ABBAS MEANS THE ENTIRE WORLD IS FOR DIVING JERUSALEM FROM ISRAELIS.THIS BRINGS ON WW3 SO WATCH OUT WORLD,YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.
Abbas says entire world wants direct Mideast talks By MOHAMMED DARAGHMEH, Associated Press Writer – Sun Jul 25, 7:04 am ET
RAMALLAH, West Bank – Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said Sunday that despite intense international pressure from the entire world, he is still not willing to start direct negotiations with Israel.Abbas told the Voice of Palestine radio that talks would be doomed without a clear framework.The Palestinians are wary of entering open-ended negotiations with Israel's hardline prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. They want Israel to first accept the principle of a Palestinian state in the lands it captured in the 1967 Mideast War, with some alterations.Netanyahu has endorsed the creation of a Palestinian state but refuses to be pinned down on the details before direct talks begin. Since May, U.S. Mideast envoy George Mitchell has shuttling between Abbas and Netanyahu to try to narrow the gaps, so far in vain.Abbas aides said he has received phone calls in recent days from the leaders of Germany, Britain and Italy, among others, urging him to go to direct talks.The entire world is asking us to go for direct negotiations, but going to negotiations without a clear reference might make them collapse from the first moment, Abbas told the radio from Uganda, where he was visiting.We are not against meetings, whether in Ramallah or Tel Aviv,Abbas added. The issue is to set the ... reference for negotiations. After that, we are ready to go anywhere.Direct talks between Abbas and Netanyahu's predecessor, Ehud Olmert, broke down in late 2008. Abbas wants talks to pick up where they left off. Netanyahu has refused to do so.On Thursday, Arab League foreign ministers are to meet in Cairo to decide whether to back the move to direct negotiations.
Abbas aide Saeb Erekat said the Palestinians would ask the Arab world to recommend continuing with indirect talks until they are slated to end Sept. 8, at which point the Palestinians will decide how to proceed. However, President Barack Obama is pushing for direct talks to start as quickly as possible, and it's unclear how much longer Abbas can withstand the mounting pressure.In other developments Sunday, a prominent Muslim cleric in Israel began serving a jail term for spitting at a police officer and leading a demonstration near Jerusalem's Old City in 2007. He is slated to serve five months after an Israeli court shortened his original nine-month sentence.At the time, Raed Salah was protesting Israeli renovation work near the compound known to Jews as the Temple Mount and Muslims as the Al-Aqsa Mosque. Salah heads a small, hardline Muslim group whose members come from Israel's one-fifth Arab minority. He has had repeated run-ins with Israeli authorities.In 2003 Salah was jailed for two years on charges that his organization funneled money to the Palestinian militant group Hamas, responsible for dozens of suicide bombings targeting Israelis.
Israel slams UN council's Gaza flotilla probe
Sun Jul 25, 6:01 am ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – Israel on Sunday dismissed moves by the UN Human Rights Council to open its own probe into a deadly raid on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla, saying the panel was biased.This panel of experts is not intending to look for the truth but to satisfy the non-democratic countries which control the Human Rights Council, who have an automatic anti-Israeli majority,a senior Israeli official told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity.His remarks came two days after the UN body named a panel of experts to investigate whether the commando operation, in which nine Turkish activists were shot dead, breached international law.Although Israel has yet to respond officially to the council's request for cooperation, the government was widely expected to refuse to have anything to do with it. An official statement is expected out later this week.Speaking to Israel HaYom newspaper, a senior official from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said there was no chance Israel would cooperate with such a biased investigation.It is clear that this is a biased committee with a biased mandate, which was established by a council that deals with Israel in a tendentious and truly obsessive way, he told the paper, which is considered close to Netanyahu.However, the mass-selling Yediot Aharonot daily reported that Israel was likely to agree to cooperate with the work of another UN committee examining the raid -- an international panel proposed by UN chief Ban Ki-moon which will include both Turkish and Israeli participation.Although the committee has not yet been set up, Israel has been in consultations with Ban over its composition, the paper said.In return for its cooperation, Israel has asked that the committee begin its work only after the Jewish state has completed its own internal probe, and that the panel's findings take precedence over all other international probes into the raid, the paper said.
