West Bank separation barrier draws protests Mon Oct 19, 1:58 pm ET
JERUSALEM – The separation barrier Israel started building in the West Bank seven years ago amid a deadly wave of suicide bombings has been a lightning rod of controversy from day one.Israel says the barrier is essential to its security. But Palestinians claim it to be a land grab and have been holding weekly demonstrations ever since.The 680-kilometer (425-mile) barrier is a combination of concrete walls, fences, trenches and patrol roads. It runs along the line between Israel and the West Bank but in certain parts cuts into Palestinian territory, leaving almost 10 percent of the West Bank on the Israeli side.The Palestinians say the barrier severs them from their land, disrupts their lives and cripples their economy. They have mounted a series of Supreme Court challenges to the barrier's route, forcing Israel to make adjustments.The wall segment of the barrier has been a particular draw for protesters, who have sprayed it with anti-Israel graffiti. Artistic opposition has also found its way as far as the Tel Aviv beach, where bathers lay on fake slabs of concrete.
Israel pulls textbook over reference to ethnic cleansing Mon Oct 19, 12:13 pm ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – Israel's Education Ministry has recalled all copies of a history textbook because of a passage alleging ethnic cleansing of Palestinians during the 1948 war, a newspaper reported on Monday.Israel's Haaretz newspaper said the secondary school textbook was removed from shelves because it sought to present both Israeli and Arab perspectives on the departure of some 750,000 Palestinians during the fighting that erupted after the creation of the Jewish state.The Palestinians have always said they were violently expelled by Jewish forces while Israel has maintained they were ordered to flee by invading Arab states or alarmed by inflammatory Arab radio reports.The fate of the refugees and their descendants, who now number some 4.6 million and are scattered across the region, has been one of the most divisive issues in the decades-old Middle East conflict.The textbook in question, for 11th and 12th graders, contained both versions of the events side-by-side, but according to Haaretz the ministry took issue with the Palestinian version.
It quoted the passage in question as saying: The Palestinians and the Arab countries contended that most of the refugees were civilians who were attacked and expelled from their homes by armed Jewish forces, which instituted a policy of ethnic cleansing.Haaretz said the textbooks would be reissued after corrections are made.The education ministry could not immediately be reached for comment.Since assuming office in March, Israel's right-wing government has sought to reinforce Israel's Jewish identity, including by instituting a plan to change traffic signs to display only Hebrew place names.Israel's former dovish Education Minister Yuli Tamir sparked controversy in December 2006 when she said school textbooks should show Israel's borders prior to the 1967 Six Day war, during which it conquered Egypt's Sinai, the Gaza Strip, the Golan Heights and the West Bank including east Jerusalem.
Israel returned the Sinai under a peace treaty with Egypt in 1979 and annexed the Golan and east Jerusalem. The Palestinians have demanded the occupied West Bank, east Jerusalem and Gaza as their future state.
Fatah hits out at Hamas over stalled unity deal Mon Oct 19, 7:29 am ET
RAMALLAH, West Bank (AFP) – Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas's Fatah party lashed out at the Islamist Hamas movement on Monday, blaming it for the failure of an Egypt-proposed Palestinian unity agreement.The vitriol came as Abbas prepared to leave for Egypt later on Monday for talks with President Hosni Mubarak on Tuesday on the reconciliation process.Hamas has a bigger stock of lies than Netanyahu,Mohammed Dahlan, a senior Fatah official, told reporters in Ramallah, referring to the right-wing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.They got everything they asked for in the Egyptian document, and we in Fatah knew that our position would draw fire from the sons of Fatah... But despite all this we agreed to it,he said.
Hamas has thwarted all efforts. They have frustrated us and Egypt.Egypt has been struggling to broker a reconciliation agreement between the two main Palestinian factions for months and this month proposed an agreement that would see new elections held in June.Fatah has signed the agreement while Hamas has repeatedly postponed its official response, saying it needs more time to mull the deal.Dahlan insisted that in the absence of a deal Abbas would call elections for January in accordance with the constitution.We have taken our final decision to go to elections at the constitutionally appointed time... because we respect the law,he said.The bitter divisions between Fatah and Hamas go back to the start of limited Palestinian self-rule in the 1990s, when Fatah strongmen cracked down on the Islamist militant group.Their divisions boiled over in June 2007 when Hamas -- which had won parliamentary elections a year before -- drove Abbas's loyalists from Gaza in a week of bloody clashes, seizing control of the impoverished territory.
