ISRAEL APPROVES NEW JERUSALEM HOMES

Israel approves new east Jerusalem homes By MATTI FRIEDMAN, Associated Press Writer - OCT 15,10

JERUSALEM – Israel has signed off on the construction of 238 homes in Jewish neighborhoods in east Jerusalem, bringing an end to an unofficial building freeze in the traditionally Arab sector of the city and further complicating peace talks stuck over the broader fate of West Bank settlements.The Israeli Housing Ministry's announcement that developers would be allowed to bid for contracts to build new homes in the neighborhoods of Ramot and Pisgat Zeev drew swift condemnation Friday from Palestinian negotiators.U.S.-brokered peace talks that began in early September are currently deadlocked over a Palestinian demand that Israel extend a slowdown on settlement construction that expired last month. The Palestinians are threatening to quit the negotiations unless Israel reinstates the building restrictions. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has refused to do so.Both sides have indicated a compromise is possible, but U.S. mediators scrambling to keep the talks alive have failed to break the impasse so far.Israel's decision to renew construction in east Jerusalem further soured the atmosphere.This announcement is a very clear-cut indication that the choice of Mr. Netanyahu is settlements, not peace, Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erekat said, charging the Israelis with closing all doors on attempts to revive the direct negotiations.

Netanyahu's office refused to comment.Israel imposed a settlement slowdown in the West Bank last November. Those restrictions did not officially include east Jerusalem, although Israel had quietly halted building there as well without explicitly saying it was doing so.Israel discussed the new construction with the U.S. administration and cut the number of planned units by several hundred to temper American displeasure, Israeli officials said. The U.S. was unhappy with Israel's decision but was not caught off guard by the announcement, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the issue.An Israeli announcement earlier this year of new building in east Jerusalem came during a visit by Vice President Joe Biden, catching the U.S. administration by surprise and sparking a crisis in relations between the close allies.There was no immediate comment from U.S. officials Friday.The fate of traditionally Arab east Jerusalem is one of the most combustive issues in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations.Around 180,000 Israelis live in neighborhoods Israel has built in the eastern sector of the city since capturing the area from Jordan in the 1967 Mideast War and then annexing it. The international community has not recognized the annexation and sees the status of the Israeli neighborhoods as the same as that of other West Bank settlements.East Jerusalem is home to around 250,000 Palestinians, who hope to make it the capital of a future state.Past peace plans have proposed leaving the Jewish neighborhoods under Israeli sovereignty. But Palestinians and the U.S. have said Israeli construction there is provocative nonetheless and undermines peace talks.Egypt's foreign minister, Ahmed Aboul Gheit, said Friday that if Israel continues to build settlements Arab nations might seek U.N. recognition of a Palestinian state without Israel's approval.Aboul Gheit said the Arab League's request to the U.N. on the matter might come as early as next month.A unilateral declaration of Palestinian independence would have few practical implications, but would serve to increase international pressure on Israel.

Arabs may ask UN to recognize Palestinian state
– Fri Oct 15, 5:40 am ET

BRUSSELS – Arab nations may seek U.N. recognition of a Palestinian state, if Israel continues to build settlements in the West Bank, Egypt's foreign minister said Friday.Ahmed Aboul Gheit said an Arab League request to the U.N. may come next month.
If Israel does not respect the settlements freeze, Gheit said, the Arab League will study some other option aside from the peace process such as going to the United Nations and ask for the recognition of the Palestinian state.Gheit spoke as he arrived at a Friends of Democratic Pakistan meeting in Brussels. The group is made up of two dozen nations and international institutions committed to stabilize Pakistan with long-term economic support.U.S.-sponsored, Israeli-Palestinian peace talks resumed last month after a hiatus of nearly two years. But they already have run aground over Israel's refusal to renew a moratorium on West Bank settlement construction.On Thursday night, Israel's government said it has approved the building of 238 homes in Jewish neighborhoods in east Jerusalem, ending a nearly yearlong, unofficial freeze on new building there.

