Israel's military said the blast proves again the presence of weapons forbidden in southern Lebanon under UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended the 2006 war.The conflict killed more than 1,200Lebanese, mostly civilians, and more than 160 Israelis, mostly soldiers.Resolution 1701 called for the removal of weapons in southern Lebanon from the hands of everyone except the Lebanese army and other state security forces.Israel has repeatedly accused Hezbollah of rearming, and an Israeli military spokesman has claimed the group has dozens of arms caches containing hundreds of rockets.Following the October 12 incident, Israeli President Shimon Peres accused Hezbollah of turning Lebanon into a powderkeg.It's not Israel that is endangering Lebanon, but rather Hezbollah, just as Hamas is endangering the Palestinians.There is no reason for Israel not to make peace with Lebanon,he said, adding that Israel's northern neighbour could be, with the help of this peace, the Switzerland of the Middle East. But it's clear to everyone who is preventing this.
Tuesday's attack on Israel was the fourth from Lebanon this year.On September 11, at least two rockets fired from the southern village of Al-Qlaileh slammed into Israel without causing casualties but triggering retaliatory artillery fire.A group linked to Al-Qaeda claimed responsibility, according to US monitoring group SITE Intelligence.In February, Israeli artillery bombarded Al-Qlaileh in response to a rocket attack. There were no casualties in Lebanon, while a few Israelis were lightly wounded.In January, during Israel's assault on the Gaza Strip, four rockets fired from Lebanon hit northern Israel, wounding two women.
Israel demolishes Palestinian houses in east Jerusalem Tue Oct 27, 1:55 pm ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – Israel on Tuesday razed five Palestinian houses in occupied east Jerusalem, defying international calls to halt the demolitions in the disputed city, the municipality said.The Jerusalem municipality demolished houses and structures built without permits in the neighbourhoods of Shuafat, Zur Baher, Silwan and Jabel Mukabar, municipality spokesman Gidi Schmerling said in a statement to AFP.All the houses were demolished in accordance with a court order,he said.An Israeli rights group, Ir Amim, criticised the demolitions as an irresponsible step that could escalate the situation in the city and bring it to a new boiling point.Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat had vowed to crack down on illegal construction in the city, including east Jerusalem, whose fate is one of the thorniest issues in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.The city's Palestinian residents have long accused the Israeli-run municipality of discriminating against them and making it virtually impossible to get legal permits for new homes or extensions to existing ones.As a result, Arab residents have built thousands of illegal structures in recent decades and Israel has issued demolition orders and destroyed dozens of houses each year.Threatened demolitions have raised tensions in the eastern half of the city, with Palestinians holding regular protests and filing court cases.Several Western countries, including the United States, France and Britain, have also criticised the threatened evictions, saying they have a negative effect on the Middle East peace process.
Israel considers the entire Holy City to be its eternal undivided capital, including east Jerusalem which it seized and annexed during the 1967 Six-Day War.The international community has never recognised Israel's claim to east Jerusalem, which the Palestinians want as the capital of their future state.Around 270,000 Palestinians live in east Jerusalem alongside around 190,000 Israeli Jews.
Israel's Barak faces party revolt over peace deadlock By Allyn Fisher-ilan – Tue Oct 27, 1:42 pm ET
JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak faced the possible breakup of his left-of-center Labor party when a group of lawmakers threatened on Tuesday to break away protesting a lack of movement in peace talks.Legislator Eitan Cabel of Labor said he was one of four of the party's 13 legislators launching a movement to press Israel to renew stalled negotiations with Syria and the Palestinians.Cabel told Reuters the group demanded a lot more activism by Israel to advance the peace process and could quit the party unless Barak heeded their message, a step that could weaken rightist Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government.The threat introduced the risk that Netanyahu's fractious seven-month-old coalition was vulnerable not only to pressures from ultranationalists against stopping Jewish settlement, but also to demands from moderates seeking more diplomacy.Netanyahu commands the support of 71 of parliament's 120 lawmakers, but his coalition comprises an uneasy alliance of unlikely partners as Barak's Labor as well as far-right and religious factions.Cabel, a veteran lawmaker removed months ago as party director after criticizing the alliance with Netanyahu, accused Barak of destroying the Labor party and now destroying the Left,by failing to press further to renew peace talks.Israeli negotiations with Palestinians stalled over a Gaza war in December, and efforts to revive them have so far failed despite the efforts of U.S. Middle East envoy George Mitchell, who was due back in the region for further talks this week.
