Premier wants Israeli troops at Palestinian border By AMY TEIBEL, Associated Press Writer 8:30AM SEPT 21,10
JERUSALEM – Israel's leader is demanding that Israeli troops remain on the eastern border of a future Palestinian state, further antagonizing the Palestinians at a time when they are already threatening to walk out of peace talks.The negotiations, which resumed this month in Washington after a two-year breakdown, are foundering over Palestinian demands that Israel extend a curb on Jewish construction in the West Bank. That curb, in place for 10 months, is to expire Sunday.Israel's military chief told lawmakers on Tuesday that the military was preparing for possible clashes between Israelis and Palestinians should the negotiations run aground.Resolution of the construction dispute is critical to the fate of the peace talks because the Palestinians say they won't negotiate unless the construction slowdown continues.
For Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the cardinal factor for Israel in any peace deal is the Jewish state's security. He has contended that Israel must maintain a troop presence along the border with Jordan to keep Palestinian militants from smuggling in weapons to the West Bank after a peace deal is reached.On Monday, Netanyahu drove home this position in great detail — angering the Palestinians, who flatly reject the idea as an infringement of their prospective sovereignty. They have proposed that an international force be deployed instead.I don't believe that under these circumstances, international troops will do the job, Netanyahu said in a conference call with U.S. Jewish leaders. The only force that can be relied on to defend the Jewish people is the Israeli Defense Force.That will never happen, said Palestinian spokesman Husam Zomlot, adding that not one Israeli soldier will be permitted to remain in a future Palestinian state.An international presence will be able to monitor and enforce security once the political situation has been sorted (out), Zomlot said.Military chief Lt. Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi underscored concerns of possible violence should the talks falter.The Palestinians have very sober expectations regarding progress and in Israel, tensions exist among the Jewish population ahead of the expiry of the settlement construction freeze, the Haaretz newspaper quoted Ashkenazi as telling parliament's foreign affairs and defense committee. He said the military was planning for an eruption of violence, but details weren't immediately known.Under intense U.S. pressure, Israel agreed in November to slow West Bank settlement construction to help lure the Palestinians back to the negotiating table. Netanyahu maintains his coalition government, dominated by hard-line parties that champion settlement construction, would be fractured if the slowdown were to be extended.Infrastructure Minister Uzi Landau told Army Radio he would advance plans to build hundreds of millions of dollars in water and sewer projects for the settlements. Right-wing lawmakers plan to hold a celebration Sunday in the West Bank settlement of Revava, where, they say, bulldozers and cement mixers would begin work on a new neighborhood.
The Palestinians, backed by the U.S. and other world powers, want Israel to extend the curbs, hoping that would create the goodwill needed to prod talks ahead.The settlements, home to some 300,000 Israelis, dot the West Bank, gobbling up territory claimed by the Palestinians. The Palestinians say that further expansion makes it ever more difficult to establish a viable state that would not be broken up by Israeli enclaves.Palestinian and Israeli officials are currently in the U.S., meeting with American leaders in an effort to salvage the negotiations. The U.S. has urged both sides to continue the talks, calling on Israel to extend the slowdown and on the Palestinians not to walk out.The impending end to the construction curb has intensified tensions between settlers and Palestinians. Near the West Bank town of Nablus, settlers and Palestinians lobbed rocks at each other Tuesday after Palestinians accused settlers of trying to steal their olives. The olive-harvesting season in the West Bank traditionally is a time of violence between the two sides.
The peace talks have also exacerbated tensions between Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' West Bank government and the rival Islamic militant Hamas that rules the Gaza Strip and opposes negotiations with Israel. Palestinian police briefly detained a Hamas lawmaker Tuesday after he insinuated the West Bank government helped Israel kill a Hamas activist last week.The lawmaker, former Cabinet minister Abdel-Rahman Zidan, was the highest-level Hamas official the Palestinian Authority has ever taken into custody.Palestinian police surrounded the main West Bank headquarters of Hamas legislators in Ramallah several hours later and arrested several people there after Zidan announced he would hold a news conference at the building. Police would not comment on the operation.Associated Press Writer Mohammed Daraghmeh in Ramallah, West Bank, contributed to this report.
Quartet to urge Israel to keep settlement freeze By Andrew Quinn – Tue Sep 21, 12:50 am ET
NEW YORK (Reuters) – The Quartet of Middle East peace mediators will on Tuesday call on Israel to extend its settlement moratorium, saying the freeze has had a positive impact as the two sides seek a peace deal within the next year, according to a draft statement seen by Reuters.The Quartet noted that the commendable Israeli settlement moratorium instituted last November has had a positive impact and urged its continuation, said the statement, due to be issued by the Quartet, comprised of the United States, the European Union, the United Nations and Russia.The Quartet statement, to be issued after a meeting on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly, increases pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to extend a 10-month settlement freeze due to expire at the end of September.U.S. President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have already urged Netanyahu to extend the moratorium on new settlement activity on land in the West Bank captured in the 1967 war.The Palestinians have said they will drop out of the peace talks, launched just this month with Obama's backing, unless the freeze continues. But Netanyahu has been reluctant to take that step, which could affect his ruling coalition dominated by pro-settler parties.The Quartet draft statement repeated the group's backing for the current peace talks and reaffirmed its hopes for a deal within one year that will see a viable Palestinian state emerge side-by-side with Israel.
