Palestinians intensify settlement products boycott
MAY 18,10
RAMALLAH, West Bank – Hundreds of volunteers in the West Bank have begun distributing a list of 500 Israeli settlement products they want Palestinian consumers to boycott.Tuesday's door-to-door drive by university students is part of an intensifying Palestinian campaign against settlement goods.Israel has built dozens of settlements on captured land the Palestinians want for a state. Palestinian leaders say Palestinians must do whatever they can to deprive settlements of a lifeline.Last month, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas signed a law banning work in settlements and the sale of settlement products.Israel has reacted angrily. The Israelis say business should not be mixed with politics and urging Palestinians to call off the campaign.
Hamas executes three Palestinians in Gaza Strip
MAY 18,10
GAZA (Reuters) – Gaza's Hamas-run government executed three Palestinians convicted of murder on Tuesday, ignoring appeals by human rights groups against capital punishment in the territory.Amer Jendeya, Rami Joha and Mater al-Shobaki were sentenced to death in 2005 over separate killings.Their execution, which Hamas described as a response to popular demand to impose law and order, followed the deaths by firing squad in April of two Palestinians convicted of collaborating with Israel.The executions last month were the first in the Gaza Strip since 2005 and drew calls from Palestinian rights groups and London-based Amnesty International not to press ahead with the practice.Hamas Islamists seized the Gaza Strip in 2007 in fighting with Palestinian President Mahoud Abbas's Fatah faction. Hamas is shunned by the West over its refusal to recognize Israel, renounce violence and accept existing interim Israeli-Palestinian peace deals.(Reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi, Writing by Ori Lewis; Editing by Ralph Boulton)
Israel rejects Qatar diplomatic overtures: report
Tue May 18, 2:01 am ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – Israel has rejected two offers from Qatar to re-establish diplomatic ties and reopen an Israeli trade office in the Gulf state, Haaretz newspaper reported Tuesday.The overtures were rejected due to a demand from the Qataris that they be allowed to carry out massive reconstruction in the besieged Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, the paper said, quoting an unnamed senior Israeli official.
Qatar severed ties with the Jewish state and shut the trade office in Doha to protest Israel's fierce 22-day assault on Gaza that began in December 2008 to end militant rocket attacks.Some 1,400 Palestinians and 13 Israelis were killed in the fighting. Since the end of the conflict Israel and Egypt have maintained a strict blockade of the strip, allowing in only humanitarian aid.Haaretz said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman initially welcomed the move but ultimately baulked at allowing the import of large quantities of cement and building materials into Gaza.Israel feared the material would be used to build bunkers and reinforced positions for missiles,Haaretz quoted the official as saying.
Israeli officials were not immediately available for comment.Israel has agreed in the past to let Qatar and France reconstruct the Al-Quds hospital in Gaza City which was destroyed in the war.
Abbas to meet US envoy on Wednesday: Palestinians
Mon May 17, 9:18 am ET
RAMALLAH, West Bank (AFP) – Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas is to meet US envoy George Mitchell on Wednesday to discuss final-status issues in indirect peace talks with Israel, the chief Palestinian negotiator said.Mitchell will then meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday, an Israeli official told AFP on condition of anonymity.The discussions between Abbas and Mitchell on Wednesday will concern final-status issues with Israel, head Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat told AFP, referring to core disputes in the decades-old conflict such as Jerusalem and Palestinian refugees.For now we will focus on the issues of borders and security in order to demarcate two states along the 1967 border,he added.He warned however that continued Israeli settlement activity, including in annexed east Jerusalem, could scupper the talks.The Israeli side has just two options, either peace or the continuation of the settlements. Israel cannot have both at the same time,he said.US officials have said Mitchell is expected in the region this week but they have not yet said when he would arrive or released details about his schedule.
Mitchell left the region a week ago after convincing Israel and the Palestinians to launch an initial round of US-mediated proximity talks.The indirect negotiations were first agreed on in March but the initiative collapsed within days when Israel announced plans to build 1,600 settler homes in east Jerusalem during a visit by US Vice President Joe Biden.The Palestinians eventually agreed to the talks after receiving US assurances that the project would be frozen.Israel, which captured east Jerusalem in the 1967 Six-Day war and later annexed it, considers the Holy City its eternal and indivisible capital, a claim not recognised by the international community.The Palestinians have always demanded mostly Arab east Jerusalem as the capital of their promised state.The last round of direct negotiations between the two sides collapsed in December 2008 when Israel launched a devastating war on the Gaza Strip in a bid to halt Palestinian rocket fire aimed at Israeli towns.