TALKS MUST RESUME
Cabel accused Barak of failing to ease Netanyahu's resistance to freezing construction in Jewish settlements, which Palestinians see as a key obstacle to resuming peace talks.There must be a freeze,Cabel said in a telephone interview, adding that Barak's stance made him appear as though he was planted by the Right as a virus.Time isn't on our side,Cabel added, also urging a resumption of talks with Syria stalled since 2000 in a dispute over demands Israel withdraw from land captured in a 1967 War.There is quiet along the border with Syria but which could blow up at any moment without anyone's express intent,Cabel said.He and three allies would launch their group called The Democratic Platform,in the coming days as a forum to generate new ideas, and try to force Barak either to wield more influence for peace or to step aside as party leader, Cabel said.Under Israeli law, they would need the support of at least five lawmakers, or a third of Labor's slate, in order to secede and form a separate parliamentary faction.The party's faction leader, Daniel Ben-Simon, resigned that job last week but has not said whether he would join Cabel.A Labor official close to Barak said the defense minister, a veteran military chief, had done more for peace than anyone in the party, often risking his political career.A former prime minister who lost a snap election after a Palestinian uprising erupted in 2000 when peace talks failed, Barak insists he had a key role in Netanyahu's conditional nod in June to establishing a Palestinian state next to Israel.
Abbas says might not run in poll, officials say By Mohammed Assadi – Tue Oct 27, 7:16 am ET
RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) – Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas told U.S. President Barack Obama he would not run for re-election unless Israel dropped its refusal to freeze settlements, Palestinian officials said on Tuesday.Abu Mazen (Abbas) told him that he would not be a candidate in the presidential election (in January) unless Israel abided by the peace requirement,said one of the officials, who are briefed regularly by Abbas and spoke on condition of anonymity.The officials said Abbas made the comments to Obama to vent his anger at what Palestinians see as an easing of U.S. pressure on Israel over construction of homes for settlers in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.However, Tayyeb Abdel-Rahim, a senior aide to the Western-backed Palestinian leader, issued a denial and described the telephone conversation between Abbas and Obamas as warm and candid.Abbas, who has made a return to peace talks conditional on Israel ceasing settlement activity in line with a 2003 peace road map, has threatened to step down on occasions in the past.But Palestinian officials who gave details of his exchange with Obama voiced doubt he would do so now. Abbas's Fatah party, trounced by Hamas Islamists in a 2006 election, does not have another presidential candidate in polls planned for January 24.The Palestinian relationship with the U.S. administration is very tense,one of the Palestinian officials said.They have retreated from their previous position.
The U.S. Consulate in Jerusalem and chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat had no immediate comment.At a meeting with Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in New York last month, Obama urged Israel to show restraint over settlements -- a step back from his original demand for a construction freeze under the road map that charts a course toward Palestinian statehood.Netanyahu has ruled out a complete suspension of building within settlements, saying the needs of growing families must be accommodated.Now, Palestinian officials said, Washington is urging the Palestinians to resume peace talks, suspended since December, without a settlement freeze.