Israel has consistently rejected calls for an international independent investigation into the raid and instead launched two internal inquiries.Troops involved in the raid say they resorted to lethal force only after being attacked when they rappelled from helicopters onto the deck of the Turkish passenger ferry Mavi Marmara in international waters.But the activists who were on the ship say the naval commandos opened fire as soon as they boarded.The 47-member Human Rights Council condemned the raid as an outrageous attack during an emergency session just days after the operation and decided to set up a commission of inquiry.The panel is due to present its findings in mid-September.
Four Gaza rockets hit southern Israel: army
Sun Jul 25, 4:29 am ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – Gaza-based militants fired four rockets into southern Israel over the weekend, a military spokesman said on Sunday.None of them caused any casualties or damage, the spokesman said, adding that since the start of the year around 90 rockets or mortar rounds had been fired into southern Israel.In December 2008, Israel launched a devastating assault on Gaza in a bid to halt near daily rocket fire from the besieged Palestinian territory.Some 1,400 Palestinians and 13 Israelis were killed in the 22-day war.After a year of quiet following the assault, Gaza militants have recently stepped up the cross-border rocket fire.
Hamas thrives in Gaza's besieged economy
by Mai Yaghi – Sun Jul 25, 1:04 am ET
GAZA CITY, Palestinian Territories (AFP) – The tranquil lawns of the seaside Garden Resort are a high-end oasis in the impoverished Gaza Strip -- and a new source of income for the Hamas-linked charity that owns it.The beach club, one of several commercial ventures recently launched by groups and individuals linked to Hamas, illustrates the Islamist movement's growing dominance of an economy crippled by a four-year-old Israeli blockade.The 1.25 million dollar (one million euro) resort is owned and operated by the Islamic Foundation, a charity established by Hamas's spiritual founder, Ahmed Yassin, that has long provided aid to poor families and orphans.Some 2,000 people have visited each weekend since the foundation established the club and an adjacent fish farm earlier this year, with most paying the eight dollars per family admission fee and many dining at its restaurant.These projects provide a service to citizens in order to relieve the burdens of the (Israeli) occupation and the devastating war, said foundation chairman Abdelrahim Shihab.The project encourages economic growth ... But our priority is the citizen and not the investment.Israeli and Egyptian border closures imposed after the capture of an Israeli soldier in June 2006 and tightened when Hamas seized power a year later have devastated Gaza's private sector, sending unemployment above 40 percent.But the sanctions have had little visible impact on Hamas, which taxes and regulates a thriving trade carried out through hundreds of smuggler tunnels beneath the Egyptian border that supply most of Gaza's daily needs.
Hamas regularly pays the salaries of over 20,000 civil servants and security forces, and at the start of the year the Hamas-run government approved a 540-million-dollar (377-million-euro) budget, with nearly 90 percent of revenue coming from undisclosed foreign aid.Iran and several international Islamic charities provide aid to the group -- which is pledged to Israel's destruction and listed as a terrorist organisation by the West -- through mostly secret channels.The economy in the Gaza Strip has thrived in the face of the Israeli siege, Hamas economy minister Ziad al-Zaza told AFP.But the government is determined to invest firstly for the benefit of the citizen.He attributes Hamas members' growing role in the economy to the ouster of the Western-backed Palestinian Authority led by the rival Fatah movement, which sidelined Hamas until the Islamists drove it out in June 2007.The sons of Hamas were prevented in the past from working and participating, but today there are opportunities for them, he said.They can start to have a clear presence because of their expertise.The Islamic Foundation has launched eight projects in all, including bakeries, farms, a supermarket and a restaurant, and had a nine million dollar budget in 2009, according to Shihab.Fifty percent of the revenues of these projects go to establishing new projects to serve the people,he said.Any for-profit project must advance the goals of the association and its expansion and continuation.