The statement urged both sides to refrain from provocative actions and inflammatory rhetoric, and called upon Israel to further ease restrictions on Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip -- a step the World Bank says will be important for the economic viability of a future Palestinian state.It stressed the importance of parallel peace deals between Israel, Syria and Lebanon and called on Arab states to support Israeli-Palestinian negotiations and progress on the other tracks by taking bolder steps to foster positive relations throughout the region and to combat violence and extremism.The group's statement condemned continued violence against both sides, particularly an attack in the occupied West Bank which killed four Israelis on August 31 and was claimed by the Islamist Palestinian group Hamas, which has rejected the current peace negotiations.It also repeated calls on Arab states to step up financial support for the fledgling Palestinian Authority, which needs much more help as it seeks to take on more of the attributes of full statehood in advance of a possible peace deal.The statement committed the group -- the main guarantors of any future Middle East peace deal -- to remain involved in the negotiations, and said it supported holding an international Mideast peace conference in Moscow at a date yet to be determined.A diplomatic source said Israeli and Palestinian leaders met in New York on Monday, a week after the latest round of Middle East peace talks ended without visible signs of progress on the settlement issue.Israeli President Shimon Peres, whose position is largely ceremonial, met Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly meeting, the source said.It remains unclear when Abbas will next hold talks with Netanyahu. They have held two rounds of direct talks since the negotiations resumed on September 2, after a 20-month hiatus.(Reporting by Andrew Quinn, editing by Todd Eastham)
Peres: Turkish conditions for meeting unacceptable By JOHN HEILPRIN, Associated Press Writer – Tue Sep 21, 12:18 am ET
UNITED NATIONS – A planned meeting between Israeli President Shimon Peres and his Turkish counterpart was scrapped because of the Israeli leader's refusal to apologize for the deadly commando raid on a Turkish-led flotilla that tried to breach Israel's blockade of the Gaza Strip, Israeli officials said Monday.In the latest bid to repair Israel's relations with its only Muslim ally in the region, Peres told reporters he had agreed to join Turkish President Abdullah Gul at the Clinton Global Initiative in New York, then accepted Gul's invitation to meet on the sidelines. But Israeli officials said Gul then set unacceptable conditions for the meeting.Gul on Monday denied that any such meeting had ever been planned. That is not true,the Turkish president told The Associated Press. There was never a meeting scheduled between us.A report by Turkey's state-run Anatolia news agency quoted Gul as telling reporters in New York on Sunday that he would not meet with Peres because of a scheduling problem. Some reports had suggested that the two men would meet in a sign of a thaw in strained relations between the two formerly close allies.Relations between the two countries have been deteriorating and hit a low point after the May raid in which nine people, including eight Turks and a Turkish-American, were killed when Israeli commandos boarded a Turkish ferry that was part of the aid flotilla heading to Gaza. Turkey has demanded that an Israeli apology for the raid and compensation for the victims' families.Peres told reporters that he found Turkey's conditions for a meeting with Gul to be unacceptable.I got some conditions which made this meeting in my judgment not a positive one, Peres told reporters as the U.N. General Assembly's Millennium Development Goals summit was getting under way.
Now we didn't change our attitude to Turkey. We were friends, we remain friends. Maybe Turkey changed her mind, and that's for the Turks to decide,Peres said. We don't intend to worsen the situation. Neither can we submit to preconditions which are totally unacceptable.Peres did not elaborate on the preconditions. But senior Israeli officials confirmed that Gul wanted Israel to publicly apologize for the flotilla raid.The Turks came with the demands that could not be met ..., said Israel's U.N. Ambassador Meron Reuben. The demands included that we apologize for the flotilla incident, he said.Investigators from a U.N. human rights inquiry on the May 31 flotilla attack have been interviewing witnesses, including an Israeli Knesset member. Israel refused to cooperate with that probe and accused the U.N. Human Rights Council of bias.But it is cooperating with a separate U.N. panel ordered by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. That panel, led by New Zealand's ex-Prime Minister Geoffrey Palmer and Colombia's ex-President Alvaro Uribe, is looking into legal issues surrounding the incident.Israeli commandos said they opened fire in self-defense after meeting what they called unexpected resistance when they boarded the ferry carrying aid supplies to Gaza.An international outcry resulted, forcing Israel to ease its blockade of Hamas-ruled Gaza. Israel and Egypt imposed the blockade in June 2007 after Hamas militants took control of the area.Israel's military completed its own investigation, which found that its intelligence failed to predict the violent response but its troops reacted properly.Later Monday, Peres met privately with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. In a brief appearance before reporters, neither leader would discuss particulars about the recently renewed Mideast peace talks. The key issue of whether Israel will extend a partial ban on settlement building in the West Bank, territory the Palestinians want for a future state, was not addressed by either man publicly.On Tuesday, Peres will appear at a roundtable discussion presented by the Clinton Global Initiative with Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad and Bahrain's crown prince, Sheik Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa. Bahrain and Israel have no formal relations. Former President Bill Clinton will moderate.
