Jordan king briefs Syria's Assad on peace talks
SEPT 6,10 11AM
DAMASCUS (AFP) – President Bashar al-Assad and Jordan's King Abdullah II met in Syria on Monday for talks on the resumption of direct peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians, SANA news agency reported.The king -- who attended Thursday's US-brokered resumption of the talks in Washington along with Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak -- briefed Assad on the latest developments linked to these direct talks, the official agency said.The US administration is aiming to reach a comprehensive peace agreement, as a peace deal will only last if it is comprehensive and includes all states in the region, Abdullah was quoted as saying.However Assad said it was necessary that all representatives of the Palestinian people take part in these talks, in a reference to the Islamist Hamas movement ruling the Gaza Strip that vehemently opposes the talks.Syria hosts Khaled Meshaal, the exiled leader of Hamas whose armed wing claimed responsibility for a deadly attack that killed four Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank as the peace talks were about to resume last week.
SANA quoted Assad as reiterating Syria's will for a just and comprehensive peace, while also warning that Israeli policies of aggression and settlements are a true obstacle to peace.Syria, through its official press, has come out against the peace negotiations, saying they serve only Israeli interests and sacrifice the rights of Palestinians.Jordan and Egypt have signed peace treaties with Israel, whereas the Jewish state's other two neighbours -- Syria and Lebanon -- have not.Syria and Israel did begin indirect talks in May 2008 mediated by Turkey, but these broke down over Israel's massive offensive that December against Hamas in Gaza, aimed at halting rocket and mortar attacks from the enclave.
Israeli FM pushes for new settlement construction By MATTI FRIEDMAN, Associated Press Writer – Mon Sep 6, 8:33 am ET
JERUSALEM – Israel's hard-line foreign minister said Monday that his party will try to block any extension of Israel's settlement slowdown, a move that could derail the recently launched Mideast peace negotiations.Avigdor Lieberman said the Israeli government must keep its promise to voters that the 10-month slowdown, declared last November under U.S. pressure in order to draw the Palestinians to the negotiating table, will end as scheduled at the end of the month.The Sept. 26 deadline is a challenge for the fragile talks launched in Washington last week. The Palestinians say they will quit the talks if settlement construction accelerates, but not ending the slowdown could potentially bring down the Israeli government. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has yet to say how he will handle the deadline.A promise is a promise, Lieberman told Israel Radio.We will not agree to any extension.I promise that if there's a proposal that we don't accept it will not pass, he added.
Lieberman's Yisrael Beitenu party is a key member of Israel's governing coalition, which is led by Netanyahu's Likud party.It holds 15 seats in parliament, making it the second-largest member of the coalition and giving it the ability to rob the government of its parliamentary majority if it pulls out. Other coalition partners, and members of Netanyahu's own party, also favor resuming construction.In a sign that compromise was possible, however, Lieberman told the daily Yediot Ahronot that he would not quit the coalition even if he does not get his way.We will not leave or bring down the government. We will fight from the inside for what we believe, he told the paper.At the summit marking the relaunch of peace talks in Washington last week, Netanyahu used unusually warm language about the Palestinian leadership and the chances for peace. But the Israeli foreign minister has been vocal in his pessimism.Speaking to diplomats in Jerusalem on Monday, Lieberman said the stated goal of the talks — a peace agreement within one year — was unrealistic.The Israeli government says construction in settlements continued during previous rounds of peace talks, and that building does not compromise a future deal.Lieberman's party ran on a platform that questioned the loyalty of Israel's one-fifth Arab minority, and Lieberman, known for blunt and often unpredictable language, is perhaps Israel's most polarizing politician. A resident of a West Bank settlement himself, he has absented himself from active involvement in the peace talks, which are being conducted by Netanyahu's office.Vice Prime Minister Silvan Shalom, a prominent member of Netanyahu's party, said extending the slowdown would pose a huge danger to the coalition.Within the coalition, there is a huge majority against it, Shalom told reporters late Sunday. He said the issue could only be resolved through negotiations.