Just down the beach another Hamas-linked charity, whose headquarters were destroyed by an Israeli air strike during the 2008-2009 Gaza war, has established the Freedom Resort, which includes a new 250,000 dollar wedding hall, according to its director, Saber Abu Kirsh.Hamas is also widely believed to be behind a new shopping mall that opened this week in Gaza City with a ceremony attended by several Hamas ministers and professors at the Hamas-linked Islamic University. The mall's manager, Siraj Abu Selim, denied Hamas was involved in the three million dollar (2.3 million euro) project, but refused to give the names of any of the mall's owners or chief investors. Zaza said the government had encouraged the establishment of several commercial projects but had not provided any funding for them.It plays a more direct role in other projects, however, including the Bisan City tourist village on the northern edge of the territory.The sprawling facility, which includes gardens, playgrounds, football fields, a petting zoo and restaurants, attracts some 6,000 people every weekend, many of whom are brought in on government-subsidised buses.
And despite the fact that almost all building materials have to be smuggled into the territory, the park includes a new wedding hall and work is under way on what managers say will be an Olympic-sized swimming pool. The 1.5 million dollar project, built on government land under the supervision of Hamas interior minister Fathi Hammad, charges 75 cents for adult admission, with children entering for free. The 270 dunam (67 acre, 27 hectare) park abuts an 84 dunam cattle and chicken farm as well as food processing facilities, also operated by the interior ministry. Some visitors on a recent weekend were surprised by the charges.The ticket price is fine for me, but it would be a lot for some people,said Umm Jalal al-Ayubi, who came with her three children.It's a government-owned place. It should be free.The high-end beach resorts have also proven popular, but many wonder how Hamas-linked groups can build new facilities when thousands of homes severely damaged or destroyed during the war remain in ruins. Abu Kamal, a 53-year-old man whose home was destroyed during the Israeli assault launched in December 2008 in a bid to halt Palestinian rocket attacks, grumbled at the eight dollar admission fee at the Garden Resort. The priority should be to rebuild Gaza and build new homes for those of us who had ours destroyed by the occupation during the war,he said.
Hamas blasts UN over call for Gaza land aid deliveries
Sat Jul 24, 9:47 am ET
GAZA CITY, Palestinian Territories (AFP) – Gaza's Hamas rulers on Saturday slammed a UN call for aid bound for the Palestinian enclave to be delivered over land rather than by sea.The UN call to international organisations to use the over-land road to Gaza instead of the sea is unacceptable and illegal, said Sami Abu Zahri, spokesman for the Islamist movement.The United Nations said on Friday that groups delivering aid to Gaza should do so by land, as Israel warned it would intercept ships trying to bust its naval blockade of the impoverished enclave.Hamas said the UN position was akin to collaboration with the Israeli occupier.Most of the residents of the territory are still banned from leaving the territory and this is why this call is considered a contribution to the blockade,Abu Zahri said, urging aid organisations to ignore the UN call.Groups trying to deliver aid to the coastal enclave should continue to reach Gaza by sea until the blockade is really broken.Israel has warned its forces will prevent any attempt to dispatch aid to Gaza by sea despite a raid by its forces on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla that killed nine Turkish activists on May 31.