Israel angry at Russian plan to sell Syria missiles
– Mon Sep 20, 8:44 pm ET
JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel criticized Russia on Monday for planning to sell anti-ship cruise missiles to Syria, saying the advanced weapons could be transferred to Hezbollah guerrillas in neighboring Lebanon.U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates told Israel's visiting defense minister in Washington that he shared Israeli concerns about proliferation of advanced weapons that could destabilize the region, Pentagon Press Secretary Geoff Morrell said.The go-ahead for the $300 million Yakhont missile deal was made public last week by Russian Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov, who told news agency RIA that it dated back to a 2007 contract and had also met objections from the United States.The announcement raised hackles in Israel, whose defense minister, Ehud Barak, traveled to Moscow this month to seal a military cooperation pact and urge the Russians not to supply Syria with arms that could challenge Israel's might.Visiting Washington on Monday, Barak voiced concern during meetings with White House officials that the Yakhont missiles could be passed to Hezbollah, as has happened in the past, and be turned against Israel,his office said in a statement.Gates, who met Barak at the Pentagon, also raised the issue of weapons sales broadly with Russian Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov during their meetings in Washington last week, Morrell said.The United States understood that Russia had a right to sell weapons, but we wish for them to take into account the strategic ramifications of sales, Morrell said, describing Gates' message to Serdyukov.Syria denies arming Hezbollah, which also enjoys Iranian backing. Hezbollah surprised Israel by hitting one of its naval vessels with a cruise missile during the 2006 Lebanon war.
Israel and Syria have exchanged peace overtures in recent years but remain divided over core demands regarding the future of the occupied Golan Heights and the Damascus-Tehran alliance.Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman told the Israel Hayom newspaper: This (Yakhont sale) complicates the situation. It does not contribute to stability and it does not create peace in the region. We will convey to Russia our position.State-run RIA on Friday quoted Serdyukov as saying the United States feared the Yakhonts could end up in the hands of terrorists -- an apparent reference to Hezbollah.Serdyukov called such concerns fruitless, RIA said.Lieberman said that Barak, on his Moscow visit, had dealt with the (Yakhont) issue, but things didn't work out.Russia, which is building up a fleet of Israeli-made drones, earlier pleased Israel by promising not to deliver S-300 anti-aircraft missiles to Iran while new U.N. sanctions over its nuclear program are in place.(Writing by Dan Williams and Amie Ferris-Rotman; additional reporting by Phil Stewart in Washington; Editing by Tim Pearce and Eric Walsh)
Europe leaders urge bank tax to battle poverty
by Tim Witcher - SEPT 20,10 11PM
UNITED NATIONS (AFP) – European leaders stepped up demands for a global financial tax on Monday as they faced mounting calls for money to pay for the Millennium Goals battle to cut extreme poverty.President Nicolas Sarkozy of France and Spain's Prime Minister Jose Luis Zapatero said they would press for the new tax at international summits.The world's wealthy countries face growing pressure at the three day Millennium Development Goals (MDG) summit to contribute more to the drive to eradicate poverty and improve child and maternal health.African nations in particular are calling for more action and the West can expect little sympathy when the likes of Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad speak on Tuesday.UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said the struggling effort to reach eight key development goals by 2015 could still be met if world leaders provide the necessary money and political will.The aims include cutting the more than one billion people living on less than a dollar a day, reducing by two-thirds the number of children who die before the age of five, seeking fairer trade, and spreading the Internet to the world's poor.While spectacular progress has been made in some areas, most experts say none of the goals will be reached by the target date. The international financial crisis has cut off badly needed funding.
Sarkozy said: We have no right to shelter behind the economic crisis as supposed grounds for doing less.He added: Finance has globalized, so why should we not ask finance to participate in stabilizing the world by taking a tax on each financial transaction.Sarkozy vowed to press for a global tax when France is head of the Group of 20 and Group of Eight countries next year.While all developed countries are in deficit, we must find new sources of financing for the struggle against poverty, for education and for the ending of the planet's big pandemics.Sarkozy also said that France would increase its payments to the UN fund on AIDS and malaria by 60 million euros a year to 360 million euros (470 million dollars).The Spanish prime minister also took up the bank tax campaign. We must launch a tax on financial transactions to complete the MDGs and my government has promised to defend them and to put them into practice. This will be at all international meetings.In opening the summit, the UN secretary general said that world leaders must send a strong message of hope.Ban said that progress has been made since 2000 in increasing school attendance, expanding access to clean water and controlling deadly diseases.We must protect these advances, many of which are still fragile. And the clock is ticking, with much more to do.Recovery from the economic crisis should not mean a return to the flawed and unjust path that got us into trouble in the first place.UN officials estimate that at least 120 billion dollars will have to be found over the next five years to hope to meet the eight goals. Aid groups, however, say much more will be needed and have expressed doubts about the political will to meet the 2000 goals.
Politicians have also indicated some doubts.
At a meeting on the summit sidelines, Norway's Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg said: We're on track not to reach any of the development goals. We need more finance and better strategies. If we are going to mobilize more money we have to make more sure to spend it more wisely.German Chancellor Angela Merkel also said at the meeting that not all the targets would be met in all countries by 2015.
Africa made increasingly strident criticism of wealthy nations.
Georges Rebelo Chukoti, Angola's secretary of state for external relations, said The fight against poverty cannot be won only with the holding of conferences and summits to negotiate more commitments to development.Overcoming hunger and poverty requires primarily that we implement the international commitments we have already made.
Nigeria's Health Minister It is important that our international partners meet their commitments today if we are to accelerate our progress towards meeting the MDGs by 2015.US President Barack Obama will make the keynote address to the summit on Wednesday, but US officials have warned against expecting significant new sums of money.