Jordan king warns over US Mideast policy Mon Oct 19, 6:22 am ET
ROME – Jordan's king said in comments published Monday that the U.S. administration seems to be focusing more of its attention on Iran and less on resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, saying time was running out to make peace.In an interview with Italian daily La Repubblica, King Abdullah II said the region's hopes for peace were huge at the start of the Obama administration, but now sees the goal getting farther away.I've heard people in Washington talking about Iran, again Iran, always Iran, Abdullah was quoted as saying. But I insist on, and keep insisting on the Palestinian question: the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the most serious threat to the stability of the region and the Mediterranean.Abdullah granted the interview on the eve of a visit to Italy starting Monday.He said the two sides have a window of opportunity over the next year to make progress on creating a two-state solution, after which point the possibility of a Palestinian state will disappear as more Arab land gets swallowed up by Jewish settlements.The window of opportunity will soon close,he was quoted as saying.By the end of 2010, if Israel doesn't believe in the two-state solution, the possibility of a future Palestinian state will disappear because of geographic reasons: already the land is fragmented into cantons.He urged Washington and the European Union to put pressure on Israel to sit down with the Palestinians to negotiate peace, even though he remains suspicious of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and somewhat disillusioned with the U.S. effort to date.
I'll be sincere; I had expected more, sooner,he said of the U.S. efforts and the seven missions already conducted by the U.S. envoy George Mitchell.I believed in a decisive turn at the beginning of the summer, ahead of a true peace negotiation at the United Nations,he said. But the question of Israeli settlements — which are illegal according to the international community — remains central.Obama began his term in office with a Mideast peace push that included an unequivocal call for Israel to halt settlement activity in the West Bank. Though Netanyahu agreed in principle to the formation of a Palestinian state and said he would limit settlement construction for a limited time, he refused to agree to a full halt.The White House recently appears to have softened its position, saying it was time for the sides to start talking again even if settlement work continues.
Israel claims Russian pledge on Gaza war report Mon Oct 19, 4:38 am ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – Russia has assured Israel that it will oppose any UN Security Council discussion of a damning report on the Gaza war, a senior Israeli official told AFP on Monday.Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov wrote in a letter that Moscow would oppose the Security Council, of which it is a veto-wielding member, examining the Goldstone report, the official said on condition of anonymity.The Russian ambassador to Israel, Peter Stegnyi, handed the letter to the foreign ministry several days ago,he said.
There was no immediate reaction from Russia to the comments.
Russia on Friday was among the 25 countries that voted to endorse the Goldstone report at the Geneva-based UN Human Rights Council, a vote that Israel has blasted as unjust.Six countries on the 47-member Council voted against and 16 either abstained or did not vote.The report, compiled by a UN-mandated mission led by South African judge and war crimes prosecutor Richard Goldstone, accused Israel and Hamas of war crimes during the 22-day war at the turn of the year that killed 1,400 Palestinians and 13 Israelis.The report recommended that its conclusions be passed to the prosecutor at the International Criminal Court at The Hague if the two sides fail to conduct credible investigations of the war within six months.Discussion of the report at the Security Council would bring it one step closer to a possible referral to the ICC.
Turkey defends criticism of Israel's mistakes Sun Oct 18, 12:55 pm ET
ANKARA (AFP) – Turkish President Abdullah Gul defended his government's criticism of Israel on Sunday amid a war of words over the Gaza conflict which has soured relations between the regional allies.Gul noted in a television interview that majority-Muslim Turkey was one of the rare countries to maintain good relations with both Arab nations and the Jewish state.But that does not mean that Turkey will not raise its voice against mistakes if they are made. ... We should not think that Turkey would keep quiet,he told TRT public television.Gul did not specify the mistakes, but Turkey has repeatedly slammed Israel over the 22-day war in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, launched on December 27 in response to rocket fire from the Palestinian territory.Turkey criticises Israeli policy regarding the Palestinian territories with courage, but this is not bound to shake the foundations of bilateral relations, Gul said.Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan launched on Saturday a new, if veiled, verbal attack on Israel saying: Turkey has never, in its history, been on the side of persecutors, it has always defended the oppressed.