ENVOY'S RETURN
You negotiated with (former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud) Olmert while settlement activities continued. What's the difference now?,one of the officials quoted U.S. Middle East envoy George Mitchell as having told Erekat.Mitchell is expected to return to the region later this week to continue his pursuit of a formula to revive peace talks.In a Voice of Palestine radio interview on Monday, Erekat said negotiations with Israel were unlikely to resume in the near future, an assessment echoed by Israeli officials.He blamed Israel for the impasse and urged Washington to do the same.Netanyahu has called on Abbas to begin talks immediately without preconditions. Abbas has said he was simply asking that Israel meets its obligations under the road map.Israeli government officials have expressed doubt Abbas could show flexibility toward Israel before the Palestinian presidential and parliamentary elections in three months' time. (Additional reporting by Ali Sawafta in Ramallah; Writing by Jeffrey Heller in Jerusalem; Editing by Alison Williams)
Israel govt team to examine UN Gaza war report fallout Mon Oct 26, 3:43 pm ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has set up a team to outline Israel's response to a UN report on the Gaza war which has placed it under massive diplomatic pressure, officials said on Monday.The hawkish premier nevertheless ruled out setting up new inquiry committees to examine the army's conduct during the 22-day military offensive that Israel launched on December 27 in response to rocket fire from the enclave where 1,400 Palestinians and 13 Israelis were killed.There will be no investigation committee that will question soldiers and commanders in the IDF (Israeli army) because the existing procedures within the IDF are excellent,an official quoted Netanyahu as saying.Netanyahu held talks on Sunday evening with top representatives of several government ministries and the army to discuss the sensitivities and problems the report poses on Israel's diplomacy, the international laws of war and world public opinion,spokesman Mark Regev told AFP.The prime minister asked the officials to put forward their recommendations on how to deal with the different aspects,he said.Israel came under blistering international criticism and pressure after the United Nation's Human Rights Council last week adopted the Goldstone report.Israel called the endorsement of the report a diplomatic farce which harms Middle East peace efforts.Richard Goldstone, who led a fact-finding mission concluded that both Israel and Gaza's Hamas rulers, committed war crimes and possible crimes against humanity.
Goldstone recommended that the conclusions of the report be forwarded to the prosecutor at the International Criminal Court at The Hague if Israel and Hamas fail to conduct credible investigations into the conflict within six months.Israel has launched a major public relations offensive against the Goldstone report while at the same time campaigning to amend international laws of war to reflect what it says is the global spread of terrorism.An Arab diplomat at the United Nations said on Monday the UN General Assembly will discuss the Goldstone report next month.The Arab group is requesting that the report... be debated in the General Assembly in early November,said the Arab League's ambassador Yahya Mahmassani, conveying the request in a letter to Assembly president Ali Triki.Discussions would definitely now go ahead probably on November 4,he told AFP.
Calm returns to Jerusalem's Old City after clashes Mon Oct 26, 4:25 am ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – Israeli police reopened the flashpoint Al-Aqsa mosque compound to Muslim worshippers and tourists on Monday, a day after the latest clashes erupted in and around Jerusalem's flashpoint site.The streets of the Old City remained calm after the latest violence to shake the site, known as Al-Haram Al-Sharif (the Noble Sanctuary) to Muslims and as Temple Mount to Jews.There are still a number of police patrolling in and around the Old City,Israeli police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said. But the Temple Mount will be open to both visitors and Muslim worshippers.The site of the compound is the holiest place in Judaism and third-holiest to Muslims, after the Saudi cities of Mecca and Medina.Dozens of Israeli police and Palestinians were wounded when clashes erupted at the compound on Sunday after Muslim leaders called on their followers to defend the site, accusing Jewish extremists of plotting to enter.Police twice entered the compound and clashed with stone-throwing Palestinian youths in the narrow streets of the Old City, Jerusalem's main tourist attraction. At least 18 Palestinians were detained during the fighting.Sunday's violence was the latest to rock the holy site, where perceived changes in the status quo have often sparked deadly clashes.