Ashton favours Lex building for new headquarters
ANDREW RETTMAN 20.09.2010 @ 17:26 CET
EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - EU foreign relations chief Catherine Ashton is keen to house her new diplomatic corps in the so-called Lex building on Rue de la Loi in the EU quarter in Brussels.The change of mind comes after months of talks with Belgium's Axa insurance group on the potential lease of its Triangle building, a few hundred metres up the road from Lex on the Schuman roundabout.With two months left to go to the EEAS' grand opening, Ms Ashton has switched from the Triangle to the Lex building as her preferred new home (Photo: Sister Ray)Lex would be much cheaper than the €10-million-a-year Axa deal because the EU Council effectively owns the block and could lease it to the European External Action Service (EEAS) on sweetheart terms, a contact in the EU institutions said. Lex also has higher security specifications than the Triangle, the contact added.The current home of the European Commission's foreign relations department (Relex), the Charlemagne building on Rue de le Loi, has been discarded as an option partly for image reasons.People would see it [the EEAS] as a kind of Relex-plus. But it's a unique, stand-alone institution, the contact said.Time is ticking for Ms Ashton's self-imposed deadline to get the EEAS up and running by 1 December.The Axa negotiators received the surprise news just last Thursday (16 September) at an advanced stage in the negotiations. And it is unclear whether senior EU Council management will back the Lex idea.
Lex currently houses Council translators and lawyers. Member States would then have to give the Council an increased budget to enable it to rent accommodation for its translators. At present, the order of the day is budget cuts not increases, a source in the EU Council administration said. Our management admits that they were asked to entertain the theoretical possibility, but that they had replied in no uncertain terms that they did not want to give up the Lex building.The Brussels-based architects' firm, Jaspers-Eyers & Partners, built Lex between 2003 and 2006 for Belgian bank Dexia and the Belgian real-estate firm Immobel, which later sold the building to the EU.Covering 15 floors and 84,674 square metres, the glass-fronted structure is said to be liked by Ms Ashton for its modern, open-plan office design and conference facilities. The building also has an underground tunnel connecting it to the commission's Berlaymont headquarters across the road and the main EU Council premises, the Justus Lipsius building, next door. With senior EEAS personnel cleared to have access to documents up to EU TOP SECRET level, security is a major concern.
Your keyboard, your computer monitor, all give off radiation. I could sit across the street, 500 metres away, and with the right equipment I could read what's on your screen and what is being typed,a security specialist in the EU Council said.
EU seeks stress-resistant intelligence officer
ANDREW RETTMAN 20.09.2010 @ 09:27 CET
EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - The EU is hiring three junior experts to join its intelligence-sharing bureau, the Joint Situation Centre (SitCen), with the job descriptions shedding some light onto the secretive body's work.The posts - a Deployable Security Information Officer, an Open Source Intelligence Analyst and a Security Information Officer - are to be filled at the same time as the appointment of a new SitCen director. The deadline for applications closed last Friday (16 September).The job advertisements, seen by EUobserver, were circulated to EU institutions and member states' foreign ministries in recent weeks, but were not made available to the general public.The deployable officer, according to the official notice, is to travel to potential crisis or conflict areas to overtly gather political and security information to support early crisis management decisions and to supplement information and assessments from other sources.The candidate is to have a diplomatic, intelligence or media background and to have experience in information collection and evaluation in areas with a high degree of tension.The right man or woman must also be prepared to travel extensively to potential crisis areas and to do so at short notice and to be physically fit and stress-resistant. Able to withstand potentially physically and psychologically harsh working environment.
The bulk of SitCen's work is drafting security reports out of its 100-person-strong office in the EU quarter in Brussels. EU diplomats say there is no political appetite among member states to create a genuine European Intelligence Service which carries out covert operations.But SitCen officers do travel to hotspots to help EU delegations carry out research. When the earthquake struck in Haiti earlier this year, the then SitCen director, William Shapcott, personally accompanied EU foreign relations chief Catherine Ashton to the Caribbean country to seek information.The job advertisement for the new SitCen director also mentions that the candidate must be fit and ready to travel to areas of crisis.Out of the other two junior jobs up for grabs, the open source analyst is to follow up on open and confidential sources of information relating to the political and security situation in areas where the EU has launched a CSDP [Common Security and Defence Policy] mission or may be considering doing so.The new Security Information Officer will focus on Asia and will do topical Internet research in response to requests for information. The ideal candidate is to speak Urdu, Persian, Russian or Mandarin.
LAND FOR PEACE (THE FUTURE 7 YEARS OF HELL ON EARTH)
JOEL 3:2
2 I will also gather all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat, and will plead with them there for my people and for my heritage Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations, and parted my land.
THE WEEK OF DANIEL 9:27 WE KNOW ITS 7 YRS
Heres the scripture 1 week = 7 yrs Genesis 29:27-29
27 Fulfil her week, and we will give thee this also for the service which thou shalt serve with me yet seven other years.
28 And Jacob did so, and fulfilled her week: and he gave him Rachel his daughter to wife also.
29 And Laban gave to Rachel his daughter Bilhah his handmaid to be her maid.
DANIEL 11:21-23
21 And in his estate shall stand up a vile person, to whom they shall not give the honour of the kingdom: but he shall come in peaceably, and obtain the kingdom by flatteries.