At Lebanon border, Ahmadinejad predicts Israel demise
by Mohamad Ali Harissi – Fri Oct 15, 3:29 am ET

BINT JBEIL, Lebanon (AFP) – Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad predicted the demise of arch-foe Israel from a Hezbollah stronghold in south Lebanon, just miles from the Jewish state.The whole world knows that the Zionists are going to disappear, he said Thursday to thunderous applause before a frenzied crowd in Hezbollah's bastion of Bint Jbeil, some four kilometres (two miles) from the Israeli border.The occupying Zionists today have no choice but to accept reality and go back to their countries of origin,he added.Israel's prime minister brushed off the hardliner's comments.The best response to the hateful verbal aggression from across the border was given here 62 years ago, Benjamin Netanyahu said in Tel Aviv, referring to Israel's creation in 1948.In Bint Jbeil, thousands of men, women and children crammed into an outdoor stadium and onto rooftops waving Iranian, Lebanese and Hezbollah flags and cheering the hardliner whose two-day official visit has been denounced by the United States and Israel as a threat to regional stability.Bint Jbeil is alive and well, Ahmadinejad told the crowd. I salute you, people of the resistance. You are a solid mountain. We are proud of you and will remain forever by your side.Bint Jbeil was flattened during Israel's devastating summer 2006 war with the Shiite Hezbollah, considered a proxy of Iran.

Ahmadinejad met late Thursday with Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah who offered him a weapon that had been seized from an Israeli soldier, the group said.The two men met at the Iranian embassy in Beirut at the end of Ahmadinejad's visit.Hezbollah said in a statement Ahmadinejad and Nasrallah discussed the Iranian leader's historic visit.It added that in a gesture of gratitude and loyalty Nasrallah offered Ahmadinejad the personal weapon of an Israeli soldier which had been seized during the 2006 war.His visit to the south brought Ahmadinejad the closest he has ever been to Israel and was seen as a joint show of defiance with Hezbollah.Bint Jbeil resident Nabila, 36, said Ahmadinejad is going to terrify the Israelis.We hope to see (Hezbollah chief Hassan) Nasrallah with him here and to see them both one day on the other side of the border,she added, declining to give her last name.Ahmadinejad later went to Qana, which earned a grim place in history after being targeted by Israeli shelling that killed 105 civilians who had sought shelter at a UN base in 1996 during the Jewish state's Grapes of Wrath offensive on Lebanon.The village was again the site of tragedy when a shelter collapsed on dozens of people, including disabled children, during Israeli strikes at the height of the month-long 2006 war.

Ahmadinejad laid a wreath at a memorial for victims of the 1996 strikes and also paid homage to the people of Qana. Qana's martyrs are alive and its enemies are dead,he told the crowd.You are victorious and your enemies have tasted defeat.Israeli officials have slammed Ahmadinejad's visit as a sign that Lebanon had joined the axis of extremist states, while the United States called it a provocation.
The visit has underscored Iran's reach in Lebanon through Hezbollah, the country's most powerful military and political force. His travel to southern Lebanon... is solely to rally Hezbollah, which continues to serve as... Iran's proxy in Lebanon, US State Department spokesman Philip Crowley told reporters in Washington.So his presence there we think is a provocation that continues to undermine the sovereignty of Lebanon and the security of the region, Crowley said.The visit has also drawn criticism from Lebanon's pro-Western parliamentary majority, who see it as an attempt to turn the country into an Iranian base on the Mediterranean.The trip comes at a sensitive time, with Sunni Prime Minister Saad Hariri in a standoff with Hezbollah over a UN-backed probe into the assassination of his father, former premier Rafiq Hariri.The tribunal is rumoured to be set to indict Hezbollah members over the 2005 assassination, and tensions have grown steadily, raising fears of renewed sectarian violence and the collapse of the hard-won national unity government.Although Ahmadinejad has trod carefully since his arrival, he nonetheless rose to the defence of Hezbollah at a rally on Wednesday, saying the UN court was framing the Shiite party.Disdain for Hariri's camp among Hezbollah supporters was apparent during Ahmadinejad's visit, when every mention of Hariri's name was met with jeers.We are seeking to spread science and they want us to keep us in the dark,he told students and staff.From south Lebanon, Ahmadinejad returned to the capital to bid farewell to President Michel Sleiman before his departure.