Israeli coalition wobbly on peace terms: minister
By Douglas Hamilton – Mon May 17, 2:29 am ET
JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's six-party, center-right coalition is divided as Israel heads into indirect peace talks with the Palestinians, a cabinet minister said on Sunday.I can't say the coalition is united. That would be a lie if I told you that, said Trade and Industry Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer of the Labour Party -- the only left-wing group in the government and an advocate of conceding land for peace.U.S. President Barack Obama's envoy George Mitchell, who is mediating in the proximity talks, is to resume meetings on Tuesday, in the first substantive sessions since the Palestinians agreed to the indirect negotiations, which have been given a maximum of four months to produce results.
Ben-Eliezer did not give a rundown of where the six Israeli coalition partners stand on the peace process, but he said the skeptical views of Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, a hawk who leads the rightwing Israel My Home party, were known.
Netanyahu also does not have the wholesale support of his own rightist Likud bloc, the largest in the coalition, according to Ben-Eliezer.A majority back the prime minister, but not 100 percent,he told reporters at an informal briefing. Netanyahu had the strong support of younger Likud members, he added.
NO GRAND COALITION IN SIGHT
The Palestinians are deeply and openly divided about peace with Israel. The Islamist Hamas movement controlling the Gaza Strip, where 1.5 million Palestinians live, rejects outright a peace agreement that would recognize the Jewish state.The Palestinian Authority of President Mahmoud Abbas, which holds sway in the occupied West Bank, agreed under strong U.S. pressure to resume talks, without obtaining the formal Israeli pledge to totally freeze settlements that it had insisted on.But Ben-Eliezer stressed that everything is on the table as talks restart after a long hiatus, including Israeli settlements and the future status of Jerusalem.Netanyahu has pledged that Jerusalem is Israel's eternal capital and will not be divided. The Palestinians want the eastern part of the city as the capital of their country under a two-state solution -- a goal Netanyahu backs in principle.The Israeli leader is also under pressure from Obama, who says solving the conflict is a vital security interest of the United States as it battles anti-Western Islamist militancy.
Unconfirmed Israeli media reports at the weekend said Washington had signaled to Netanyahu that his coalition might sound as defiant as it liked for internal political purposes, provided its actions only advance the peace process.Netanyahu formed the coalition just over 13 months ago after the outgoing center-right Kadima party led by then-Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni failed to secure a parliamentary majority to carry on in office.Direct peace talks between that government and the Palestinian Authority of Abbas were showing few outward signs of progress and were suspended in late 2008.Speculation that Livni might join Netanyahu in a grand coalition with the political power to make major concessions for peace and override the objections of smaller, far-right parties has not so far been borne out.
Kadima is itself struggling with internal divisions.Ben-Eliezer, a fluent Arab-speaker who has accompanied Netanyahu on three occasions for talks about the stalled peace process with Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak, said he was convinced that the Israeli leader is determined to make peace. Labour had joined Netanyahu's coalition in order to use its influence on the inside to guarantee that the peace process will start.But the popular mood in Israel is shifting to the right, he added, and only a right-wing leader can lead such a dramatic breakthrough.He said of Netanyahu: I believe he can do it.(Editing by Elizabeth Fullerton)
Israeli left flies flag to urge end to occupation By Alastair Macdonald – Sun May 16, 11:22 am ET
JERUSALEM (Reuters) – A weekend rally in Jerusalem by Israelis demanding an end to their country's settlement and occupation of the West Bank was hailed by its left-wing sponsors as the start of a major push that could help U.S. peace efforts.But the turnout of just a couple of thousand people drew scorn from settlers, who count on the rightist-led government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to resist President Barack Obama's drive for a deal to establish a Palestinian state.This is a beginning,said one of the rally's organizers, Yariv Oppenheimer of the anti-settlement Peace Now group, promising to step up public campaigning.It's a good turnout.A crowd of 2,000 or so -- a shadow of the mass peace rallies of the 1990s but an improvement on recent attempts to galvanize support -- waved blue-and-white Israeli flags and placards reading Zionists Are Not Settlers on a warm Saturday evening.Speaker after speaker told them they were the true patriots defending a Jewish state which risked disaster if nationalists on the right held on to occupied land so that Palestinians under Israel's rule would soon outnumber its 5.5 million Jews.We want a Jewish state for the Jewish people with clear, recognized borders, not a Jewish state built on settlements and discrimination,said Eldad Yaniv, a founder last year of the National Left, one of several new groups arguing Israel must quit Arab land to remain a democracy with a Jewish majority.Accused of treason and of being anti-Zionist by the national camp comprising religious settlers and their backers on Israel's right, the National Left's manifesto focuses on establishing its own credentials as defenders of a Zionist state whose founding generation were mostly secular socialists.These people are getting more aggressive about being Zionist,said David Ricci, a politics professor at Jerusalem's Hebrew University who took part in the rally.It's kind of new: they're saying a Palestinian state is in our interests.