23 And after the league made with him he shall work deceitfully: for he shall come up, and shall become strong with a small people.
24 He shall enter peaceably even upon the fattest places of the province; and he shall do that which his fathers have not done, nor his fathers' fathers; he shall scatter among them the prey, and spoil, and riches: yea, and he shall forecast his devices against the strong holds, even for a time.
DANIEL 9:26-27
26 And after threescore and two weeks(62X7=434 YEARS+7X7=49 YEARS=TOTAL OF 69 WEEKS OR 483 YRS) shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself: and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary;(ROMAN LEADERS DESTROYED THE 2ND TEMPLE) and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined.(THERE HAS TO BE 70 WEEKS OR 490 YRS TO FUFILL THE VISION AND PROPHECY OF DAN 9:24).(THE NEXT VERSE IS THAT 7 YR WEEK OR (70TH FINAL WEEK).
27 And he( THE ROMAN,EU PRESIDENT) shall confirm the covenant with many for one week:(1X7=7 YEARS) and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease,(3 1/2 yrs in TEMPLE SACRIFICES STOPPED) and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate.
JEREMIAH 6:14
14 They have healed also the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly, saying, Peace, peace; when there is no peace.
JEREMIAH 8:11
11 For they have healed the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly, saying, Peace, peace; when there is no peace.
1 THESSALONIANS 5:3
3 For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape.
ISAIAH 28:14-19 (THIS IS THE 7 YR TREATY COVENANT OF DANIEL 9:27)
14 Wherefore hear the word of the LORD, ye scornful men, that rule this people which is in Jerusalem.
15 Because ye have said, We have made a covenant with death, and with hell are we at agreement; when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, it shall not come unto us: for we have made lies our refuge, and under falsehood have we hid ourselves:
16 Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD, Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner stone, a sure foundation: he that believeth shall not make haste.
17 Judgment also will I lay to the line, and righteousness to the plummet: and the hail shall sweep away the refuge of lies, and the waters shall overflow the hiding place.
18 And your covenant with death shall be disannulled, and your agreement with hell shall not stand; when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, then ye shall be trodden down by it.
19 From the time that it goeth forth it shall take you: for morning by morning shall it pass over, by day and by night: and it shall be a vexation only to understand the report.
JERUSALEM DIVIDED
ZECHARIAH 12:1-5 King James Bible
1 The burden of the word of the LORD for Israel, saith the LORD, which stretcheth forth the heavens, and layeth the foundation of the earth, and formeth the spirit of man within him.
2 Behold, I will make Jerusalem a cup of trembling unto all the people round about, when they shall be in the siege both against Judah and against Jerusalem.
3 And in that day will I make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all people: all that burden themselves with it shall be cut in pieces, though all the people of the earth be gathered together against it.
4 In that day, saith the LORD, I will smite every horse with astonishment, and his rider with madness: and I will open mine eyes upon the house of Judah, and will smite every horse of the people with blindness.
5 And the governors of Judah shall say in their heart, The inhabitants of Jerusalem shall be my strength in the LORD of hosts their God.
JOEL 3:2
2 I will also gather all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat, and will plead with them there for my people and for my heritage Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations, and parted my land.
ZECHARIAH 14:1-9 King James Bible
1 Behold, the day of the LORD cometh, and thy spoil shall be divided in the midst of thee.
2 For I will gather all nations against Jerusalem to battle; and the city shall be taken, and the houses rifled, and the women ravished; and half of the city shall go forth into captivity, and the residue of the people shall not be cut off from the city.
3 Then shall the LORD go forth, and fight against those nations, as when he fought in the day of battle.
4 And his feet shall stand in that day upon the mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east, and the mount of Olives shall cleave in the midst thereof toward the east and toward the west, and there shall be a very great valley; and half of the mountain shall remove toward the north, and half of it toward the south. 5 And ye shall flee to the valley of the mountains; for the valley of the mountains shall reach unto Azal: yea, ye shall flee, like as ye fled from before the earthquake in the days of Uzziah king of Judah: and the LORD my God shall come, and all the saints with thee.
6 And it shall come to pass in that day, that the light shall not be clear, nor dark:
7 But it shall be one day which shall be known to the LORD, not day, nor night: but it shall come to pass, that at evening time it shall be light.
8 And it shall be in that day, that living waters shall go out from Jerusalem; half of them toward the former sea, and half of them toward the hinder sea: in summer and in winter shall it be.
9 And the LORD shall be king over all the earth: in that day shall there be one LORD, and his name one.
Israel FM clarifies land swap proposal
– Mon Sep 20, 9:48 am ET
PRAGUE (AFP) – Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said in Prague on Monday that his plan to push for swapping territories for people in peace talks with Palestinians was his personal view, not his government's position.On Sunday, Lieberman proposed the Palestinians should take his country's 1.3 million Arabs and let Israel keep its West Bank settlements instead of seeking a land for peace solution.I want to stress it's my personal view. It's not the official position of our government, he said on Monday after meeting his Czech counterpart Karel Schwarzenberg, whose country is one of Israel's staunchest allies.Israeli and Palestinian leaders this month renewed direct peace talks after a gap of nearly two years and have pledged to seek agreement within 12 months.The phrase land for peace refers to the concept of Israel withdrawing from the Palestinian territories it occupied in the 1967 Middle East war in return for an end to the drawn-out conflict.