Keeping Christians in Mideast Islamic duty: Muslim leader
– Thu Oct 14, 4:37 pm ET

VATICAN CITY (AFP) – Christian presence in the Middle East is a necessity and keeping Christians there is an Islamic duty, the secretary of the Lebanese national committee for Muslim-Christian dialogue said Thursday.The Christian presence in the (Middle) East, working and living alongside Muslims, is as much a Christian as an Islamic necessity, Mohammad Sammak said at a Vatican synod conference on Christianity in the region.The meeting, which runs until October 24, aims to rally support for Christians in the Middle East where conflicts and intolerance increasingly drive them to emigrate from the religion's region of birth.The region counts 20 million Christians, including five million Catholics, out of a total population of 356 million people.Keeping a Christian presence is a common Islamic duty as much as a common Christian duty, said Sammak, whose country counts the most Catholics in the region.He also highlighted the role of Christians in Israel and the Palestinian Territories, saying that they were on the frontline in confronting the (Israeli) occupation and resisting it.

Ex-President Carter to start Mideast peace tour
– Thu Oct 14, 4:30 pm ET

ATLANTA (Reuters) – Former President Jimmy Carter will start a tour of the Middle East on Saturday to build support for a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians.Carter, 86, will visit Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Israel and the Palestinian territories with a delegation called The Elders, to be led by former Irish President Mary Robinson and including former U.N. envoy Lakhdar Brahimi.The aim of their visit is to encourage support across the region for the current final status negotiations with emphasis on the need to reach a just and secure peace, said a statement by The Elders, a group set up by South Africa's Nelson Mandela in 2007.The Palestinians called off direct peace talks with Israel just a few weeks after they began last month after Israel refused to extend a 10-month moratorium on housing starts in Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank.Carter has been active in international diplomacy since serving as president from 1977 to 1981. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002, in part for his contribution to the 1978 Camp David Accords between Israel and Egypt.Jewish groups sharply criticized a book he published on the Middle East in 2006 in which he described Israeli policy in the occupied territories as a system of apartheid.Carter spent two nights in an Ohio hospital last month for treatment of an upset stomach.(Writing by Matthew Bigg, editing by Eric Beech)

Abbas upbeat on US efforts to resolve talks impasse
– Thu Oct 14, 12:43 pm ET

RAMALLAH, Palestinian Territories (AFP) – Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas expressed optimism on Thursday that Washington would convince Israel to renew a settlement building ban and end a peace talks deadlock.Why not hope that the US administration will convince Israel to stop settlement activities, he told reporters at a joint news conference with visiting Finnish President Tarja Halonen in the West Bank city of Ramallah.Israel and the Palestinians began face-to-face negotiations six weeks ago, but the talks look set to collapse following the end of an Israeli ban on settlement building which expired on September 26.Israel has refused to reimpose the moratorium, while the Palestinians say they will not talk while settlers build on occupied Palestinian land, prompting a flurry of US diplomatic efforts to resolve the deadlock.Let's focus on hope and not failure, Abbas said.If the US efforts do yield progress, we will be ready to resume the talks immediately.

The Palestinians see the settlements as a major threat to the establishment of a viable future state in the occupied West Bank, and they view a freezing of settlement activity as a crucial test of Israel's intentions.What we demand is not a big deal -- it's only the settlement issue, which constitutes an illegitimate action being taken on the ground, Abbas said of the settlements which are considered illegal by the international community.On Monday the Palestinians rejected Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's demand for recognition of Israel as a Jewish state in return for a possible settlement halt.

White House: Ahmadinejad visit exposes Hezbollah values
– Wed Oct 13, 4:35 pm ET

WASHINGTON (AFP) – The White House said Wednesday that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's provocative visit to Beirut proved that Hezbollah cared more about Iran than the people of Lebanon.Ahmadinejad earlier got a hero's welcome in Lebanon and on Thursday he planned to travel to a spot just a few miles from the Israeli border, a visit that has caused concern in Israel, due to his history of anti-Jewish rhetoric.White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said that Ahmadinejad's visit showed that the Iranian president continued his provocative ways even as he led his country into more economic distress and turmoil under nuclear sanctions.I think that it also suggests that Hezbollah values its allegiance to Iran over its allegiance to Lebanon,said Gibbs.Ahmadinejad was showered with rice and rose petals by tens of thousands of Hezbollah supporters who lined the streets and waved Iranian flags as his motorcade made its way from Beirut airport to the presidential palace.The two-day trip is seen as a key boost for the Shiite militant group Hezbollah but has prompted criticism by members of Lebanon's pro-Western parliamentary majority who see it as a bid to portray the country as an Iranian base on the Mediterranean.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton earlier denounced any effort by the Iranian president to undermine Lebanon's sovereignty.We reject any efforts to destabilize or inflame tensions within Lebanon, Clinton said in Kosovo.We would hope that no visitor would do anything or say anything that would give cause to greater tension or instability in that country.Clinton's spokesman Philip Crowley, speaking to reporters in Washington, repeated the US commitment to Lebanon's security and sovereignty.We understand that there are both states like Iran and subgroups like Hezbollah that are trying to undermine the effectiveness of the national government and the sovereignty of Lebanon itself,he said.When asked if Ahmadinejad's visit to south Lebanon would raise tensions, Crowley said: We have very well-stated concerns about the role that Iran is currently playing in the region, and will watch carefully what President Ahmadinejad does.