SHOWING OBAMA
For Anat Maor, a former member of parliament for the small, left-wing Meretz party, the evening showed Israel's peace camp was still alive: It's important to us to show that it's not just outside pressure. It is the voice of the people of Israel.
Reflecting skepticism about Netanyahu's good faith in saying he wants a two-state solution with the Palestinians, one man held a sign reading: Barack Obama, Please Force Peace On Us.I'm here because my country is being taken away from me by the right, said Zohar Eviatar, a psychology professor at Haifa University, as she waved a blue-and-white flag.Yonat, a 26-year-old youth worker, said as the national anthem concluded the rally on downtown Jaffa Road: Originally Zionism is a left-wing ideology. The right has taken Zionism in a fascist direction but the flag and anthem are ours.About 500,000 Jews, some citing a Biblical birthright, live in the West Bank and areas in and around East Jerusalem that Israel captured in a 1967 war. Palestinians want to establish a state in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip.While opinion polls continue to show mainstream support for a two-state solution outweighs opposition to handing over occupied land, voters deserted left-wing parties in droves after a Palestinian uprising began in 2000. They have yet to recover.
The long dominant Labour party of state founder David Ben-Gurion and the late, peacemaking premier Yitzhak Rabin has had just 13 of 120 seats in parliament since the election last year that brought Netanyahu's right-wing Likud back to power.Many on Saturday wore blue T-shirts bearing the faces of Ben-Gurion and Rabin, who was assassinated at a peace rally in 1995 by an Israeli rightist. They heard Achinoam Nini, a singer who also performed on the night Rabin was shot, tell them from the platform: We must take our fate in our own hands.Netanyahu, pressed by the Obama administration, last year dropped his outright opposition to a Palestinian state. But few analysts believe the conflict is close to resolution, despite a resumption of negotiations this month via U.S. mediators. Settler leader Danny Dayan scoffed: The total failure of the new, united left movement to bring out more than a handful of demonstrators ... proves once again that the overwhelming majority of Israelis recognize that the Jewish residents of Yesha (the occupied territories) are true Zionists.With a dose of self-deprecating humor on behalf of the aging baby-boomers and idealistic youngsters gathered to fly the flag of Israel's left, politics professor Ricci said: This is group therapy. It's important that people come out and know that there are other people like me and that it's not all over.(Editing by Tim Pearce)
Russia arms sales to Syria don't help peace: Israel
Sun May 16, 6:51 am ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman on Sunday criticised Russia for supplying arms to Syria, saying the move did not help efforts to bring peace to the region.The sale of these weapons does not contribute to building an atmosphere of peace, Lieberman told Israel's public radio in what was an unusually muted statement from the outspoken minister.Lieberman's remarks came just days after a top Russian military official said Moscow was supplying Syria with MiG-29 fighter jets, Pantsir short-range air defence systems and armoured vehicles.He also insisted the regime of Bashar al-Assad was not interested in peace, and described as naive anyone who believed Syria would be ready to cut ties with Iran and Lebanon's Hezbollah militia in exchange for a return of the Golan Heights, which Israel occupied during the 1967 Six Day War.Israel and Syria remain technically in a state of war, and Russia's arms sales and possible nuclear cooperation with Syria, which has close ties to Iran, is unnerving for both the Jewish state and Washington.