Netanyahu is seeking a way to get through the Sept. 26 deadline without dismantling his coalition, alienating the Palestinians or angering the U.S. administration, which is backing the talks and has invested time and political capital in their success.Netanyahu is slated to meet Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas for a second round of talks next week in Egypt and Jerusalem. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is also scheduled to attend.About 300,000 Israelis live in West Bank settlements, among the territory's some 2.5 million Palestinians. In addition, almost 200,000 Israelis live in east Jerusalem, the section of the holy city claimed by the Palestinians. The Palestinians and the international community say the settlements are obstacles to peace because they eat up land the Palestinians want for a future state.The slowdown has cut the construction in the settlements, though the extent of the drop is the subject of disagreement.According to official government statistics released last week, a total of only five new building projects were begun in settlements in the first half of 2010, compared to 673 in the first half of 2009. Israeli advocacy groups tracking settlement construction dispute those numbers.The group Peace Now says building has begun on around 450 new housing units since the slowdown went into effect last November, around 300 of them in violation of the terms of the freeze. Peace Now says those numbers mark a drop of about 50 percent in new projects.Settlement expert Dror Etkes said government statistics show the number of units under construction overall in the first quarter of this year was 2,517, a drop of only 15 percent compared to the last quarter of 2009.Groups critical of settlement building say if the slowdown is revoked now it will have had nearly no effect on settlement construction in the long term.Associated Press Writer Karin Laub contributed to this story from Ramallah.
US artists support Israelis' settlement protest
– Mon Sep 6, 5:39 am ET
JERUSALEM – A dovish U.S. Jewish group says more than 150 film and theater artists have signed a letter of support for Israeli actors who refused to perform in a West Bank settlement.The names on the letter include Oscar-winning actress Vanessa Redgrave, Cynthia Nixon of Sex and the City and playwright Tony Kushner. It was organized by the Jewish Voice for Peace.A group of Israeli actors sparked a vocal debate in Israel last month when they said they would refuse to perform at a new theater in the settlement of Ariel. They aimed to protest Israeli control of the West Bank.The actors' boycott drew support from a group of 150 Israeli academics and dozens of authors, including well-known writers Amos Oz and David Grossman.
Netanyahu seeks new solutions to Palestinian conflict by Philippe Agret – Sun Sep 5, 4:43 pm ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that creative thinking was needed to end the decades-old conflict with the Palestinians.
Washington meanwhile announced that US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton would travel to the region later this month for the first of twice-monthly meetings between Netanyahu and Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas.And the Palestinians warned that failure to clinch an agreement would spell the end of Abbas's moderate, Western-backed Palestinian Authority and strengthen Islamists and other factions opposed to talks with Israel.We will need to think creatively, and in new ways, about how to resolve complex problems, Netanyahu told reporters at the start of Israel's weekly cabinet meeting.In order to reach practical solutions, we will need to think about new solutions to old problems, the right-winger said.To succeed, we will need to study the lessons of the 17-year effort at negotiations and to embrace original thinking, to think outside the box, he said, referring to the 1993 Palestinian autonomy accords.Netanyahu insisted, however, that he was willing to achieve an historic compromise with our Palestinian neighbours so long as it maintains the national interests of the state of Israel with security first and foremost.The two sides relaunched direct peace talks at a Washington summit on Thursday after a 20-month hiatus, but the negotiations will face a major test later this month when an Israeli settlement moratorium expires.The Palestinians have warned that if Israel does not renew the partial freeze on settlement construction in the occupied West Bank when it expires on September 26 the peace process will end.