Palestinians call on US, Israel to set borders
by Nasser Abu Bakr – Wed Oct 13, 10:54 am ET

RAMALLAH, Palestinian Territories (AFP) – The Palestinians on Wednesday called on the US administration and Israel to define borders in response to Israel's demand for recognition as the Jewish state.We officially demand that the US administration and the Israeli government provide a map of the borders of the state of Israel which they want us to recognise, senior Palestinian official Yasser Abed Rabbo told AFP.

His remarks came after the US State Department asked the Palestinians to extend a counter-proposal to Israel's call for recognition as a Jewish state in exchange for a possible extension of restrictions on settlement building.The Palestinians rejected the offer, saying recognition of Israel's Jewish identity had no relation to the peace process.They instead demanded that the US administration set the 1967 lines as the starting point for negotiations about final borders.We want to know whether this (Israeli) state includes our lands and houses in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, Abed Rabbo said, referring to Palestinian lands occupied during the 1967 Six Day War.If this map is based on the 1967 borders and provides for the end of the Israeli occupation over all Palestinian lands... then we recognise Israel by whatever name it applies to itself in accordance with international law, he said, without elaborating.We are awaiting a response from Tel Aviv and Washington,he added.

When asked about Abed Rabbo's comments, senior Israeli cabinet minister Silvan Shalom said it was unacceptable to return to the lines of June 1967.There is a very large consensus in Israel on this point, Shalom told public radio.Israel has refused to withdraw completely from the occupied territories, insisting it will hang on to major settlement blocs as part of a land exchange and maintain a security presence in the Jordan Valley.The Palestinians recognised Israel in the early 1990s but have adamantly refused to recognise it as a Jewish state for fear that doing so would prejudge the fate of Palestinian refugees from the 1948 Arab-Israeli war.They also note that Arabs make up around 20 percent of Israel's population.On Tuesday, State Department spokesman Philip Crowley invited both sides to make proposals on how to revive the moribund talks, which were relaunched on September 2.If Prime Minister (Benjamin) Netanyahu, who has offered his thoughts on both what he?s willing to contribute to the process, what he thinks he needs for his people out of the process, we would hope that the Palestinians would do the same thing, he told reporters.And through this ongoing dialogue (we) will gain the commitment on both sides to continue and to resume in these negotiations.Netanyahu's proposal was criticised in Israel on Tuesday, with the left-leaning Haaretz calling it a major diversionary ploy and the mass-selling Yediot Aharonot accusing him of trying to torpedo the talks.The direct negotiations ground to a halt on September 26 after the expiry of a 10-month moratorium on the construction of new settler homes in the West Bank. Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas has refused to hold further negotiations while settlement construction continues and last week Arab League foreign ministers gave US negotiators a month to resolve the impasse.

Israel could reconsider presence in Jordan Valley By KARIN LAUB, Associated Press Writer – Wed Oct 13, 9:37 am ET

JERICHO, West Bank – Israel's insistence on maintaining a presence on the eastern border of a future Palestinian state could be reviewed over time, a government spokesman said Wednesday.Israel's demand for such a presence is one of the potential obstacles to a Mideast peace deal.The Palestinians say they will not accept any Israeli deployment in their future state, arguing that the presence of international forces during a transition period — an idea they support — should be sufficient to address Israeli security concerns.Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, restarted by the Obama administration in September, are currently on hold because of disagreement over Israeli settlement building.Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wants a Palestinian state to be demilitarized, but fears weapons and militants can be smuggled in through the West Bank's eastern border with Jordan. He has said he wants a continued Israeli presence on the eastern border of a future Palestinian state, as part of any peace deal.Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev would not say what kind of presence Israel seeks on the border of a future Palestine, but suggested Israel could be flexible if conditions permit.That presence can be reviewed over time, and in accordance with performance, he said.But initially it will be required in any peace agreement.