Israel has also accused Syria of supplying Hezbollah with Scud missiles.
Lieberman also fired a further salvo of criticism over Russia's hypocritical stance on terrorism after Russian President Dmitry Medvedev held talks with exiled Hamas supremo Khaled Meshaal during a visit to Damascus.Following the visit, Medvedev and his Turkish counterpart Abdullah Gul called for the radical Islamist movement, which has ruled Gaza since 2007, to be included in the peace process -- in a move which drew a furious response from Israel.Russia, but also Egypt and Turkey as well as other countries, have a policy of differentiating between good and bad terrorism, between that which targets Israel and that which targets others,Lieberman said.We will not accept any ultimatum with regard to Hamas, and we won't let this movement take part in any peace process,he said.
Gaza-Egypt border post opens for three days: Hamas
Sat May 15, 7:02 am ET
GAZA CITY (AFP) – An Egyptian border post at Rafah in southern Gaza was opened on Saturday for the first time in 10 weeks, the Islamist movement Hamas which controls the blockaded Palestinian territory said.Its interior ministry said around 300 Palestinians had crossed the border on Saturday and that 8,000 others were expected to follow during the opening due to last three days.The 1.5 million residents of the impoverished Gaza Strip have largely relied on a network of tunnels under the Egyptian border since Israel and Egypt tightened an already strict closure after Hamas seized power in 2007.Most of the tunnels are used to bring in basic goods such as food, household appliances and livestock, but Hamas and other militant groups use more secret tunnels to bring in arms and money.Egypt is building an underground wall in a bid to curb smuggling, which it views as a security risk.
Russia to sell Syria warplanes, air defense systems
Fri May 14, 3:16 pm ET
MOSCOW/JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Russia has signed deals to sell Syria warplanes, anti-tank weapons and air defense systems, a senior Russian arms trader said on Friday, prompting an outcry from Syria's foe Israel.Mikhail Dmitriyev, head of the Federal Service for Military-Technical Cooperation, said Russia would supply Syria with MiG-29 fighters, truck-mounted Pantsir short-range surface-to-air missiles and anti-aircraft artillery systems.He said Russia would also supply Damascus with anti-tank weapons but did not specify their type.Syria's regional foe Israel reacted angrily to the deal but called into question the solvency of Damascus.Syria at the present time cannot afford to pay for this sophisticated weaponry, indeed, it has hardly enough money to buy food for its citizens. One can only wonder what is the real reason behind this dubious deal, said an Israeli government official in Jerusalem who declined to be named.Israel's close ally the United States imposed sanctions on Syria for its support of militant groups and corruption.Earlier this week, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev visited Syria -- the first visit to Damascus by a Moscow ruler since the 1917 Bolshevik revolution -- and oversaw talks on Russia's possible assistance in building a nuclear power plant in Syria.While in Syria, Medvedev unnerved Israel by paying a visit to Khaled Meshaal, the exiled leader of the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas.Russia's haste to win this contract has seen it even willing to meet with notorious Hamas leaders in Syria, the anonymous Israeli official said.Israel's Foreign Ministry said it was deeply disappointed that Medvedev met the leader of Hamas, which it said was a terror organization in every way.(Reporting by Dmitry Solovyov; additional reporting by Ori Lewis in Jerusalem; editing by Jon Boyle)
U.N. seeks torture probes in Syria, Yemen, Jordan By Stephanie Nebehay – Fri May 14, 10:37 am ET
GENEVA (Reuters) – The United Nations torture watchdog urged Syria, Yemen and Jordan Friday to investigate what it called numerous and credible allegations that their police and prison authorities routinely tortured detainees.Its 10 independent experts also voiced concern at honor crimes by family members in Syria and Jordan which go unpunished and violence against women and children in Yemen.Their conclusions on a total of eight countries were issued at the end of a three-week meeting.In Yemen, it voiced alarm at killings, forced disappearances, torture, arbitrary arrests and indefinite detentions without charge or trial carried out in the context of the fight against terrorism.There was a climate of impunity for perpetrators of acts of torture in Yemen,the U.N. Committee against Torture said.No exceptional circumstances whatsoever can be invoked as a justification for torture and...anti-terrorism measures must be implemented with full respect for international human rights law,it added.Yemen's government, struggling to stabilize a fractious country in which central authority is often weak, faces international pressure to quell domestic conflicts in order to fight a resurgent al Qaeda.