Erdogan has been at the forefront of global criticism of the Gaza war, storming out of a debate at the World Economic Forum in January where he told Israeli President Shimon Peres that you know well how to kill people.Relations took another sharp downturn last week when Ankara excluded the Jewish state from annual joint military exercises, prompting a rebuke from the United States.In recent days, Israel criticised a Turkish state television series that depicts Israeli soldiers deliberately killing Palestinian children.The spat has prompted a large Israeli cafe chain to stop selling Turkish coffee in its shops until matters improve.A top official at Israel's national airline El Al said his employee association and those of several other major Israeli businesses plan to stop subsidising vacations for their workers to Turkey during the Passover holiday next April.
Abbas's popularity dips over Gaza war report By Mohammed Assadi – Sun Oct 18, 7:17 am ET
RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) – Anger among Palestinians over President Mahmoud Abbas's original position on a Gaza war report critical of Israel has cost him public support in a rivalry with Hamas, a poll showed on Sunday.The survey by the Jerusalem Media and Communications Center (JMCC) indicated Abbas would receive 16.8 percent of the vote, with Hamas Islamist leader Ismail Haniyeh running neck-and-neck with 16 percent, if a presidential election was held now.In terms of overall popularity in the occupied West Bank and in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, Abbas's rating dropped to 12.1 percent from 17.8 percent in the previous JMCC poll in June. Haniyeh's approval rating held steady at 14.2 percent.Abbas, whose Fatah party lost control of the Gaza Strip to Hamas in fighting in 2007, has said his administration erred in approving a U.N. decision in Geneva two weeks ago to delay action on the report on the December-January Gaza war.He was widely believed to have bowed to U.S. pressure over the matter, taking a stance that surprised and angered many Palestinians and, according to the JMCC, led to his popularity decline in the new poll.
Abbas reversed course last week.
In a special session proposed by the Palestinians, the U.N. Human Rights Council on Friday endorsed the report by South African jurist Richard Goldstone, who accused both Israel and Hamas of war crimes but was more critical of Israeli actions.The council passed a resolution that singled out Israel for censure without referring to any wrongdoing by Hamas.Abbas has said he would proceed with plans to hold presidential and parliamentary elections in January unless Hamas agreed to a deal proposed by Egypt to delay the ballot until June.Egypt has been trying to mediate a reconciliation pact between Fatah, which has accepted the unity proposal, and Hamas, which is still weighing the plan.The JMCC said it interviewed 1,200 people in the West Bank and Gaza Strip between October 7 and 11, a few days after the Palestinian Authority agreed to defer the U.N. report. It said the poll had a margin of error of three percent.(Editing by Richard Williams)
Muslims concerned about Israeli settlements: Mubarak Sat Oct 17, 5:40 pm ET
ROME (AFP) – Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said Saturday the entire Muslim world was concerned about Israel's settlement construction in Palestinian territories, ANSA news agency reported.Mubarak, who met with Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi during a visit in Rome, also denounced what he described as Israel's attempts to assimilate Jerusalem.Israel's continuation of settlement construction worries not only the Palestinians but the entire Muslim world,Mubarak said.The international community considers Israeli settlements in all of the West Bank including east Jerusalem to be illegal and a major impediment to a Middle East peace deal.The United States has demanded a complete freeze to Jewish settlements in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, land the Palestinians want to turn into a future state. But Israel has so far balked at the call.The fate of Jerusalem, with sites sacred to Christians, Jews and Muslims, is one of the most sensitive issues in the decades-old Middle East conflict.Israel captured east Jerusalem in 1967 and annexed it in a move not recognised by the international community. It considers the entire city to be its eternal, indivisible capital.The Palestinians want to make eastern Jerusalem the capital of their promised state.