In Israeli-Palestinian talks a decade ago, negotiators had reached tentative agreement on the establishment of Israeli-manned early warning stations in the Jordan Valley on the West Bank's eastern edge, said former Israeli negotiator Shaul Arieli. However, those talks broke down without agreement.An Israeli official says Netanyahu wants Israeli troops to remain in the Jordan Valley, as part of a peace deal.In recent weeks, Netanyahu raised the issue of an Israeli troop presence with U.S. officials, who were trying to persuade him to extend a 10-month-old curb on West Bank settlement construction, the Israeli official said. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media.Regev said Israel insists on security arrangements to prevent a repeat of history. In the aftermath of unilateral Israeli withdrawals from south Lebanon in 2000 and the Gaza Strip in 2005, militants taking control of those territories fired thousands of rockets at Israel.Netanyahu told Israel's parliament on Monday that any peace agreement between the Palestinians and us must be based on strong security arrangements in the field.The Jordan Valley would be an essential part of a future Palestinian state. The fertile valley makes up a quarter of the West Bank and would be one of the few largely undeveloped territories of the crowded future state, a place to build new cities and settle refugees.

Israel PM's freeze offer slammed as ploy to stall talks
by Hazel Ward – Tue Oct 12, 3:57 pm ET

JERUSALEM (AFP) – Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's offer of a freeze on settlement building in exchange for Palestinian recognition of Israel's Jewish identity was widely seen on Tuesday as a ploy to complicate US-backed peace efforts.

A day earlier, Netanyahu set out recognition of Israel as a Jewish state as his price for a renewal of a ban on construction in the occupied West Bank, seen as key to rescuing direct talks relaunched last month.That demand was rejected out of hand by the Palestinians, who said it had nothing to do with the peace process.It was also widely criticised by Israeli politicians and commentators as a political ploy to sabotage the talks.Netanyahu's proposal was little more than a major diversionary ploy cooked up in order to ease the crisis over the expiry of the freeze, the left-leaning Haaretz newspaper said in a scathing editorial.Daily Yediot Aharonot said it was implicit from Netanyahu's speech that he was going to do everything to torpedo the negotiations with the Palestinians at their current stage.A renewal of the ban on Jewish settlement building on occupied Palestinian land, which expired on September 26, is largely seen as the key to reviving the moribund peace talks that began three weeks earlier.Despite huge diplomatic pressure to reimpose the freeze, especially from Washington, Netanyahu has refused to do so, and Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas has said he will hold no further talks until the building stops.If the Palestinian leadership will unequivocally say to its people that it recognises Israel as the national state of the Jewish people, I will be ready to convene my cabinet and ask for another moratorium on building,Netanyahu said on Monday.In Washington, State Department spokesman Philip Crowley stressed that both parties must continue to create conditions for the direct negotiations to continue.

We want to see those direct negotiations continue. There is a pause in the action as we kind of work through ... the issue of the moratorium and settlements, Crowley added.We hope that a formula can be arrived at, conditions can be established that allow the prime minister and the president, on behalf of their respective people, to make the political commitment to stay in this direct negotiation, he said.But ultimately it will be up to Netanyahu and Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas to decide whether they're getting enough to keep the negotiations going.The Palestinians formally recognised Israel on the eve of the 1993 Oslo Accords, but have rejected demands to recognise its Jewish character because that would effectively renounce the right of return for refugees from the 1948 Arab-Israeli war.

When he demands that Abbas recognise Israel as a state of the Jewish people, he is offering assisted political suicide to the Palestinian leader, wrote Haaretz commentator Akiva Eldar.Acknowledging that would be tantamount to an up-front concession on the right of return, he said.Netanyahu understands that this is an asset that is too precious and too complex for the Palestinians to just give up for cheap -- namely, a temporary, partial freeze on construction in settlements.For one senior member of Netanyahu's right-wing Likud party, the premier's manoeuvre had practically ruled out any renewal of a building freeze. His proposal pushes off a building freeze and talks with the Palestinians, the official told Yediot. Negotiations with the Americans are at an impasse, so Netanyahu came up with a proposal to show that he is willing to continue the talks, but it is clear that the Palestinians will not agree.Therefore, there is virtually no chance that the construction freeze will be reinstated, he said.Recognition of Israel as a Jewish state has never been one of the core issues for resolving the conflict, but since Netanyahu came to power in 2009, it has become one of his key demands in any eventual peace deal.