The U.N. torture watchdog also voiced concern at reports it had received that Syria has set up secret detention facilities under the command of intelligence services, where inmates are held incommunicado and subject to cruel treatment.It cited numerous reports of torture, ill-treatment, death in custody and incommunicado detention of people belonging to the Kurdish minority, in large part stateless, in particular political activists of Kurdish origin.Moreover, the committee notes with concern reports of a growing trend of deaths of Kurdish conscripts who have died whilst carrying out their mandatory military service and whose bodies were returned to the families with evidence of severe injuries,it said of Syria.The U.N. experts urged Syrian authorities to clarify the case of Muhannad al-Hassani, president of the Syrian Organization for Human Rights, who was arrested last July on charges of weakening national sentiment.A lawyer who has defended leading opposition figures, he won an international human rights award last week [ID:nLDE6461J1].(Editing by Jonathan Lynn)
Obama seeks funds to boost Israeli rocket defenses
Thu May 13, 6:44 pm ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) – US President Barack Obama has asked Congress to approve 205 million dollars to help Israel deploy an anti-missile defense system, the White House said Thursday.The president recognizes the threat missiles and rockets fired by Hamas and Hezbollah pose to Israelis, and has therefore decided to seek funding from Congress to support the production of Israel's short range rocket defense system called Iron Dome, White House spokesman Tommy Vietor said.Israel completed tests in January on its Iron Dome anti-missile system, designed to intercept short-range rockets and artillery shells fired at Israel by Hamas and Hezbollah.The next phase in its development is to integrate it into the army. Israel hopes the system will provide it with a means to deal with rocket fire from the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip and from Lebanon.Palestinian militants have fired thousands of home-made rockets into southern Israel, prompting Israel's devastating assault on the Islamist Hamas in Gaza on December 27, 2008.The Lebanese militant group Hezbollah also fired some 4,000 rockets into northern Israel during a 2006 war with Israel, which now believes Hezbollah has an arsenal of some 40,000 rockets.As the president has repeatedly said, our commitment to Israel?s security is unshakable and our defense relationship is stronger than ever,said Vietor.The United States and our ally Israel share many of the same security challenges, from combating terrorism to confronting the threat posed by Iran?s nuclear-weapons program.
The move comes after ties between Israel and its key ally the US were strained by an announcement of new Israeli settler homes in east Jerusalem made during a visit to the Jewish state by Vice President Joe Biden.Israel's President Shimon Peres also sparked controversy in April when he accused Syria of supplying the Shiite Hezbollah movement with long-range Scud missiles, a charge Damascus has staunchly denied.
Washington, which has sought rapprochement with Damascus, further fed the controversy when Defense Secretary Robert Gates accused Iran and Syria of arming Hezbollah with sophisticated weaponry, without naming Scuds.US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has also warned Syrian President Bashar al-Assad about the risks of triggering a regional war if he supplied the Shiite group with the missiles.Fragile indirect talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority of president Mahmud Abbas opened Sunday with US envoy George Mitchell shuttling between the two sides in Jerusalem and Ramallah.
Hamas hails Russian, Turkish call for inclusion in peace
Thu May 13, 1:16 pm ET
GAZA CITY (AFP) – Hamas hailed Russia and Turkey on Thursday for suggesting the Palestinian Islamist movement be included in the Middle East peace process.The invitation by Russia and Turkey to include the movement in the political process reflects the true political weight of the movement,senior Hamas leader Salah al-Bardawil said.Recognition of the legitimacy of Hamas will increase to include other countries besides Russia, he said.Hamas, which seized power in the Gaza Strip in 2007, is considered a terrorist organisation by the United States, the European Union and Israel.Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Turkish President Abudllah Gul said in Ankara on Wednesday that Hamas should not be excluded from Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts, sparking Israel's ire.
World newspaper forum called off due to crises
Thu May 13, 5:55 am ET
BEIRUT – A Lebanese newspaper says the global financial crisis coupled with regional tensions have derailed its hosting of a world gathering of newspaper executives and editors planned for next month.The World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers has said that the World Newspaper Conference that was to be held in Beirut from June 7-10 was canceled because Lebanese host An-Nahar was not able to provide the agreed funding for the event.A World Editors Forum planned at the same time in the Lebanese capital was rescheduled for October 6-8 in Hamburg, Germany.