Khamenei urges OIC to support Palestinians Sat Oct 17, 4:02 pm ET
TEHRAN (AFP) – Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Saturday told the visiting Senegalese president whose nation heads the world's largest Islamic body to do more for Palestinians, his website reported.The aim of creating the Organisation of the Islamic Conference is to follow up the Palestinian issue and therefore the OIC has an important responsibility,Khamenei told Senegal's Abdoulaye Wade.Today Palestine is really oppressed and alone and is in need of a calculated move (of support) by the Islamic world,Khamenei said without elaborating.The demand of Muslim nations is to aid Palestine and it is up to the OIC to bring hope to the hearts of the Palestinian people by supporting them,he added.Senegal has held the presidency of the the 57-member OIC since March 2008.Khamenei's comments come nearly a month after he denied that Iran -- a staunch supporter of the Palestinians -- was seeking a military solution to the Middle East conflict.Khamenei then stressed it was a lie... claimed by Western media that Iran is attempting to destroy the Zionist regime (Israel) by military equipment.The Islamic republic has proposed a reasonable, logical and humane plan,the leader said, referring to a proposed referendum to decide on the future of Israel, the Gaza Strip and West Bank.However, after the 1979 Islamic revolution, Tehran withdrew its recognition of Israel.The Jewish state considers the Islamic republic to be its arch-enemy after repeated statements by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that the Holocaust was a myth and Israel is doomed to be wiped off the map.
Arab League says US donations used to finance settlements Sat Oct 17, 2:22 pm ET
CAIRO (AFP) – The Arab League on Saturday urged US President Barack Obama's administration to prevent American associations from collecting funds to finance Israeli settlement building in annexed east Jerusalem.Mohammed Sobeih, a deputy secretary general in charge of Palestinian affairs, told reporters such funding was being used for a hostile and illegal act which stands in the way of reaching a peace deal.Such associations, exempted from taxation, help to finance the building of Israeli settlements in the Old City and other districts of east Jerusalem, according to a report compiled by the Arab League's office in Washington.Sobeih said the report showed some of the funds were being used to seize properties from their Palestinian residents and to expel them, singling out the ultra-nationalist American Friends of Ateret Cohanim.Financed by Jewish American millionaire Irving Moskowitz, the charitable trust has been linked to Jewish settlement projects in the occupied West Bank, including east Jerusalem.But it has denied reports that American donations finance the purchase of disputed lands.The Obama administration has been pressing hard for Israel to halt all construction work on occupied Palestinian land ahead of the resumption of Middle East peace talks. Israel has so far balked at the demand.
Israel's Netanyahu vows long fight against U.N. report By Allyn Fisher-ilan – Sat Oct 17, 9:40 am ET
JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised a lengthy diplomatic battle to delegitimise United Nations charges that Israel committed war crimes in the Gaza Strip, an official said on Saturday.The U.N. Human Rights Council singled out the Jewish state for censure in a resolution on Friday, while endorsing a report by South African jurist Richard Goldstone which condemned both Israeli and Hamas actions in a war last December and January.Netanyahu, who has said the Goldstone report could undermine U.S.-sponsored Middle East peace moves and that he would object to Israelis standing trial for war crimes, was quoted as saying Israel would wage a protracted struggle against the criticism.Israel must delegitimise the delegitimisation,Netanyahu said, according to an Israeli official. He said the campaign would not take just a week or two but possibly years.Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon said on Friday that Israel totally and completely rejected the U.N. council's vote condemning Israel but not the Palestinian Islamist faction. However, Ayalon added that he thought Israel would not ultimately suffer any significant consequences.Twenty-five states including China and Russia endorsed the resolution passed by the council meeting in Geneva, while six including the United States voted against, charging that the resolution was one-sided. Eleven states abstained. Four, including France and Britain, did not vote at all.