Netanyahu, under pressure from right-wingers who dominate his ruling coalition to resume construction, has said settlements should be discussed alongside other core disputes that have bedeviled past attempts at peace, including the final status of Jerusalem and the fate of Palestinian refugees.It is almost impossible to do it as it would cause a government crisis, Deputy Prime Minister Sylvan Shalom said of extending the construction freeze.Asked about the risks to the peace talks of resuming construction in the occupied West Bank, Shalom told foreign journalists the Palestinians would make a big mistake of they quit the talks.Netanyahu plans to hold twice-monthly talks with Abbas starting with a September 14-15 meeting in Egypt's Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, which will be attended by Clinton.After attending the talks in Sharm el-Sheikh she will head to Jerusalem for further discussions, a State Department official said in Washington.Secretary Clinton will be joined in these negotiations by Special Envoy for Middle East Peace Senator George Mitchell, the official added.Meanwhile chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat warned that should the latest attempt to reach a peace settlement fail, the moderate Palestinian leadership would disintegrate.We hope to bring (about) a Palestinian state. If we fail to bring it now, then I think we'll go home, he told AFP on Sunday.The collapse of the moderate Palestinian leadership would leave the Islamist Hamas movement, which is sworn to Israel's destruction, at the head of the national movement. If we have an agreement, (Hamas) will disappear, and if we don't have an agreement, then we will disappear,Erakat warned.I really hope that we can make it, God willing.But Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said on Sunday he does not believe a deal can be clinched within a year or even during the next generation.Abu Mazen (Abbas) will not sign a comprehensive agreement. That's why we should look for a long-term interim accord and concentrate on Israel's security, Lieberman said in remarks broadcast on Channel 2 television.In any case, he added, the signing of a peace agreement does not mean the end of the conflict and of mutual demands as well as the recognition of Israel as the national state of the Jewish people.
Israel picks Gaza war commander as new military chief
by Charly Wegman – Sun Sep 5, 7:43 am ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – The Israeli cabinet on Sunday confirmed as armed forces chief Major General Yoav Galant, who directed Israel's 2008-2009 Gaza war, the prime minister's office said.The government approved his appointment as chief of staff for a period of three years, with a possible extension to four years in exceptional circumstances, it said in a statement.Yoav Galant has proved himself in the course of 33 years of service in the front line of the Israel Defence Forces, the statement quoted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as saying.He is to take over the post from Lieutenant General Gabi Ashkenazi in February after the latter's term expires. The appointment required approval by the cabinet, which held its regular weekly meeting on Sunday.Defence Minister Ehud Barak announced his nomination last month in the wake of a controversy over the circulation of a forged document aimed at discrediting Galant that kicked off the so-called battle of the generals.The document, which lobbied for Galant's appointment while smearing his rivals and was reportedly prepared by a public relations firm hired by the general, was leaked to a television channel.Ashkenazi has said no member of the general staff was involved and police found that the document was a fake.As head of the southern command, Galant oversaw the devastating December 2008-January 2009 war in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip that cost the lives of 1,400 Palestinians and 13 Israelis.A subsequent investigation by the UN Human Rights Council found that both Israel and Palestinian armed groups committed war crimes and possible crimes against humanity during the 22-day offensive aimed at halting rocket attacks from the territory.
Israel slammed the so-called Goldstone report, which it said was biased against the Jewish state.But following Galant's nomination the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem called for a thorough review of his role in the fighting.Other leading candidates for the military's top job were Major General Benny Gantz, Ashkenazi's deputy, and Major General Gadi Eizenkot who heads the army's northern command.The decision was a hard one, Barak's office quoted him as telling cabinet colleagues before the vote. All the candidates are worthy, talented, deeply experienced; men of the highest attributes.Ashkenazi, the current chief of staff, was appointed in February 2007 in the wake of Israel's disastrous 2006 war on the Hezbollah militia in southern Lebanon.Galant was born on November 8, 1958 in the mixed Arab-Jewish neighbourhood of Jaffa, which now forms part of Tel Aviv.He joined the navy's Flotilla 13 commando unit, rising through the ranks to become its commander from 1994 to 1997. The unit carried out the May 31 raid on an aid ship bound for Gaza in which nine Turkish activists were killed.In 2005, Galant was appointed to head Israel's southern command.He is married with three children and holds a degree in business and financial management.