An-Nahar said Thursday it deeply regretted the cancellation. It said the global financial crisis and repeated Israeli war threats against Lebanon scared away advertisers and sponsors of the event.Regional tensions have risen recently over Israeli claims that Syria has provided Lebanon's Hezbollah with advanced missiles. Syria and Lebanon's Western-backed government have denied the accusations which provoked exchanges of warnings between Israel and Hezbollah.The 2010 world newspapers congress would have marked the first time the newspaper executives' meeting was held in an Arab nation.About 700 senior newspaper executives were registered for the Beirut events.
Israel defiant on settlements as it marks Jerusalem Day by Hazel Ward – Wed May 12, 2:56 pm ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed on Wednesday that construction would continue unabated in all of Jerusalem, as he addressed a ceremony marking the 43rd anniversary of Israel's capture of the city's Arab eastern sector.
You can't flourish in a divided city and a flourishing city can't be divided or frozen, Netanyahu said.We will continue to build and develop ourselves in Jerusalem.
The Palestinians have warned that continued construction in Jewish settlements in annexed Arab east Jerusalem will torpedo newly launched indirect peace talks which are being brokered by the United States.They want to make east Jerusalem the capital of their promised state but Israel, which captured it in the 1967 Middle East war and then annexed it in a move not recognised by the international community, lays claim to the entire city as its eternal, indivisible capital.Each year, Israelis celebrate the anniversary, known as Jerusalem Day, with parties, parades and solemn ceremony.Festivities kicked off at sundown on Tuesday with an open-air concert by US funk band Kool and the Gang and continued through the night with prayers and gatherings.
Security was tight, with thousands of police deployed across the city to ensure the festivities went off without a hitch.Several thousands of police and border police have been mobilised, with the deployment of forces particularly high in the Old City,police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld told AFP.On Wednesday, thousands of people, mostly nationalist-religious Jews, marched through Jerusalem to the Western Wall, one of the holiest sites in Judaism.Netanyahu spoke in an evening memorial ceremony, attended by President Shimon Peres and other officials, at Ammunition Hill where Israeli troops fought a fierce battle with Jordanian forces in 1967.Tensions in and around Jerusalem have soared in recent months over the deeply controversial issue of Jewish construction in east Jerusalem.Despite US assurances to the Palestinians that Israel would freeze some settlement activity in the eastern sector for the next two years, Israel has denied making any such commitment.There is no agreement about freezing building in east Jerusalem and normal life in Jerusalem will continue as in every other city in Israel, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman told journalists during a visit to Tokyo.
Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat also insisted that there would be no halt to construction in the united and undivided Holy City.The municipal borders of Jerusalem are not negotiable and building will continue across all of the city under Israeli sovereignty, Barkat told army radio.Israel marks Jerusalem Day in accordance with the Hebrew calendar.It captured east Jerusalem on June 7, 1967, the third day of the Six-Day War, and unilaterally annexed it.In 1980, Israel passed a law declaring Jerusalem its eternal and indivisible capital. Israeli human rights groups say the Holy City is sharply divided and that Palestinian residents suffer from discrimination. Jewish settlements and the status of Jerusalem are among the thorniest issues in the Middle East peace process.
US signals unease over Russian-Syrian civilian nuclear talks
Wed May 12, 2:41 pm ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) – The United States signaled unease Wednesday with Russia-Syria nuclear talks, saying countries looking at energy cooperation with Damascus should be aware of Syrian shortcomings on nuclear matters.What concerns us is ... Syria has not answered questions that have been raised about its compliance with the NPT, the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, State Department spokesman Philip Crowley told reporters.And all countries that contemplate energy cooperation need to take that into account, Crowley said when asked about Russian-Syrian civilian nuclear talks.
During a visit to Damascus on Tuesday, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev voiced Moscow's readiness to build a nuclear power station in Syria as it has long been doing in Iran, Syria's main regional ally.The use of nuclear energy can get a second wind in Syria, Medvedev said, without elaborating.