The resolution endorsed Goldstone's recommendation that the war crimes issue be referred to the U.N. Security Council if the sides failed to conduct credible domestic investigations within six months, and possibly then to the International Criminal Court.It did not mention Hamas, which Goldstone also criticized for its actions in the Gaza war. Palestinians say that as many as 1,387 Palestinians died, among them many civilians, while 13 Israelis were killed.Palestinians have said they would name committees to see to implementation of Goldstone's recommendations. Hamas said on Friday it would investigate, but did not comment on the report's criticism of the Islamist group.Western-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas would also see to forming a panel to implement the report so it doesn't end up lying on a shelf like other resolutions do,said an aide, Yasser Abed-Rabbo, in the West Bank.Israel had said it launched the war in response to Hamas rocket attacks which had terrorized residents of Israeli towns bordering on the Gaza Strip for several years, though they caused few casualties.(Additional reporting by Ali Sawafta in Ramallah and Nidal al-Mughrabi in Gaza)(Editing by David Stamp)
Rice to hold bilateral Middle East talks: US mission Fri Oct 16, 7:55 pm ET
UNITED NATIONS (AFP) – The US ambassador to the UN Susan Rice will hold bilateral talks with Israeli and Palestinian leaders during a trip to Israel next week, her office confirmed Friday.Rice will travel Monday to represent President Barack Obama's administration and deliver remarks at an annual conference hosted by Israeli President Shimon Peres, entitled Facing Tomorrow,the US mission here said in a statement.Ambassador Rice's remarks will focus on our common vision of a better future that is possible with resolve and collective action,it added.Israeli Ambassador to the UN Gabriela Shalev told AFP Thursday that Rice would be visiting Israel to attend the conference and to meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Rice's bilateral talks will come after the Geneva-based UN Human Rights Council (HRC) Friday endorsed a UN report accusing Israel and Palestinian militants Hamas of war crimes and possible crimes against humanity during the 22-day Gaza conflict.The report by a panel led by respected South African judge Richard Goldstone was particularly critical of Israel's disproportionate use of force in response to rocket firing by Palestinian militants and of its failure to protect civilians during its Gaza onslaught.Washington Friday defended its decision to vote no on the Goldstone report while saying it remained deep concerned over the violence that took place in December and January.Our voting no against this in no way diminishes the deep concern that we have about the tragic events of last January and the suffering caused by the violence in Gaza and southern Israel,State Department spokesman Ian Kelly told reporters.He echoed the concerns expressed by Goldstone, who said the resolution's wording, unlike his report, slammed only Israel and spared Hamas, the Islamist movement that rules the Gaza Strip.We thought that the resolution had an unbalanced focus. And we're concerned that it will exacerbate polarization and divisiveness,said Kelly.
Palestinian vote in January if no unity deal: Abbas By Mohammed Assadi – Thu Oct 15, 12:36 pm ET
RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) – Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said Thursday he would hold elections as planned in January unless Hamas agreed to an Egyptian reconciliation deal that would delay the polls until June.Our Basic Law stipulates that elections must be held before January 24th, 2010,Abbas told a news conference after meeting Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero.According to the Egyptian document, elections should be held on 28th of June 2010. If there is an agreement (with Hamas) we will abide by it, but if there is no agreement we will abide by the Basic Law,Abbas said.Abbas's aides have made similar statements but the Western-backed leader's comments, voiced while Hamas continued to weigh Cairo's proposal, marked the first time he has said publicly he would order January polls in the absence of a deal.Egypt has been trying for more than a year to close the wide rift between Abbas's secular Fatah faction and Islamist Hamas, which won a parliamentary election in 2006 and took over the Gaza Strip in a brief Palestinian civil war in 2007.Under the proposed reconciliation, a committee of Palestinian factions would act as a liaison between the Fatah-dominated government in the West Bank and Hamas, and a joint police force would be formed.While likely to be welcomed by many Palestinians, such Fatah-Hamas cooperation could pose a problem for Israel and the United States, which has been pressing Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to resume peace negotiations.Hamas opposes the talks, suspended since December, and has rejected Western demands to recognize Israel, renounce violence and accept existing interim peace deals.
Egypt has invited Fatah and Hamas to attend a ceremony on October 24-26 in Cairo, where they were expected to sign a reconciliation pact.But Hamas asked last week for a postponement, citing Abbas's agreement under U.S. pressure to back the deferral by the U.N. Human Rights Council of a vote on a report that accused Israel of war crimes during Israel's December-January Gaza offensive.The report, by South African jurist Richard Goldstone, also said Hamas militants, who carried out cross-border rocket attacks on communities in Israel, committed war crimes.(Additional reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi in Ramallah and Dan Williams in Jerusalem, Writing by Allyn Fisher-Ilan and Jeffrey Heller, Editing by Matthew Jones)
Syria raises doubts about signing EU partnership Wed Oct 14, 3:59 pm ET
DAMASCUS (AFP) – Syria indicated on Thursday it might not sign a partnership deal with the European Union on October 26 as announced in Brussels last week, saying it wanted to study the deal in detail.The accord was frozen by the EU in 2004,Foreign Minister Walid Muallem said at a press conference with his visiting Spanish counterpart, Miguel Angel Moratinos.The European decision not to sign surprised us and, consequently, the Syrian government wants to study all the details of the deal.
