Israel settlements block Palestinian state: UN envoy
1:00PM OCT 22,10
UNITED NATIONS (AFP) – Israel's settlement construction in the occupied territories has become an almost insurmountable obstacle to creating an independent Palestinian state, a UN envoy said Friday.A Palestinian state seems increasingly problematic as a solution because it would require a substantial reversal of the settlement process, said Richard Falk, a UN representative on human rights in the Palestinian territories.He told a press conference at the UN headquarters that the settlers would probably put up strong opposition to any such move.Falk added in a report to the UN General Assembly that the extension of the Jewish presence in East Jerusalem by way of unlawful settlements, house demolitions, revocations of Palestinian residence rights, makes it increasingly difficult to envisage a Palestinian capital in East Jerusalem.You have to disconnect between an inter-governmental peace process and an illusion that at the end of this process is an independent sovereign Palestinian state, the envoy, a professor of international law at Princeton University in the United States, told reporters.Falk said he had always been skeptical about the chance of an exchange of territory to create a Palestinian state.
The envoy said the occupation since 1967 exacts an enormous human cost in terms of the daily existence of every Palestinian trapped in this reality.Israel ended a 10 month freeze on settlement building in September and Palestinians have refused to take part in direct talks since then. The United States and other international powers have criticized the Israeli settlement construction.
Abbas and Saudi king discuss stalled peace talks
OCT 22,10
RIYADH (AFP) – Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas held talks on Friday with King Abdullah that focused on the stalled peace process with Israel, the official Saudi news agency SPA reported.They discussed developments in the Palestinian issue and efforts exerted to put the peace process back on the right path, it said.The two leaders also discussed the need for the international community to assume responsibility to achieve a just and comprehensive peace that would guarantee the Palestinian people's right to establish its independent state on its national soil, with Jerusalem as a capital, it added.Abbas left Riyadh on Friday afternoon, the agency added.A Palestinian diplomat in Riyadh told AFP Thursday that Abbas's visit comes at a critical stage in the negotiations between the Palestinians and the Israelis.The diplomat pointed to Israel's refusal to extend a moratorium on Jewish settlement expansion in the occupied West Bank and east Jerusalem that expired on September 26.On October 9, foreign ministers of the Arab League, in which Saudi Arabia plays a leading role, said they would wait one more month to see if the direct peace talks can be restarted.Since the settlement moratorium ended, Jewish settlers have begun building at least 600 homes, a pace four times faster than before the freeze began last year, the Israeli activist group Peace Now said on Thursday.
Peace with Palestinians would help U.S. on Iran: Peres
– Fri Oct 22, 3:40 am ET
JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel needs good ties with the United States to survive and must be more understanding of U.S. demands over securing peace with the Palestinians, Israeli President Shimon Peres said in remarks aired on Friday.Peres, Israel's elder statesman, said an end to the Palestinian conflict would improve the United States' own security position in the Middle East and help isolate Iran.His comments came as a diplomatic deadlock deepened over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's refusal to bow to demands from Washington to extend a freeze on West Bank settlement building so peace negotiations with the Palestinians can resume.We fought alone, but we cannot exist alone. For our existence we need the friendship of the United States of America. It doesn't sound easy, but this is the truth, Peres said in a speech to Jewish leaders broadcast by Israel Radio.As the United States is trying to understand the security needs of Israel, we Israelis ourselves must understand the security needs of the United States, he said, speaking in English in an address made on Thursday evening.In our own small way we can be of help, and of help means (to) enable an anti-Iranian coalition in the Middle East. And the contribution will not be by a declaration, but if we will stop the secondary conflict between us and the Palestinians.Washington, which often sides with the Israelis in key diplomatic forums and underwrites their military, has been trying to rein in the nuclear aspirations of Israel's arch-foe, Iran, through tougher international sanctions.
Yet some Arab powers have publicly chafed at that campaign, pointing to the Palestinians' stalled drive to achieve independence on land Israel occupied in a 1967Middle East war.U.S. leaders in recent months have connected the need for peace with the Palestinians to U.S. security interests, blaming the continued tensions for fuelling Islamist militancy.As head of state, ex-premier Peres lacks executive powers but is often a bellwether of opinion among left-leaning Israelis who oppose the rightist Netanyahu government's policymaking.(Writing by Dan Williams, editing by Tim Pearce)
Mideast sides mulling alternatives to peace talks By DAN PERRY and KARIN LAUB, Associated Press Writers – Thu Oct 21, 4:32 pm ET
JERUSALEM – With peace talks stalled, Israelis and Palestinians are quietly — and separately — looking for alternatives.The scenarios range from the Palestinians going around Israel to seek world recognition for an independent state to Israel pushing for a scaled-down agreement that sidesteps the toughest issues, like sharing Jerusalem and the fate of Palestinian refugees.The thinking is that few people believe a full peace deal within a year is achievable. And the impasse that has emerged over settlement construction has brought a difficult question to the surface: If the United States cannot compel Israel to extend a settlement freeze for a few months, how can the U.S. persuade Israel to make wrenching decisions over control of Jerusalem? Both sides claim their first choice is still a full agreement, and the Obama administration is clinging to the hope that the peace talks will succeed.But Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton acknowledged in a speech to Palestinian Americans on Wednesday that it's a struggle.I cannot stand here tonight and tell you there is some magic formula that I have discovered that will break through the current impasse, she said.Palestinians say the current situation cannot drag on indefinitely: they have a measure of self-rule in the main cities of the West Bank, but Israel controls the land in between and remains ultimately in charge, controlling the Palestinians through a complex permit system. The Gaza Strip, meanwhile, has essentially broken off — an isolated statelet run by the Islamic militant group Hamas, which rejects the peace talks.