I don't think the idea that we will establish a homogeneous Palestinian state without one Jew and that Israel will become a bi-national state with more than 20 percent of minorities can be a real, stable, long-term solution, Lieberman added in Prague.The maverick nationalist has campaigned in the past for Israel's Arab citizens to be stripped of their nationality unless they take an oath of allegiance to the Jewish state.Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says any treaty must include recognition of Israel as a Jewish state.The Palestinians oppose the demand, fearing that it could prejudge the future of refugees seeking to return to old homes now in Israel.
Report: Netanyahu Pushes Referendum on Peace Deal
by Maayana Miskin SEPT 20,10
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/139691
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is backing a call for a national referendum on any final agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Authority regarding Judea and Samaria, according to Channel 2 news.MK Ofir Akunis (Likud), a close associate of Netanyahu's, has written up a proposed law that would require a referendum. Netanyahu reportedly saw the bill on Friday and gave it his full support.Earlier in the month Netanyahu said that he had not ruled out the possibility of a national referendum if Israel and the PA were to succeed in reaching an agreement within a year.Political analysts suggested that the law could help Netanyahu keep his coalition together by reassuring the political Right that no territories will be ceded without the people's approval.Netanyahu has met twice with PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas and with senior United States diplomats. Talks between Netanyahu and Abbas focused on core issues such as the borders of a potential PA state in Judea and Samaria and the status of Jerusalem. Netanyahu's conditions, security and recognizing Israel as a Jewish state, were not considered core issues.Abbas has threatened to leave the talks over the resumption of construction for Jews in Judea and Samaria on September 26. He had demanded a building freeze before starting talks. Netanyahu unilaterally froze building for Israeli families in the region for 10 months in an unprecedented move aimed at bringing the PA to the negotiating table, however the PA waited until the freeze was about to end to use its continuation as a condition for continuing the fledgling talks.(Israel National News.com)
No Middle East peace talks scheduled for Obama this week
– Mon Sep 20, 4:24 pm ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) – President Barack Obama has no current plans for peace talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas in New York this week, the White House said Monday.There had been some expectations that the action in the direct Israeli-Palestinian peace talks would shift to the sidelines of the UN General Assembly this week, as the end of an Israeli settlement moratorium looms.But Ben Rhodes, a senior foreign policy advisor to Obama, said no talks were planned as of Monday.We don't have any currently planned. I would have to defer to the Israelis and the Palestinians about the schedule of their leaders, Rhodes, a deputy national security advisor, told reporters.Netanyahu's office had said he has no plans to head to the United States this week, but Israeli President Shimon Peres and Defence Minister Ehud Barak are already in the country.Peres is due to address the UN summit, and Barak is holding talks with US officials.The deadline for the end of Israel's freeze on settlement construction is widely accepted as September 26, exactly 10 months and a day after the original cabinet decision.But the Israeli military order regarding the moratorium states it will only close at midnight on September 30.Abbas told AFP on Monday he will not take part in US-backed peace talks for a single day if Israel does not extend a freeze on settlement building at the month's end.
Top Mideast officials fly to US as peace talks crisis looms
by Hazel Ward – Sun Sep 19, 2:58 pm ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – Top Israeli and Palestinian officials headed Sunday for the United States where they are expected to seek ways to break a deadlock over settlements threatening to sabotage peace talks.Israeli President Shimon Peres left on a four-day visit coinciding with the UN General Assembly meeting in New York, before Defence Minister Ehud Barak set off for talks in Washington.Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas was also to fly later to New York for the annual sitting, with efforts under way to arrange a meeting with US President Barack Obama, a senior Palestinian official told AFP.There are also preparations for a meeting between (Israeli premier Benjamin) Netanyahu, Obama and Abbas, he said.There is an expectation that they will meet.Abbas spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeina said the Palestinian leader had high-level engagements scheduled, but he would not give details.Abbas will take part in the UN General Assembly meetings in New York and meet with several world leaders, Abu Rudeina told AFP.He will deliver an important speech about the peace process and efforts to push it forward in a way that would help end the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land in 1967 as well as create an independent Palestinian state, with east Jerusalem as its capital.
Netanyahu's office said he had no plans to fly to the United States this week, and would not say whether he would meet Abbas before the settlement freeze expires later this month.Israel and the Palestinians began long-awaited peace negotiations earlier this month, but the talks may well collapse if they fail to resolve a bitter dispute over the moratorium expiry.So far, Israel has stubbornly refused to extend the partial 10-month ban on new construction. The Palestinians have vowed to pull out of the talks if building resumes.Addressing ministers, Netanyahu reiterated Israel's position: that the moratorium will end as planned.Last week, I held political talks in (the Red Sea resort of) Sharm el-Sheikh and Jerusalem. I can't give any detail about the content of the talks because of its sensitivity. What I can say is that regarding the freeze, there has been no change in our position, he said.The talks, which brought together Abbas, Netanyahu and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, failed to break the impasse.Clinton said she hoped the Israeli leader would extend the freeze.Well, that certainly is our hope, she told ABC News.