The Jewish state's UN ambassador, Gabriela Shalev, wrote to UN chief Ban Ki-moon to warn that her country reserves its right under international law to prevent two Lebanese ships from sailing to the Gaza Strip.Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak renewed the warning on Friday, saying the navy would prevent the aid-carrying Lebanese ships from reaching the Palestinian territory.If this flotilla does leave Lebanon and refuses to be led by our navy to the (Israeli) port of Ashdod, we will have no other choice than to arrest it at sea,Barak said.Organisers announced plans in June to set sail for Gaza with two ships, the Julia and the Junia, which they respectively renamed as the Nagi el-Ali, after a Palestinian cartoonist killed by gunmen in London in 1987, and the Mariam.On Saturday one of the Nagi el-Ali's organisers told AFP that preparations for the trip have progressed but added that the departure will not take place for weeks,citing technical obstacles.He did not elaborate but a government official said that paperwork for the trip was proving problematic.The Mariam, on the other hand, has been docked at the northern Lebanese port of Tripoli since Tuesday, organisers and port officials said without elaborating.Israel imposed the blockade on Gaza in June 2006 after its soldier, Gilad Shalit, was captured by Gaza militants and tightened it a year later when Hamas seized power in the coastal strip.
Hariri calls for calm after Hezbollah revelations
Sat Jul 24, 7:08 am ET
BEIRUT (AFP) – Prime Minister Saad Hariri called on Saturday for calm in Lebanon in the face of expectations that a UN-backed court may implicate members of the powerful Hezbollah group in the 2005 murder of his father, ex-premier Rafiq Hariri.
His comments came two days after Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah revealed that he expected rogue members of his Shiite party to be indicted for Rafiq Hariri's assassination five years ago.There are those who fear or even hope that the (Hariri) murder case will unleash a Lebanese crisis or confessional strife, the prime minister said in a speech to members of his Future Movement.There are attempts... to organise campaigns aimed at sowing confusion and concern in the minds of the Lebanese people, Hariri said.There is no need for this fear... We call for calm, he added.The UN tribunal's president, Antonio Cassese, said earlier this year he expects an indictment in the case between September and December, sparking fears in already tense Lebanon of a repeat of the violence that brought the country close to a new civil war in 2008.On Thursday, the Hezbollah chief told a news conference via video link that Hariri told him some members of the Shiite movement would be indicted by the Hague-based Special Tribunal for Lebanon investigating the murder.I was personally informed by Prime Minister Saad Hariri before his visit to Washington (in May) that the tribunal will accuse some undisciplined members of Hezbollah, Nasrallah said.That's where things seem to be heading, he said, adding that the impending decision by the UN-backed court had pushed Lebanon into a very sensitive phase.Hariri did not confirm or deny Nasrallah's accounts of their conversation.
But MPs from the prime minister's bloc denied that he had told Nasrallah Hezbollah members would be indicted.Hariri did not inform Nasrallah about the indictment sheet simply because he is not privy to its contents, MP Hadi Hbeich said in a radio interview on Friday.MP Ammar Houri confirmed that Hariri and Nasrallah had met in May but said they had discussed only press reports suggesting that the UN-back court could link Hezbollah to Rafiq Hariri's murder.Analysts have warned that Nasrallah's suprise announcement could trigger new violence in Lebanon like that in May 2008 in which more than 100 people were killed when Hezbollah staged a spectacular takeover of mainly Sunni west Beirut following a crackdown on the party.Oussama Safa, who heads the Lebanese Centre for Policy Studies, said the country had a 50-50 chance of sliding back into chaos.
THIS PALESTINIAN UPGRADE MEANS A PLO FLAG WILL BE FLOWN IN WASHINGTON.WHAT NON-SENSE FOR A SO CALLED CHRISTIAN NATION.
US approves Palestinian mission upgrade
Fri Jul 23, 3:18 pm ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) – The United States said Friday it has upgraded the protocol for the Palestinian mission in Washington in a symbolic show of confidence in president Mahmud Abbas.President Barack Obama's administration will allow the mission to call itself the General Delegation of the Palestine Liberation Organization, a protocol level above its unofficial current status.The step puts the United States, Israel's main ally, in accordance with the way European nations, Australia and Canada treat Palestinian missions, although the level is still short of being a full-fledged embassy.This decision reflects our confidence that through direct negotiations, we can help achieve a two-state solution with an independent and viable Palestine living side by side with Israel,White House spokesman Tommy Vietor said.We should begin preparing for that outcome now, as we continue to work with the Palestinian people on behalf of a better future,he said.The step will change little in practical terms. State Department spokesman Philip Crowley said the mission would be allowed to fly the Palestinian flag ceremonially, but its employees would not enjoy diplomatic immunity.