Palestinian officials said they don't expect Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to take drastic action before the year set aside for negotiations is up in September 2011. However, Abbas is starting to prepare for other options, and on Wednesday, more than a dozen senior Palestinian officials met for the first time — at the president's request — to discuss ideas.The main alternative, according to officials, is to seek U.N. Security Council recognition of a Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem, the territories Israel captured in the 1967 Mideast war.The U.N. is a possible option because this political battle ... needs to be transferred to the broader courtyard, said Yasser Abed-Rabbo, a top official of the Palestine Liberation Organization.While such validation would not immediately change the situation on the ground, it could boost Palestinian leverage vis-a-vis Israel. International recognition of Palestine's borders could also further isolate Israel and limit the Jewish state's diplomatic and military options.Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said the Palestinians would first seek recognition from the United States.The Palestinians know that may be difficult to obtain but hope that by next fall, they will have won sufficient international support to make the idea palatable, should the need arise. At that time, Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad will have completed his ambitious two-year plan to build the institutions of a Palestinian state.Achievements on the ground will contribute to convincing the international community to take a more active role in allowing for the independent Palestinian state by then,government spokesman Ghassan Khatib said.
Israel would surely oppose such a unilateral Palestinian move.But among many Israelis as well, skepticism about peace talks is accompanied by a gnawing sense that something must change: the occupation is ruining the country's reputation and there's concern that without a decisive break from the West Bank, Israel will become, in effect, a binational state with a dwindling Jewish majority.Many Israelis also a fear another Palestinian uprising if peace efforts run aground. Violence erupts every time peace talks fail and that is what will happen again,said Gil Zaken, 35, a computer graphics designer. It will be a big mess.Concerns about Israel's future have driven even right-wing parties once opposed to territorial concessions toward more moderate positions. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu himself endorsed — albeit grudgingly — the idea of a Palestinian state in 2009, and agreed to the peace effort launched by President Barack Obama last month. But the talks stalled within weeks, when Israel refused to extend a 10-month freeze on new settlement construction. And Vice Premier Moshe Yaalon recently said that not one member of the key group of seven Cabinet ministers — which includes Netanyahu, Defense Minister Ehud Barak and himself — believes a full peace treaty is achievable within a year.
Now a debate simmers over alternatives.
Talk of scaling back expectations is coming from opposite corners of the political map. Both Yossi Beilin, a prominent dove, and Education Minister Gideon Saar, a hard-liner from Netanyahu's Likud, have suggested that this might be the only way to move forward.Under this idea, Israel would no longer seek an end of conflict declaration from the Palestinians — which would presumably lower the price of a deal. The Palestinians would get a state in most of the West Bank, with international safeguards about a future deal, but decisions on Jerusalem and refugees would be put off.The Palestinians adamantly reject such a scenario, fearing that they would lose any further leverage and end up with a mini-state.But Beilin believes that they can be persuaded that it is simply the only way to achieve statehood.It is better to have something than to have nothing, Beilin told The Associated Press. Other surprising ideas have emerged on the Israeli right, where one would expect nationalists trying to strengthen the Jewish nature of the state. Now former Defense Minister Moshe Arens and Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin are calling for the West Bank to be annexed and its Palestinians eventually offered full citizenship — moves that would take Israel a long way toward being a binational state.Some Israelis also speak of the idea of unilateral pullouts from some parts of the West Bank they don't want, outside the framework of an agreement with the Palestinians, reminiscent of Israel's 2005 unilateral pullout from Gaza.Another possibility that has been discussed: Might the Palestinian president dissolve his self-rule government and kick back to Israel the costly burden of full rule over the Palestinians? All of this is at odds with the widespread notion that the basic contours of a comprehensive deal are somehow clear and inevitable.Under the generally assumed parameters of such a deal, Israel would retain only a tiny fraction of the West Bank, but these would be areas close to the pre-1967 border where many of the 300,000 settlers live. The rest of the settlers would be removed. The sides would find a formula to share Jerusalem. And the Palestinian demand that millions of refugees have a right of return to Israel will be finessed.But these ideas have been around for over a decade, with no one able to bridge the gaps. And Israelis still find it close to inconceivable that Palestinians might control the Old City with its holy sites, border guards perhaps gazing from its ancient walls upon the King David hotel and the main shopping street in Jerusalem.The whole strategy (of reaching a comprehensive deal) hasn't worked, said Aaron David Miller, a senior former State Department official involved in negotiations.I don't think you can produce this with these leaders.Associated Press writers Mohammed Daraghmeh in Ramallah and Ian Deitch in Jerusalem contributed to this report.