If the goverment concludes its review during the Swedish presidency (of the EU, which ends on December 31) we will sign the accord. If not, we will sign it during the Spanish presidency,which begins on January 1.On October 8, a diplomat in Brussels said the deal is due to be signed with Syria on October 26 in Luxembourg.The EU and Syria first drew up the draft pact in 2004 but it was never signed by EU nations. The Netherlands, in particular, had demanded a clause allowing for its suspension in the event of proven rights abuses.The EU froze relations with Damascus after the assassination in February 2005 of former Lebanese premier Rafiq Hariri, despite Syria's denials of involvement.Muallem recently warned in Paris that political conditions" would be unacceptable under any final accord.But the source said a compromise brokered by the Swedish presidency would see a separate memorandum of understanding signed by the Europeans to deal with rights concerns.It will in substance say that the EU reserves the right to suspend the association accord, the diplomat underlined.
An updated text agreed in February envisaged the granting of financial aid to Syria in return for economic reforms, after which Syrian President Bashar al-Assad called in April for more European investment in his country.He said Damascus had launched a series of reforms to liberalise its markets and drawn up the necessary legal framework for a reform of its financial and tax systems.Meanwhile, Moratinos said Spain would push Israel to re-engage in the peace process with the Palestinians.
Moratinos is accompanying Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, who met Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on a regional tour that will take them to Israel, the Palestinian territories and Lebanon.He said Spain would make every effort to encourage the Israeli authorities to engage in the peace process in a more effective way ... which is a vital necessity after 60 years of conflict between Arabs and Israelis.
US puts spotlight on Quartet goals for Palestinians Tue Oct 13, 5:51 pm ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) – The United States supports efforts at reconciling feuding Palestinian factions, as long as it produces a government that respects Quartet goals, a State Department spokesman said Tuesday.We certainly favor an effective Palestinian government, and we are certainly supportive of a reconciliation process, spokesman Philip Crowley said in a press briefing.The Quartet -- the United States, European Union, Russia and United Nations -- call for recognition of Israel's right to exist, respect for earlier agreements and renunciation of violence.Palestinian Basic Law mandates that a new general election must be called at least three months before the end of the sitting parliament's mandate, a deadline which falls on October 25.But feuding between the Islamist Hamas and secular Fatah since 2006 elections won by Hamas has deeply divided the Palestinian camp, with Hamas ruling Gaza and Fatah in charge of the West Bank.Egypt has sought to broker a reconciliation with little apparent success and analysts say failure to reach an agreement on holding general elections could permanently harden those divisions.If you have a unity government that operates ... on the basis of the principles that we've laid out, then we will be supportive of it,Crowley stressed.
We'll be happy to work with whoever is in a Palestinian government that support the principles,Crowley said.He said that US envoy George Mitchell, just back from the Middle East, would welcome an Israeli delegation on Thursday and a Palestinian one October 20.Tensions between Hamas and Fatah date back to the start of limited Palestinian self-rule in the mid-1990s when Fatah strongmen cracked down on Islamist activists.They rose again in January 2006, when in a surprise election rout, Hamas beat the dominant Fatah to grab more than half the seats in parliament.Their differences boiled over into a week of deadly street clashes in June 2007 that ended with Hamas routing pro-Fatah forces from Gaza.
Israel to join NATO Mediterranean patrols Tue Oct 13, 6:49 am ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – The Israeli navy will join a NATO force patrolling the Mediterranean Sea as part of the global war on terror,a military spokesman said on Tuesday.The spokesman confirmed a report by the Maariv newspaper which said the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation headquarters last week approved the Israeli Navy's inclusion in Operation Active Endeavour.The navy will participate in the activities,the spokesman said.The announcement came as a major boost just days after Turkey scrapped a joint aerial exercise that was to have included Israel, Maariv said.Bilateral relations have taken a downturn since Israel launched a devastating military offensive in Gaza in December.Operation Active Endeavour was launched one month after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York.
As part of the operation, NATO ships patrol the Mediterranean to monitor shipping to help detect, deter and protect against terrorist activity,according to the transatlantic alliance.Task Force Endeavour consists of surface units, submarines and patrol aircraft and regularly uses frigate forces.Israel had first requested to deploy a vessel as part of the force two years ago to participate in the global war on terror,Maariv said.In Israel's international situation today, with legitimacy for its military actions shrinking, even a patently minor development, such as the inclusion of an Israeli ship in the alliance's naval police force, is big news,the newspaper said.