Crowley said that the administration approved the change after receiving a request from the Palestinians.These steps have symbolic value. They reflect improved relations between the United States and Palestinians, but they have no meaning under the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, Crowley told reporters.The United States does not recognize a Palestinian state but supports a resolution in which both Israel and Palestine would be independent states with defined borders.The Obama administration has been upbeat about Abbas and has been trying to start direct talks between the Palestinian Authority and Israel.Most predominantly Muslim nations, as well as China, India and Russia, recognize a state of Palestine and host full-fledged Palestinian embassies in their capitals.
Israel urges Lebanon to block ships for Gaza By EDITH M. LEDERER, Associated Press Writer – Thu Jul 22, 7:35 pm ET
UNITED NATIONS – Israel is urging Lebanon and the international community to prevent two ships from sailing to Gaza from a Lebanese port to break Israel's blockade of the Hamas-ruled Palestinian territory. It warned that the vessels will be stopped.
Israel's U.N. Ambassador Gabriela Shalev accused organizers of the aid ships Junia and Julia of seeking to incite a confrontation and raise tensions in our region.A deadly Israeli commando raid on a Turkish ship trying to bring aid to Gaza on May 31 killed nine activists and focused international attention on Israel's blockade of Gaza, imposed after the Islamist militant and anti-Israel Hamas violently overran the Palestinian territory in June 2007.In letters to Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and the Security Council obtained Thursday by The Associated Press, Shalev said, Israel reserves its right under international law to use all necessary means to prevent these ships from violating the ... naval blockade.She called on Lebanon's government to demonstrate responsibility and prevent the two ships, Junia and Julia, from departing.Israel and Lebanon remain in a state of hostility, Shalev said, and such action will prevent any escalation.Shalev said it can't be ruled out that the Junia and Julia are carrying weapons or individuals with provocative and confrontational intentions.The killing of the eight Turks and one Turkish-American on May 31 put Israel under growing pressure to open Gaza's borders.Under the old blockade rules, only basic food and medicine were allowed into Gaza. In a first step after the flotilla raid, Israel decided to let in most consumer goods but said Gazans would continue to be banned from travel and exporting goods for the time being.Egypt also decided to ease its closure of Gaza after the flotilla raid, opening its borders to restricted travel and limited humanitarian convoys. The move restored a link to the outside world for at least some of Gaza's 1.5 million Palestinians.Shalev highlighted that all goods that are not weapons or material for war-like purposes are now entering the Gaza Strip through appropriate mechanisms that ensure their delivery as well as their civilian nature.In the latest challenge to the blockade, a Libyan aid ship blocked by Israeli missile ships from steaming to Gaza arrived in the Egyptian port of el-Arish on July 14. Its cargo was to be unloaded and handed over to the Red Crescent to deliver to Gaza.
Israeli, Greek leaders vow closer ties
Thu Jul 22, 1:58 pm ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with visiting Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou on Thursday, announcing a tightening of ties between the two nations.The visit comes at a time of crisis in the once-warm relationship between Israel and Greece's arch-rival, Turkey, since an Israeli commando raid on a Gaza-bound aid ship in which nine Turkish activists were killed on May 31.At the end of the meeting they agreed to a major upgrade of relations between Israel and Greece on a range of bilateral issues, said Netanyahu's office, adding that Papandreou had invited Netanyahu to visit Athens.Papandreou, on a two-day visit to the region, was to meet Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas later on Thursday.Netanyahu asked the Greek leader to urge Abbas to begin direct peace talks with Israel.The Palestinians have refused to move from US-brokered indirect talks to face-to-face peace negotiations without a complete freeze on Israeli settlement expansion on occupied land.