It's been in effect for the time that it was set for, and the talks are just starting, she said. So we are working hard to make sure there remains a conducive atmosphere to constructive thought.But Israel's ultra-nationalist Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said it was up to Netanyahu to withstand pressure over the moratorium.If we aren't able to withstand pressure on a relatively simple issue like building in (the West Bank), how will we defend our other national interests? Lieberman said on army radio. We said it would be a 10-month freeze and we told everyone. The minute it's over, we can start (building) again, he added. The deadline for the end of the freeze is widely accepted as September 26, 10 months and a day after the original cabinet decision. But the military order regarding the moratorium states it will only close at midnight on September 30. Efforts to reach a last-minute compromise now look set to shift to the United States.Speaking on condition of anonymity, an Israeli official told AFP the main negotiators would meet there this week in order to set up the next leaders' meeting.The negotiators will be meeting this week in North America where they will be planning the next round of talks at a leadership level, he said, without giving further details. Elsewhere, Barak, who reportedly backs an extension of the freeze, was set to meet with Clinton and with US Defence Secretary Robert Gates during his five-day trip.And Peres was expected on Monday to address the UN's millennium summit in a speech explaining why Netanyahu could not extend the settlement freeze, the Jerusalem Post reported. He was also expected to speak alongside Palestinian premier Salam Fayyad at a conference organised by former US president Bill Clinton, which Barak would also attend.
Palestinian state should take in Israeli Arabs
– Sun Sep 19, 11:35 am ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman on Sunday proposed that in a future peace deal the Palestinians should take his country's 1.3 million Arabs and let Israel keep its West Bank settlements.Our guiding principle in negotiations with the Palestinians must not be 'land for peace' but an exchange of territories and populations, Lieberman told reporters as he arrived for Sunday's weekly cabinet meeting.The maverick nationalist has campaigned in the past for Israel's Arab citizens to be stripped of their nationality unless they take an oath of allegiance to the Jewish state.The phrase land for peace refers to the concept of Israel withdrawing from Palestinian territories it occupied in the 1967 Middle East war in return for an end to the conflict.Israeli and Palestinian leaders this month renewed direct peace talks after a gap of nearly two years and have pledged to seek agreement within 12 months.Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says any treaty must include recognition of Israel as a Jewish state.The Palestinians oppose the demand, fearing that it could prejudge the future of refugees seeking to return to old homes now in Israel.
It's as if someone sells you a flat and then demands that his mother-in-law continues living there, Lieberman said.The vigorous refusal of the Arab League and the Palestinian Authority to recognise Israel as the state of the Jewish people obliges us to make the question of the Israeli Arabs one of the main issues on the negotiating table, he said.In a separate interview with Israeli army radio, Lieberman said that the Israeli Arabs -- those Palestinians who remained after Israel was founded in 1948, and their descendants -- had long sought separation.Self-determination for Israeli Arabs, autonomy in the Galilee and the Negev and the right to be annexed to a future Palestinian state; Arab MPs talk about this from the rostrum of the Knesset (parliament), he said.Speaking to Israel's Haaretz daily, Arab legislator Haneen Zuabi, whose parliamentary privileges were revoked after she joined a flotilla of aid ships heading to the Gaza Strip, said Lieberman's views were racist.Lieberman represents apartheid and ethnic cleansing, she said, but acknowledged that the issue needed serious debate.Lieberman bases his claims on a doctrine of racism, while I base mine on the principle of full equality among citizens but both of us agree that there needs to be a discussion of the question, Zuabi added.
Iranian president stops in Syria on way to UN ALBERT AJI, Associated Press Writer – Sat Sep 18, 1:30 pm ET
DAMASCUS, Syria – Iran's president said Saturday that Middle Eastern countries will disrupt American and Israeli plans to change the political geography of the region, appearing to brush aside U.S. efforts to forge a regional peace deal between Israel and its neighbors.Mahmoud Ahmadinejad made the comments during a brief stop in Syria, a key all in Tehran's confrontation with the West, where he held talks with his Syrian counterpart, Bashar Assad.The meeting comes two days after Assad sat down with the Obama administration's special Middle East envoy, George Mitchell, in Damascus to discuss starting separate Syria-Israel peace talks.The back-to-back trips underscored the battle for influence in Syria between Washington and Tehran. Seeking to isolate Iran, President Barack Obama has tried - unsuccessfully, so far - to pry Damascus away from its alliance with Tehran.Speaking in Damascus, Ahmadinejad appeared to dismiss U.S. efforts to forge a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians and a wider deal with its neighbors. He said countries in the Middle East will disrupt U.S. and Israeli plans, but did not elaborate.Those who want to change the political geography of the region must know that they will have no place in the future of the region, Ahmadinejad was quoted as saying by Iran's state-run news agency IRNA.The waves of free nations to join this resistance is spreading every day, he said.
Ahmadinejad said before his visit to Syria that he and Assad would discuss key areas of conflict and tension in the Middle East, including Iraq, Lebanon and the Palestinian territories. He also told Iranian state TV Friday that he and Assad would discuss the Westerners' moves in the region, an apparent reference to the United States.We have to be ready and in harmony, he said in the state TV interview, without elaborating.Washington is at odds with Iran over its nuclear program, which it fears is aimed at making weapons, and with a military buildup by Tehran that it believes threatens the United States' Arab allies in the region as well as Israel. Iran says its nuclear activity is only for producing energy.The U.S. began reaching out to Syria soon after President Barack Obama took office, and has made repeated overtures to Damascus this year, including nominating the first U.S. ambassador to Syria since 2005 and sending top diplomats to meet with Assad.Mitchell said during his visit Thursday that the U.S. was determined to reach a comprehensive peace in the Middle East and that the administration's efforts to resolve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict did not contradict peace between Israel and Syria.Syria and Iran are both under U.S. pressure because of their support for anti-Israel militant groups. The U.S. also accuses Syria of secret nuclear activities, which Damascus denies.The two leaders stressed the need for Iraqi politicians to overcome arguments that have delayed formation of a new government there after national elections in March, according to Syria's state news agency, SANA.Ahmadinejad also called the new Israeli-Palestinian peace talks - revived this month with Washington's mediation - a failure, according to Iran's state-run Press TV. He said Israel had no place in the future of the region.Ahmadinejad later made a brief stop in Algeria and spoke with his Algerian counterpart, Abdelaziz Bouteflika, according to a statement from Algeria's presidency.The Iranian president was to fly from there to New York for the U.N. General Assembly.