Palestinian Authority lashes out at Ahmadinejad over remarks
– Sat Sep 4, 5:38 pm ET
RAMALLAH, Palestinian Territories (AFP) – The Palestinian Authority lashed out Saturday at Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad over his remarks about the relaunching of direct Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.The Iranian president, who does not represent the Iranian people, who falsified elections and took power by fraud does not have the right to talk about Palestine, its president or its representatives,Palestinian Authority spokesman Nabil Abu Rodeina said in a statement distributed by the official Palestinian news agency Wafa.We are defending our national rights and interests and will not allow anyone to threaten us or question the legitimacy of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation led by president Mahmud Abbas, Rodeina added.Calling Western-backed Abbas a hostage of Israel, Ahmadinejad said the talks begun Thursday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Washington lacked legitimacy as the Palestinian leader had no right to make concessions in the name of Palestinians.What do they want to negotiate about? Who are they representing? What are they going to talk about? Ahmadinejad asked rhetorically about Abbas' negotiating team during a rally Friday in Tehran.Who gave them the right to sell a piece of Palestinian land? The people of Palestine and the people of the region will not allow them to sell even an inch of Palestinian soil to the enemy. The negotiations are stillborn and doomed.Iran implacably opposes the new talks and has given strong support to the Islamist movement Hamas, which carried out two attacks against Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank that killed four people and cast a pall over the talks relaunch.
Gaza militants fire rocket into Israel
– Sat Sep 4, 6:39 am ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – Palestinian militants fired a rocket from Gaza into Israel on Saturday without causing any casualties or damage, an army spokesman said.The rocket struck an uninhabited area in the western part of the Negev desert, the spokesman said.It came just two days after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas relaunched direct peace talks broken off when Israel launched a devastating offensive against Gaza in December 2008.The Islamist Hamas movement which controls the territory is vehemently opposed to the negotiations and carried out two shooting attacks against Jewish settlers in the occupied West Bank in the run-up which killed four and wounded two.Israeli Internal Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovitz said on Saturday that he expected the imminent arrests of the perpetrators of the two attacks, which he said were not the only attempts by Palestinian militants to cast a pall over the relaunch of peace talks.
This week there have been dozens of alerts about attempts to carry out attack in Israel and in Judaea and Samaria (the occupied West Bank), Aharonovitz said in comments broadcast by army radio.Hamas has vowed to carry out further attacks against Israeli targets in the coming weeks.
Backer of NYC mosque gave to Hamas-linked charity By DAVID B. CARUSO, Associated Press Writer – Fri Sep 3, 11:20 pm ET
NEW YORK – One of the investors in a proposed Islamic center near ground zero is a Long Island medical clinic owner whose expressions of sympathy for Palestinians included a donation to a charity later shut down for links to Hamas.The developer leading the project confirmed Friday that Hisham Elzanaty, 51, is among the members of a real estate partnership that paid $4.8 million last year for the vacant clothing store that is to be torn down and replaced by a cultural center and mosque.
The partnership's general manager, Sharif El-Gamal, confirmed Elzanaty's role in response to a media report about his reputed involvement.All of these investors are committed, as I am, not to receive funding from any organization that supports terrorism or is hostile to America, El-Gamal said in a statement.Reached by telephone, Elzanaty declined to speak immediately with The Associated Press on Friday, but said he may have something to say later.El-Gamal has so-far declined to reveal the names of his other financial backers, but has said the eight-member group is diverse and includes Jews and Christians, Polish-Americans, Italian-Americans, and others. El-Gamal, who was born in Brooklyn, and Elzanaty are the only Muslims.