Peres slams anti-Israeli majority in UN
Thu Jul 22, 1:56 pm ET
BRDO PRI KRANJU, Slovenia (AFP) – Israeli President Shimon Peres hit out at what called an anti-Israeli majority in the United Nations following criticism of Israel's recent raid on a Gaza-bound aid ship.We feel handled in a discriminated way because there were many other confrontations between terrorist organisations and democratic countries, Peres told journalists at the start of a two-day visit to Slovenia.Referring to the incident that left eight Turks and a dual Turkish-US national dead, Peres said Israel wasn't the first state (to confront a terrorist organisation), but was picked out because there is an anti-Israeli majority in the United Nations.Israel came under pressure after the deadly storming of the aid ship bound for Hamas-run Gaza at the end of May which has worsened relations with Ankara.
Turkey says Israel must apologise over the raid, pay compensation for the victims and lift the blockade of Gaza before bilateral ties can be resumed.I wouldn't go into a debate over the Turkish demands, Peres said.He pointed out that a report on the incident had shown that only one Israeli soldier made a mistake (during the raid) and he was put to court.Peres's visit is aimed at strengthening bilateral ties between Israel and Slovenia and to back a project launched by Ljubljana in 2008 for the rehabilitation of wounded children from the Gaza Strip.After Slovenia, Peres is scheduled to visit neighbouring Croatia, which also declared independence from the former Yugoslavia in 1994.
Brazilian FM to visit Libya, Turkey, Israel, Syria
Thu Jul 22, 1:50 pm ET
BRASILIA (AFP) – Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Amorim is to embark Saturday on a tour of the Middle East to underline his country's rising diplomatic attention towards the region, his office said.The trip, taking in Libya, Turkey, the Palestinian Territories, Israel and Syria, is aimed at following up dialogue on the regional situation in the Middle East, the ministry said.It comes two months after Brazil and Turkey drafted an agreement with Iran over its controversial nuclear program -- an agreement, however, that was dismissed by the United States and its allies, which instead secured further UN sanctions against the Islamic state.
Amorim's itinerary has him arriving in Tripoli on Saturday, before going to Istanbul on Sunday, Ramallah on Monday, Jerusalem on Tuesday and Damascus on Wednesday, according to the foreign ministry.
Palestinian, Israel envoys talk past each other on peace
Wed Jul 21, 4:34 pm ET
UNITED NATIONS (AFP) – Palestinian and Israeli envoys talked past each other in the UN Security Council Wednesday on prospects for resuming direct Middle East peace talks under US sponsorship.Each side accused the other of hampering attempts at peace, during an open debate on the Middle East that came as US envoy George Mitchell has been shuttling between both sides to try to coax them into a face-to-face meeting.Unlawful and provocative Israeli policies and actions (are) casting a dark shadow on the efforts to resume the peace process, raising grave doubts about Israel's credibility as a peace partner and its willingness to abide by legal obligations and commitments,Ryad Mansour, the Palestinian observer to the UN, said.
He told council ambassadors that Israel's refusal to cease all settlement activities in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including in and around Jerusalem, represented a major obstacle to the peace process.We reiterate that such cessation is essential for the resumption of a credible process aimed at achieving the two-state solution on the basis of the pre-1967 borders, he noted.But Israel's outgoing UN Ambassador Gabriela Shalev responded that while her country was prepared to take political risks for peace, it would never compromise on its security.She said the Jewish state was now facing more diverse and dangerous threats, including the rockets of Iranian proxies Hamas and Hezbollah, global terrorism and the pursuit of nuclear weapons by Iran.A settlement must mean a definite end to the conflict that involves mutual recognition,she noted.Peace is not merely a signed document. it is a set of values that allow us to live our lives in security and with hope -- Israelis and Palestinians alike.Mitchell, who started indirect talks between Israel and the Palestinians in May, met Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday, a day after talks with Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas.The Palestinians have long demanded a complete freeze on Israeli settlement expansion ahead of direct talks and have accused Israel of undermining the process by approving new settler homes in annexed Arab east Jerusalem, which they want as the capital of their promised state.