Iran leads nuclear drive in the Middle East by Samer al-Atrush – Sat Sep 18, 5:13 am ET
CAIRO (AFP) – Egypt's plan to build four nuclear powerplants by 2025 underscores the emerging interest in atomic energy across the Middle East, where even oil-rich nations such as Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates are eyeing fossil fuel alternatives to satisfy growing demand.In the region and beyond all eyes are on Iran, which says it is firing up its first nuclear reactor before the end of this year, becoming the first Muslim country in the Middle East to produce nuclear energy.
The announcement that the Russian-built Bushehr reactor in southern Iran will start up in October or November rang alarm bells in the region and beyond.Iran's neighbours and world powers largely suspect that behind its claimed drive to acquire atomic energy for peaceful purposes, Tehran's anti-Western government is hiding a covert atomic weapons programme.Though wary of Iran, Middle Eastern states want to harness nuclear energy more out of necessity than competition with Iran, some analysts and officials say.It is a matter of energy, said Mostafa el-Feki, who heads the Egyptian parliament's foreign relations committee and who was Egypt's ambassador to Austria and its representative at the International Atomic Energy Agency.He said Egypt has a scientific base for nuclear energy: When I was ambassador to Vienna, we used to have nearly 10 Egyptian inspectors.Egypt, which has flirted with nuclear power since the 1950s, is also planning solar and wind plants, with the target of producing 20 percent of its energy from renewable resources by 2020. Its gas and oil reserves are expected to last three decades.Cairo said last month that a plant on the Mediterranean coast of el-Dabaa will be the centrepiece of a plan to build four nuclear plants by 2025, part of a regional trend away from conventional energy as demand soars.Oil-poor Jordan also says the regional drive is fuelled by economic necessity.
The increasing interest in the region in nuclear power is because of the high oil prices. Countries who don't have oil are now looking for other options to generate energy,said Jordan's Atomic Energy Commission chief Khaled Tukan.This month, Jordan and Japan signed an agreement on civilian nuclear energy cooperation in the ninth such accord by the kingdom.Jordan, which imports about 95 percent of its energy needs, wants its first nuclear plant to be ready by 2015.Oil-rich Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have also expressed interest in building nuclear power stations.The UAE, which hopes to start its first plant in 2017 and already imports natural gas to produce energy, says that necessity, not regional politics, is behind its nuclear ambitions.Its energy demand is projected to increase to 40,000 megawatts by 2020, double its current level. Last year, it awarded a multi-billion-dollar contract to a South Korean-led consortium for four nuclear power plants.
Kuwait, the world's fourth-largest oil exporter, has signed a nuclear cooperation agreement with Japan, and announced it intends to build four nuclear reactors over the next 12 years.The emirate faced unprecedented violent protests this summer following record temperatures and power cuts. Saudi Arabia, which holds around a fifth of the world's known oil reserves, agreed in July to sign a nuclear cooperation accord with France, opening the way for French help for the development of peaceful uses of nuclear energy.But some analysts believe that regional interest in nuclear energy transcends economic necessity.In general the drive to build nuclear power plants transcends any economic rationale, there are strategic drivers, said Leila Benali, the Paris-based Middle East director for the energy advisory group Cambridge Energy Research Associates.You also have security reasons, and the fact that once Iran made its nuclear programme public it became clear that at some point some countries in the region would have to do something to counter nuclear Iran, whether for prestige or for deterrence, she added.Since the 1979 Islamic revolution, Iran has ben repeatedly accused of trying to export Shiite militancy to the region, and Arab governments have been wary of Tehran and suspicious of its nuclear intentions.The Iranian nuclear programme was a wake up call. The Iranians insist on their right. They are talking about a strategic direction, said Mustafa Alani, a security expert with the Dubai-based think tank the Gulf Research Centre. It is widely accepted that Iran's arch-foe Israel possesses an undeclared nuclear arsenal.
World Bank: Palestinians managing reforms well
– Fri Sep 17, 1:28 pm ET
JERUSALEM – The World Bank is cautiously praising the Western-backed Palestinian Authority's government reforms.The organization says in a report Friday that if Palestinians maintain financial reforms, institution building and the delivery of public services, they will be ready to handle statehood at any point in the near future.It says Palestinian spending remained within budget and tax collection rates were nearly 15 percent above projection. Growth is estimated at 8 percent this year.
But the World Bank notes that Palestinians are dependent on donor aid. It says Israel must loosen restrictions on movement, access to land and markets for growth to be sustainable.U.S.-sponsored peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians resumed earlier this month.