Kadhafi says Palestinians should have nuclear weapons Sun Oct 25, 10:56 pm ET
LONDON (AFP) – Arab nations and even the Palestinians should be allowed nuclear weapons as long as Israel's nuclear ambitions are tolerated, Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi said in an interview out Monday.Israel is widely considered to be the Middle East's sole if undeclared nuclear state, and Kadhafi told Britain's Sky News television that the international community should also allow its Arab neighbours to develop nuclear weapons.If the Israelis have the nuclear weapons and the nuclear capabilities, then it is the right of the Egyptians, the Syrians, the Saudis to have the same -- even the Palestinians should have the same because their counterparts, or their opponents, have nuclear capabilities,Kadhafi said.He added: And, if we don't want this situation, so we'll have to disarm the Israelis from their nuclear weapons and capabilities.The Libyan leader said he would oppose Iran acquiring nuclear weapons if it acknowledges such a goal, but noted Tehran's insistence that its nuclear programme is peaceful -- something that Western powers dispute.Iran, up to now, hasn't said it is manufacturing a nuclear weapon: Iran says it is enriching uranium,Kadhafi said.If Iran were to manufacture nuclear weapons, nuclear arms, then all of us, including us, will be against them. But Iran has not said so.He added: Our position is clear and it should be clear and evident... that we are against anyone who manufactures, possesses a nuclear weapon, whether it is Iran, America, Libya, or the Israelis.Meanwhile he said US President Barack Obama merited winning the Nobel Peace Prize, but had been given it too soon.I do believe he deserves it, but to be given right now I think it is some sort of hypocrisy, sycophancy, and I think it is premature. It is not due yet,he said.
Israel to review its own Gaza war probe: source By Dan Williams – Sun Oct 25, 3:53 pm ET
JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Hoping to defuse a U.N. report fiercely critical of its war in Gaza, Israel plans to review the internal inquiries that cleared its armed forces of serious wrongdoing, a political source said Sunday.Israel has been under pressure to set up an independent investigation into war-crimes allegations raised by the fact-finding mission under South African jurist Richard Goldstone.Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak hope this move will put the issue to rest,the source, a government aide speaking on condition of anonymity, said.Israel bombarded and invaded the Gaza Strip last December in what it said was a response to rocket fire by Palestinian Hamas. It refused to cooperate with Goldstone, citing bias concerns.The Goldstone report lambasted both sides in the war, which killed up to 1,387 Palestinians and 13 Israelis, but was harsher toward Israel. It gave both sides six months to mount credible investigations or face possible prosecution at The Hague.Goldstone has said he would have confidence in an independent Israeli investigation. Such panels have, in the past, prompted high-level political resignations and reshuffles.But the political source said Netanyahu and Barak did not want to preempt a series of internal military investigations that supported the army's tactics. The handful of courts-martial since the war have been on minor charges such as looting.The idea is to set up a team to double-check the findings, to ensure there was no whitewash or lack of professionalism,the source said, adding that Netanyahu's and Barak's initiative awaited cabinet approval next week.Asked why the government resisted the idea of an independent investigation, the source said: Netanyahu is afraid of having his hands tied if further action is required in Gaza.
A Netanyahu spokesman declined comment. Barak's office did not immediately confirm the review initiative, but made clear it considered Israel's Gaza veterans off limit to further probes.Defense Minister Ehud Barak reiterates and clarifies that no investigative commission will be set up ... that will investigate an Israel Defense Force soldier or officer,it said in a statement.The State of Israel intends to struggle against the legitimacy of the Goldstone report. In addition, Israel will take action so that the laws of war are amended to bring them into line with the struggle against terrorists who operate among civilians.Israel has lobbied against any bid to bring the Goldstone report to the U.N. Security Council. Netanyahu said such a move would be an assault on Israel's right to self-defense and would hurt U.S.-led efforts to revive peacemaking with the Palestinians.Hamas, an Islamist group that refuses permanent coexistence with the Jewish state, has said it would form a committee to investigate the allegations in the Goldstone report.(Writing by Dan Williams; Editing by Michael Roddy)
Abbas decrees elections, with or without Hamas By BEN HUBBARD, Associated Press Writer – Sat Oct 24, 4:24 pm ET
RAMALLAH, West Bank – Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said Saturday his government would hold presidential and parliamentary elections on Jan. 24, regardless of whether it reaches a power-sharing deal with the rival militant Hamas group that rules the Gaza Strip.Hamas criticized the announcement, deepening the rift between the Islamic group and Abbas' secular Fatah movement, which have led dueling governments in Gaza and the West Bank for the past two years. The split has complicated efforts at Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking.The decision to hold balloting in the West Bank, east Jerusalem and Gaza satisfies a legal requirement that Abbas decree elections, but binds him to a vote that many see as unlikely to happen, given Hamas opposition.Abbas said Palestinian law required him to decree elections for January after Hamas rejected a unity deal that would have postponed elections until June.When we didn't reach national reconciliation, we returned to the constitution and the law,Abbas told the Palestine Liberation Organization's central council in Ramallah.But he did not say how his Palestinian Authority would apply the decree, which he signed Friday, outside the West Bank, the only territory where it holds sway. Although Palestinians see east Jerusalem as the capital of their hoped-for state, Israel annexed the territory in 1967 after capturing it and would need to approve voting there.