Netanyahu turns to Bible in tussle over Jerusalem By Dan Williams – Wed May 12, 1:03 pm ET
JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Beset by questions about Jerusalem's future in talks with the Palestinians, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reached for the Bible on Wednesday to stake out the Jewish state's contested claim on the city.Netanyahu told a parliamentary session commemorating Israel's capture of East Jerusalem from Jordan in the 1967 war that Jerusalem and its alternative Hebrew name Zion appear 850 times in the Old Testament, Judaism's core canon.As to how many times Jerusalem is mentioned in the holy scriptures of other faiths, I recommend you check, he said.
Citing such ancestry, Israel calls all of Jerusalem its eternal and indivisible capital -- a designation not recognized abroad, where many powers support Arab claims to East Jerusalem as the capital of a future Palestinian state.The dispute is further inflamed by the fact East Jerusalem houses al-Aqsa mosque, Islam's third-holiest shrine, on a plaza that Jews revere as the vestige of two biblical Jewish temples.Heckled by a lawmaker from Israel's Arab minority, Netanyahu offered a lesson in comparative religion from the lectern.Because you asked: Jerusalem is mentioned 142 times in the New Testament, and none of the 16 various Arabic names for Jerusalem is mentioned in the Koran. But in an expanded interpretation of the Koran from the 12th century, one passage is said to refer to Jerusalem,he said.
Responding to Netanyahu's citations, Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erekat said: I find it very distasteful, this use of religion to incite hatred and fear. East Jerusalem is an occupied Palestinian town, and East Jerusalem cannot continue to be occupied if there is to be peace.
MANY RULERS
Destroyed as a Jewish capital by the Romans in the 1st century AD, Jerusalem was a Christian city under their Byzantine successors before falling to Muslim Arabs in the 7th. European Crusaders regained it for a century, after which came 700 years of Muslim rule until Britain defeated the Ottoman Turks in 1917.As Britain prepared to quit, the United Nations proposed international rule for the city in 1947 as a corpus separatum.That proposal was overtaken by fighting that left Israel holding West Jerusalem in 1948 and Jordanian forces in East Jerusalem. Israel then took the rest in the Six Day War of 1967.The city, within boundaries defined by Israel but not recognized internationally, is now home to 750,000 people, two in three of them Jews and the rest mostly Muslim Palestinians.Netanyahu did not refer in his speech to indirect peace negotiations with the Palestinians that resumed this month after 1-1/2 years of U.S. trouble-shooting. Diplomacy has been mired by mutual recrimination, including from Israel over the Palestinian refusal to formally recognize it as a Jewish state.This has ossified into diehard hostility among Palestinians aligned with Islamist Hamas, while those more inclined toward peacemaking accuse Israel of sabotaging prospects by treating occupied land as a Jewish birthright that can be freely seized.
Netanyahu said Israel would retain control over all of Jerusalem while ensuring freedom of worship at its holy sites.Such assertions are challenged by Palestinians given that Israel, over the last decade of fighting, has often limited their access to al-Aqsa. Christians in the adjacent West Bank complain of similar difficulties in reaching Jerusalem churches.There is no undercutting, nor do I intend to undercut, the connection of others to Jerusalem, Netanyahu said. But I do confront the attempt to undercut and warp or obfuscate the unique connection that we, the people of Israel, have to the capital of Israel.(Editing by Elizabeth Fullerton)
Israel blasts Russian talks with Hamas
Wed May 12, 12:44 pm ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – Israel sharply criticised Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Wednesday for having met the exiled Hamas supremo Khaled Meshaal in the Syrian capital Damascus.The foreign ministry also sharply rejected what it said was a call from Medvedev and his Turkish counterpart Abdullah Gul to include Hamas in the peace process.There is no difference between Hamas actions against Israel and Chechen terror against Russia, a ministry statement said.The foreign ministry vehemently rejects the call from the presidents of Russia and Turkey to include Hamas in the peace process and expresses deep disappointment over the meeting between the president of Russia and Khaled Meshaal in Damascus.Hamas is a terrorist organisation in every aspect, with the outspoken goal of destroying the state of Israel, it said in a statement.Hamas members are responsible for the deaths of hundreds of innocent people, including Russian citizens, the statement added.Israel has always stood by Russia in its fight against Chechen terror and that is what we expect with regard to Hamas terror against Israel.