Those involved with the Islamic Center proposal have come under intense scrutiny from groups opposed to the project, and critics point to a donation Elzanaty made to the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development a decade ago as evidence that its backers secretly harbor extremist views.Tax records show that Elzanaty gave $6,050 to the foundation in 1999. At the time, it was the largest Islamic charity in the U.S. It raised millions of dollars from Americans in the 1990s, telling donors the money would fund schools, orphanages and social welfare programs.Two years after Elzanaty made the donation, the U.S. government froze the foundation's assets and accused it of acting as a fundraiser for Hamas, which was labeled a terrorist organization by President Clinton in 1995.The foundation and some of its leaders were indicted in 2004 on charges of supporting Hamas. Five were ultimately convicted.
A New York television station, Fox affiliate WNYW, was the first to report Elzanaty's investment in the Islamic center project and his donation to the Holy Land Foundation. The tax filing listing the donation was provided to The Associated Press by The Investigative Project on Terrorism, a nonprofit group headed by Steven Emerson.Elzanaty's lawyer told a WNYW reporter in a report broadcast Thursday night that his client had no knowledge of the group's involvement with Hamas when he donated the money, and had intended the cash to go to an orphanage.Many other donors to the foundation gave thinking their donations would fund humanitarian programs.
Other people and companies who donated money, equipment or services to the foundation the year Elzanaty gave included NBA star Hakeem Olajuwon, the Microsoft Corp., and a medical equipment company owned by General Electric, according to tax records.When the foundation's leaders were indicted, Attorney General John Ashcroft said, the case was not a reflection on the well-meaning people who may have donated funds to the foundation.Newspaper stories questioning whether the Holy Land Foundation had ties to Hamas began appearing as early as 1993 and Israel banned the Richardson, Texas-based foundation from operating there in 1997. It wasn't until after the 9/11 attacks, however, that U.S. officials cracked down.City property records show that Elzanaty has been involved in other real estate deals with El-Gamal. He was listed as a guarantor on a $39 million mortgage that El-Gamal's investment group assumed when it purchased a Manhattan commercial building in 2009.
Elzanaty is a U.S. citizen whose Egyptian mother and father died on an EgyptAir flight from New York to Cairo that went down in the Atlantic in 1999. U.S. investigators later ruled that the co-pilot had deliberately steered the plane into the water - a finding disputed by Egypt. Elzanaty has made no secret of his past philanthropy involving the Palestinians. In a 2002 interview with Newsday, he spoke of a hesitation to donate to Middle Eastern charities because of concerns that it could unwittingly land him in a terror investigation.When you see people surrounded by tanks and F-16s, you ask how can we help? he told the paper. But you don't want years later to have a knock on the door and someone asking why did you donate money?
Canada praises Middle East peace talks
– Fri Sep 3, 7:24 pm ET
OTTAWA (AFP) – Canadian Foreign Minister Lawrence Cannon on Friday praised Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas for launching direct peace talks this week.Canada commends prime minister Netanyahu and president Abbas on taking this important first step toward a peace agreement, Cannon said in a statement.We also welcome the parties' commitment to meet at regular intervals over the course of the next year, he added, in reference to a pledge by both sides to meet as frequently as every two weeks for ongoing talks.The two leaders traveled to Washington this week for their first direct talks since December 2008, amid a new US push to achieve a peace deal in a year.As the talks started, militant group Hamas claimed responsibility for a shooting attack in the West Bank that killed four Israeli settlers.Both Israel and the Palestinian leadership condemned the attack, and a second shooting attack, also in the West Bank, and said they would not succeed in halting negotiations.Cannon said Canada urged the parties to remain steadfast in their efforts to keep negotiations on track toward peace, despite the obstacles which opponents of this process may put in their way.
Hezbollah places 15,000 rockets on border with Israel: Oren
– Fri Sep 3, 4:55 pm ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) – Israel's ambassador to Washington, Michael Oren, warned Friday that Hezbollah has placed around 15,000 rockets along Lebanon's border with Israel, including some that could hit southern Eilat.The Syrian-Iranian backed Hezbollah poses a very serious threat to Israel, Oren said in a conference call focused mainly on the new direct Palestinian-Israeli peace negotiations.Hezbollah today now has four times as many rockets as it had during the 2006 Lebanon war. These rockets are longer-range. Every city in Israel is within range right now, including Eilat, he said.The Red Sea resort of Eilat is the most southern point in Israel.He said the rockets also have bigger payloads and are far more accurate than those fired four years ago.In 2006, many of their missiles were basically out in the open, in silos and the Israeli air force was able to neutralize a great number of them, Oren said.