Abbas would face a similar obstacle in Gaza, which Hamas seized by force in 2007.
The latest round of Egyptian-brokered reconciliation talks fell apart this week when Hamas refused to sign a reconciliation agreement after Fatah accepted it. Hamas said it disagreed with portions of the final document dealing with elections and security forces.On Saturday, Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri called Abbas' election decree unconstitutional and illegal and said elections cannot be held with without reconciliation.We see from Abbas' statements today that Abbas wants elections under conditions that he sets. Elections can't be held under these circumstances, as long as there is no agreement,Abu Zuhri said.Hamas' Damascus-based leadership and seven other Syria-based radical Palestinian factions also rejected the decree on Saturday, saying it would deepen internal divisions.We condemn this step and consider it illegal and unlawful,Hamas' top leader, Khaled Mashaal, told reporters. Reconciliation first and then we go to elections.Under Palestinian law, the election results would be legitimate even if Gazans weren't allowed to participate as long as representatives from Gaza were to appear on ballots.Political analyst Hani al-Masri said Abbas' decree sought to reaffirm his legitimacy as president while pressuring Hamas into accepting a reconciliation agreement. Abbas was elected in 2005 to a four-year term that was later extended by a year, a move Hamas has refused to recognize.
Abu Mazen wants to make Hamas come back to the Palestinian political scene, but he wants them to do so after recognizing his legitimacy and leadership, not as competitors and opposition, Masri said, referring to Abbas by his nickname.
Palestinian legislative elections were last held in 2006, when Hamas won a majority.
Fatah members insist the decree was a constitutional requirement and not intended to pressure Hamas, though they say they still want reconciliation.The door of reconciliation with our brothers in Hamas is open and we won't close it until the last moment,said leading Fatah member Jibril Rajoub. Other say elections can only realistically be held after a unity agreement.Any real action that is taken by the Palestinians has to be done under an agreement,said Fatah member Qadoura Faris.Without that, nothing can be done.
Palestinians must recognize Israel as Jewish: Israel PM Sat Oct 24, 1:47 am ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, in an interview published Saturday, Palestinians needed to recognize Israel as a Jewish state in order to resolve their conflict.That's right, Netanyahu told The Washington Post when asked if such a recognition was needed.Israel is not a binational state, he explained.It has non-Jews who live here with full, equal rights, but it has two things that assure its special character. It's the homeland of any Jew. And there is a very broad consensus in Israel that the Palestinian refugee problem should be resolved outside Israel's borders.Netanyahu said Palestinians will have to make a final peace deal with the Jewish state of Israel.Jews come here and Palestinians will go there. So choose. That's the basis of a solution," the Israeli prime minister said.
Palestinian PM sees state structure ready by 2011 Sat Oct 24, 1:33 am ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) – Palestinian prime minister Salam Fayyad said, in an interview published Saturday, that his government was determined to complete building a structure of a future Palestinian state by 2011.We've committed ourselves to a path of completing the task of institution building,he told The Washington Post.He said the institution building meant the capacity to govern ourselves effectively in all spheres of government within two years.Asked if Palestinians should declare an independent state in 2011, Fayyad said: I said this will be the program of the Palestinian government -- it will commit itself to deliver the state in terms of capacity within two years.