Medvedev met Meshaal at his base in exile in Damascus on Tuesday during a first ever visit to Syria by a Russian head of state.The Hamas leader has made three visits to Moscow, the most recent in February.Western governments continue to blacklist the Islamist movement which rules Gaza as a terrorist group despite its victory in Palestinian parliamentary elections in 2006.
Israel FM: Iran, Syria, NKorea new axis of evil By MALCOLM FOSTER, Associated Press Writer – Wed May 12, 6:23 am ET
TOKYO – Israel's foreign minister on Wednesday declared North Korea, Syria and Iran the new axis of evil, claiming that North Korean weapons seized in Bangkok in December were bound for Middle Eastern militant groups Hamas and Hezbollah.Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said during a visit to Japan that the three countries are cooperating and pose the biggest threat to world security because they are building and spreading weapons of mass destruction.This axis of evil that includes North Korea, Syria and Iran, it's the biggest threat to the entire world,he told journalists in Tokyo.We saw this kind of cooperation only two or maybe three months ago with the North Korean plane in Bangkok with huge numbers of different weapons with the intention to smuggle these weapons to Hamas and Hezbollah, Lieberman said without elaborating.Axis of evil originated in then-President George W. Bush's first State of the Union address in 2002, where he named North Korea, Iran and Iraq as threats to the United States.
Acting on a tip from the United States, Thai authorities on Dec. 12 seized an Ilyushin Il-76 cargo plane from the North Korean capital of Pyongyang when it landed in Bangkok. It was carrying 35 tons of weapons — a violation of U.N. sanctions against North Korea.Flight documents indicated the plane's cargo — listed as oil drilling equipment — was headed for the Iranian capital Tehran. Iranian officials denied they were importing weapons.Analysts have said that while the aircraft may have been heading for Iran, the weapons could actually have been earmarked for radical Middle Eastern groups like Hamas and Hezbollah which Iran has bankrolled and supplied with weapons in the past.The five-man crew — four from Kazakhstan and one from Belarus — claimed they were ignorant of what they were carrying. The crew was deported in February after prosecutors dropped all charges against them.Thai authorities say the weapons on board included explosives, rocket-propelled grenades and components for surface-to-air missiles.The U.N. imposed sanctions banning North Korea from exporting any arms after the communist regime conducted a nuclear test and test-fired missiles. Impoverished North Korea is believed to earn hundreds of millions of dollars every year by selling missiles, missile parts and other weapons to countries such as Iran, Syria and Myanmar.Lieberman, who heads an ultranationalist party that is a junior partner in Israel's coaltion government, also claimed that missile programs in Iran and Syria were receiving crucial assistance from the North Korean side. He gave no evidence.
Israel has long accused Syria of aiding the Jewish state's bitterest enemies. Syria harbors the exiled leadership of Hamas and other anti-Israel Palestinian groups. Israel also says Syria funnels Iranian arms to Hezbollah, the Lebanese guerrilla group that battled Israel to a stalemate in a one-month war in 2006.In recent weeks, Israel's president, Shimon Peres, has accused Syria of providing Scud missiles to Hezbollah, potentially upsetting the balance of power in the region, and claimed that North Korea is a duty free shop for weapons that reach Iran, Lebanon and Syria.
Lieberman, who met with Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama during his visit, also said that the Israeli government is ready to start direct peace talks without preconditions with the Palestinians.The two sides completed the first round of U.S.-brokered, indirect peace talks over the weekend, resuming negotiations after a 17-month hiatus.It's not necessary to speak about conditions to open or to restart the direct talks,Lieberman said.We have our experience, and we signed two peace agreements with our neighbors — with Jordan and Egypt — as a result of direct talks, not proximity talks.Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has said he will not hold direct talks until Israel stops all settlement construction in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, the sector of the city Palestinians claim as a future capital. Israel has only agreed to a temporary slowdown in the West Bank, but not in east Jerusalem.Lieberman, heads an ultranationalist party that is Netanyahu's junior partner in the coalition also called for tough sanctions on Iran by the U.N. Security Council over its refusal to stop uranium enrichment. The United States and its allies fear Tehran will use the process to build a nuclear weapon. Iran denies any intention to do so, saying its nuclear program aims only to generate electricity.Associated Press Writer Eric Talmadge in Tokyo and Josef Federman in Jerusalem contributed to this report.