Today those same missiles have been placed under hospitals, and homes and schools because Hezbollah knows full well if we try to defend ourselves against them, we will be branded once again as war criminals, he added.He said Israel is watching the situation with Hezbollah, a Shiite Muslim fundamentalist movement, very vigilantly because it is of great concern to the Jewish state.We know Hezbollah has in violation of UN resolutions once again penetrated southern Lebanon, transformed entire villages into armed camps and put in about 15,000 rockets along the Israeli border, he said.Israel has already said Hezbollah has a total arsenal of 40,000 rockets.In the summer of 2006, Hezbollah fired more than 4,000 rockets at northern Israel during a conflict with the Jewish state, paralyzing the region for 34 days and forcing a million Israelis to hide in shelters or flee to cities in the south.
More than 1,200 Lebanese, mainly civilians, and 160 Israelis, mainly soldiers, were killed during the 2006 war.Israel accuses Shiite Muslim Iran of arming Hezbollah.
Clinton sees Jerusalem's future as symbol of peace
– Fri Sep 3, 2:09 pm ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) – US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Friday Israel and the Palestinians know they need to find a solution that turns Jerusalem into a symbol of peace and cooperation rather than a flashpoint.In an interview with Israeli and Palestinian television journalists a day after direct peace talks resumed, Clinton said both sides also know that the daily lives of Palestinians must improve more in order to boost the negotiations.When her Israeli interviewer asked whether Clinton still supported Jerusalem as Israel's undivided capital, a point he recalled her making during her failed presidential campaign two years ago, she did not answer directly.You should believe that I am committed to a safe and secure Israel and that I believe a two-state solution that realizes the aspirations of the Palestinian people is in the best interests of Israel, the chief US diplomat said.Jerusalem is a contested emotional issue for both Israelis and Palestinians, Clinton told journalists from Israel's Channel 2 and Palestine TV, who had been invited by Washington to conduct a joint interview.I want to support what is the outcome that the parties can agree to, she said at the State Department.And I think both parties know that they're going to have to engage on this issue and come to an understanding and a resolution so that Jerusalem becomes not a flashpoint but the symbol of peace and cooperation, Clinton added.Israel claims Jerusalem, including the eastern mainly Arab part that was annexed after the 1967 war, as its eternal and undivided capital. The Palestinians claim the eastern part as the capital of a future state.
Clinton and other US officials who hosted Thursday's launch of the first direct peace talks in 20 months did not say whether Jerusalem was discussed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas.Both leaders have agreed to resume their talks in the Middle East in two weeks.In reply to a question from her Palestinian interviewer, Clinton said the United States saw the importance of Israel allowing greater Palestinian freedom of movement, including to sites of worship in Jerusalem.She said Tony Blair, the representative of the diplomatic Quartet on the Middle East, will work with both sides to try to ease as many of those problems as possible while the negotiations are going.Clinton added:I think the political negotiations need to be matched with changes on the ground, confidence building measures and interactions between Israelis and Palestinians.
Muslims hold mass prayers at Jerusalem mosque
by Majeda El Batsh - Fri Sep 3, 9:00 am ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – Tens of thousands of Muslims poured into the heavily guarded Al-Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem for the last Friday prayers of Ramadan as Palestinians protested over newly relaunched peace talks.Israeli police put the number of worshippers at 160,000 to 170,000, while Muslim authorities said it exceeded 200,000.In his Friday sermon Sheikh Yusef Abu Sneineh criticised the relaunch on Thursday of Middle East peace talks in Washington, saying these negotiations are a joke.He went on to accuse Israel of seeking normalisation with the Arab and Muslim world while continuing its colonisation of the occupied West Bank through the building of Jewish settlements.In the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, hundreds of people attended a rally in honour of the Iranian-declared Al-Quds (Jerusalem) Day.Senior officials from Hamas and other hardline factions called for more armed resistance following twin attacks by the Islamist group in the West Bank that killed four settlers ahead of the talks.Jerusalem will not be liberated by negotiations but by jihad and resistance, senior Hamas official Ismail al-Ashqar told the crowd, adding that it was a crime to participate in such talks.