Egypt, Turkey leaders discuss Mideast peace process
Wed Jul 21, 11:33 am ET
CAIRO (AFP) – The leaders of Egypt and Turkey met in Cairo on Wednesday to discuss stuttering international efforts to coax Israeli and Palestinian leaders back to the negotiating table, the MENA news agency said.Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak and President Abdullah Gul discussed efforts to revive the Middle East process as well regional developments of mutual interest,the official news agency reported.Mubarak also highlighted Egypt's efforts to push forward the peace process, as well as negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians, and Egyptian efforts to achieve Palestinian reconciliation,it said.Gul arrived in Cairo on Tuesday night and was to leave Egypt later on Wednesday, officials said.Mubarak on Sunday hosted separate meetings with Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who are taking part in indirect talks brokered by US Middle East envoy George Mitchell.Mitchell, who is trying to clinch an agreement to a face-to-face meeting between Netanyahu and Abbas, also met with Mubarak on Sunday.He then held talks with Arab League chief Amr Mussa, who later told reporters the Palestinians could not move automatically from the indirect talks to face-to-face negotiations.
The Palestinians froze direct talks in December 2008 when Israel launched a 22-day assault on the Gaza Strip.They have said there can be no direct talks without progress on border and security issues, and without an Israeli pledge to halt all settlement activity on occupied territory, including east Jerusalem.Turkey's Islamist-rooted government has sought a stronger Turkish role in the Middle East, notably improving ties with Muslim countries, among them former foes Syria and Iran.
Both Egypt and Turkey have repeatedly insisted their positions in the region are complementary, not competitive.Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu met with Hamas supremo Khaled Meshaal in Damascus Monday, Anatolia news agency reported.The two men discussed efforts to heal the rift between Hamas, the radical Islamist group controlling the Gaza Strip, and the Fatah faction of Abbas, Anatolia said, adding the Middle East peace process was also on their agenda.
Abbas demands Israel halt settlement before talks
Tue Jul 20, 2:16 pm ET
RAMALLAH, Palestinian Territories (AFP) – Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas's Fatah movement insisted on Tuesday that direct peace talks with Israel hinge on a complete halt to Jewish settlement building.Negotiations are a means and the objective is to end the Israeli occupation, establish an independent Palestinian state, said Jibril Rajub, secretary of Fatah's Central Committee.And if settlement building is completely frozen and a timetable for the talks is set in line with clear and specified constants, we should not have a problem in negotiations with Israel.But Rajub said Israel does not recognise Palestinian rights.And it does not recognise international legitimacy. The international community therefore should reconsider the legitimacy of Israel, particularly if it continues to ignore Palestinian rights, he said.He added that the central committee has set the foundation for direct talks with Israel.President Abbas has told US envoy George Mitchell that there will be no direct negotiations unless Israel freezes the settlements in all Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, including east Jerusalem, Rajub said.President Abbas will go to Cairo to personally inform our Arab brothers at the Arab League on July 29 about international efforts related to the direct and indirect talks.The Palestinians have long demanded a complete freeze on Israeli settlement expansion ahead of direct talks. They have accused Israel of undermining the process by approving new settler homes in mostly Arab annexed east Jerusalem, which they want as the capital of their promised state.The central committee wants to see progress in the issues of security and borders, senior Fatah leader Mohammed Dahlan said in a statement.Without meeting Palestinian demands, Fatah cannot agree on the American request to have direct talk with Israel.
In May, Mitchell helped start indirect talks between Israel and the Palestinians and has been shuttling between both sides to try and clinch an agreement to a face-to-face meeting between them.The Palestinians suspended direct talks in December 2008 after Israel launched a devastating offensive against the Gaza Strip, and Abbas has said he will not renew them until there is progress on the contentious issues of borders and security.