EU says Israel must guarantee equality for all
– Tue Oct 12, 8:58 am ET

BRUSSELS (AFP) – The European Union on Tuesday urged Israel to guarantee the equality of all its citizens after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urged Palestinians to recognise Israel's Jewish identity.Asked to comment on Netanyahu's call for the Palestinian leadership to recognise Israel as the national state of the Jewish people, a spokeswoman for EU diplomatic chief Catherine Ashton said:We support the two democratic states living side by side in peace and security.We also stress that the future states of Palestine and Israel will need to fully guarantee equality to all their citizens, she added.Basically in the case of Israel this means whether they are Jewish or not, said spokeswoman Maja Kocijancik.Israel's mainly right-wing government voted overwhelmingly on Sunday in favour of controversial legislation requiring non-Jewish citizens to swear allegiance to the country as a Jewish state.Netanyahu subsequently offered a freeze on settlement building in exchange for Palestinian recognition of Israel's Jewish identity.But the offer was rejected out of hand by the Palestinians, who said it had nothing to do with the peace process, and was also widely slammed by Israeli politicians and commentators as a political ploy to sabotage peace talks.A renewal of the ban on Jewish settlement building on occupied Palestinian land, which expired on September 26, is largely seen as the key to reviving the moribund peace talks which began three weeks earlier.Despite huge diplomatic pressure to reimpose the freeze, especially from Washington, Netanyahu has refused to do so, while Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas has said he will hold no further talks until the building stops.

Groups plan 2nd aid flotilla to Gaza from February
– Mon Oct 11, 5:03 pm ET

GENEVA – Pro-Palestinian groups plan to sail a flotilla of boats through Israel's sea blockade of Gaza as early as February in the second such attempt in less than a year, activists said Monday.The activists, representing groups from over a dozen countries including Switzerland, Turkey and the United States, said the flotilla would be bigger than the one stopped by Israel earlier this year.Nine activists were killed when Israeli forces boarded the Mavi Marmara on May 31, prompting sharp international condemnation and two United Nations investigations of the raid. Israel said its soldiers acted in self defense.It's not about the aid, Huwaida Arraf of the Freedom Flotilla Coalition told reporters in Geneva.Arraf said the aim will instead be to show that Israel's restrictions on the flow of aid to Gaza can be broken.

A spokeswoman at Israel's embassy in Bern, Shlomit Sufa, said humanitarian goods are allowed into Gaza by land and the sea blockade is needed to prevent weapons being smuggled in to the Palestinian militant group Hamas.Several smaller ships have failed to reach Gaza since the May raid — most recently last month, when a boat carrying Jewish activists tried to reach the densely populated strip of land between Israel, Egypt and the Mediterranean Sea.Among the groups planning to take part in the latest flotilla is the Turkey-based Islamic charity IHH, which sponsored the Mavi Marmara — by far the biggest ship in the first flotilla.A representative of the group, Ahmet Faruk Unsal, said IHH is considering sending another ship of the same size.An American group, U.S. Boat to Gaza, is also planning to send a vessel, said activist Jane Hirschmann. The boat will be named The Audacity of Hope in reference to U.S. President Barack Obama's best-selling policy book.

Palestinians reject Jewish recognition demand
– Mon Oct 11, 11:34 am ET

RAMALLAH, Palestinian Territories (AFP) – The Palestinians on Monday rejected Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's demand for recognition of Israel as a Jewish state in return for a possible settlement halt.This order has nothing to do with the peace process or with the obligations that Israel has not implemented. This is completely rejected,chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat told AFP by telephone from Amman.

Netanyahu had earlier said at the opening of the winter session of Israel's parliament that he would ask his government for a new freeze on settlement building in exchange for recognition of Israel's Jewish character.The Palestinians have agreed to recognise Israel as part of a final peace deal but refuse to recognise it as a Jewish state for fear that doing so would prejudge the thorny issue of Palestinian refugees from the 1948 war.