Jerusalem remained calm, however, according to Israeli police.As in previous weeks, the police deployed 2,000 men around the mosque. They have not interfered, and the prayer has taken place with the utmost calm, Jerusalem police spokesman Shmulik Ben Ruby said.The sprawling mosque compound is the third holiest site in Islam after Mecca and Medina. It is also the holiest site in Judaism because it was the location of the Second Temple, razed by the Romans in 70 AD.The compound is inside the famed Old City in Arab east Jerusalem, which Israel occupied in the 1967 Six-Day War and annexed in a move not recognised by the international community.The fate of Jerusalem is one of the thorniest issues in the Middle East peace process, with Israel claiming the entire city as its capital and the Palestinians demanding east Jerusalem as the capital of their promised state.As with past Fridays, Israel limited access to the compound to men over the age of 50, women over the age of 40 and children, and only granted visiting permits to a limited number of Palestinians from the occupied West Bank.The site has often been a flashpoint for violence, most notably in 2000 when the second Palestinian uprising erupted after a visit to the compound by Ariel Sharon, a right-wing politician who went on to become Israel's prime minister.The holy month of Ramadan, when Muslims fast from dawn to dusk, is expected to end on September 9 or 10, depending on the sighting of the new moon.
Arab League chief wants to give peace talks a chance
– Fri Sep 3, 8:34 am ET
CERNOBBIO, Italy (AFP) – The Arab League's secretary general Amr Mussa said on Friday negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians should be given a chance, but wondered whether Israel was ready for real peace.We see the negotiations start, let us give them a chance, Mussa told AFP at the Forum Ambrosetti, an annual political and economic summit in Cernobbio, on the Lake of Como in northern Italy.I don't want to be pessimistic on the first day of negotiations, he added.Let us see what kind of compromise (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu is offering, we have never heard from the Israeli side any initiative or any concrete position, Mussa said.
Mussa wondered whether Israel was ready to accept a Palestinian state with east Jerusalem as its capital.Netanyahu and Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas have vowed to meet twice a month in a bid to hammer out an accord, after on Thursday launching the first direct negotiations in 20 months a meeting in Washington.US President Barack Obama can, he said it, this is his motto, yes we can and this has to cover the Arab-Israeli conflict too, Mussa said.Ahead of Thursday's Washington meeting, Mussa said there was widespread pessimism in the region about new peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians.
Mideast people capable of removing Israel: Ahmadinejad
– Fri Sep 3, 5:42 am ET
TEHRAN (AFP) – Hardline Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Friday that the people of the Middle East are capable of removing the Zionist regime from the world scene in an annual Palestinian solidarity day address in Tehran.If the leaders of the region do not have the guts, then the people of the region are capable of removing the Zionist regime from the world scene, the hardliner said as the crowd chanted Death to America! Death to Israel!.Ahmadinejad said that direct peace talks which Western-backed Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas relaunched with Israel in Washington on Thursday after a 20-month hiatus were doomed to fail.What do they want to negotiate about? Who are they representing? What are they going to talk about? the Iranian president said of the Palestinian leadership.Who gave them the right to sell piece of Palestinian land? The people of Palestine and the people of the region will not allow them to sell even an inch of Palestinian soil to the enemy.
The negotiations are stillborn and doomed.Iran is implacably opposed to the new peace talks and has given strong support to the Islamist Hamas movement which controls Gaza and which carried out two shooting attacks against Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank in the run-up to their relaunch that killed four and wounded two.