Venezuela's Chavez backs return of Golan to Syria
– Thu Oct 21, 1:47 pm ET
DAMASCUS (AFP) – Visiting Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez expressed his support on Thursday for Syria's efforts to recover the Golan Heights, captured by Israel during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.I hope that President (Bashar al-) Assad will invite me to the Golan after its liberation. One day we will visit the Golan together, Chavez said at a news conference with the Syrian leader.Chavez, who arrived in Damascus from Iran late on Wednesday, said his country maintains an alliance with Syria based on sentiments of friendship between the two peoples.We need to accelerate the birth of a new multi-party and balanced world, the Venezuelan president said.Thanks to the efforts of millions of people and of leaders like President Assad, we will achieve this world in the next few years.For his part, Assad denounced the new world order based on force and hegemony instead of justice and principles.Assad also criticised Israel over peace moves in the region.Israel does not wish for and is not ready to make peace,he said. It is following a tactical course aimed at persuading the world that it is passionate about peace and that it is the Arabs who reject it.Israel murders the Palestinians, and the process of judaising Jerusalem is a racist act, he added.Chavez's visit to Syria is his latest stop on an international tour aimed at strengthening Venezuela's commercial ties with eastern Europe and the Middle East.
Hamas very eager to discuss Shalit with Israel: Carter
– Thu Oct 21, 12:57 pm ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – Gaza's Hamas rulers are very eager to resume talks with Israel over a prisoner exchange which could see captured soldier Gilad Shalit being freed, former US president Jimmy Carter said on Thursday.They let us know... they are very eager to proceed, Carter told reporters in Jerusalem several days after a delegation of former world statesmen, known as The Elders, met Hamas officials in the Gaza Strip.They are very glad that the German negotiator has been back on the scene lately and that Israeli Prime Minister (Benjamin) Netanyahu has made some positive statements about a prisoner exchange.Carter, who joined the Elders on the Syrian leg of their regional tour where he met Hamas' exiled leadership, said he had urged the group to do everything they could to expedite the exchange of prisoners so Shalit could return home.They maintained that they are very eager to have a swap but they are demanding the release of some prisoners that are not acceptable to the Israeli negotiators, he said.Netanyahu on Sunday said that talks aimed at releasing Shalit had resumed after a hiatus of nearly a year.The radical Islamist group and other Palestinian militants captured Shalit, now 24, in a deadly cross-border raid in June 2006 and have demanded hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, including top militants, in exchange for his release.There was also an ongoing disagreement over where they would be allowed to live, Carter said.They strongly oppose the proposal that Israel has made, particularly the deportation of some of the prisoners who would be released.They cannot stay in Gaza, they can't stay in the West Bank, they can't stay in east Jerusalem if they are released from Israeli prisons -- that is a handicap, he said.
Jewish settlers building 600 new homes
by Hazel Ward – Thu Oct 21, 12:01 pm ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – Israel has started building at least 600 homes since the end of a construction freeze, watchdog Peace Now said on Thursday, in a move which the Palestinians slammed as a flagrant act of defiance.In our estimation, building has started on between 600 and 700 new housing units in less than one month, which is four times the pace of construction since before the freeze,Peace Now's Hagit Ofran told AFP, referring to the moratorium that began at the end of November 2009.Direct talks between Israel and the Palestinians are facing imminent collapse in a bitter row over settlement building on occupied West Bank land that resumed after the end of the 10-month ban.Israel has refused to reimpose the moratorium, while the Palestinians say they will not hold talk while settlers are building on Palestinian land, prompting a flurry of US diplomatic efforts to resolve the deadlock.And Thursday's revelation, details of which are to be fleshed out in a Peace Now report to be published next week, looked set to put a knife in the back of diplomatic efforts to salvage the talks.This flagrant act of defiance towards the Palestinians, the Arabs and the US administration demands an Arab and an international response -- particularly from the Americans, said Nabil Abu Rudeina, spokesman for president Mahmud Abbas.Faced with Israel's insistence on continued settlement building, the Palestinians are going to demand Washington recognise a Palestinian state, said Nimr Hammad, another adviser of the Palestinian president.
In the face of Israel's stubborn continuation of settlement construction and given that the US administration has called many times for the end of the occupation ... as well as the establishment ... of a Palestinian state, we are going to officially ask that Washington recognise the Palestinian state, he told AFP, without saying when.Peace Now said the surge in construction was to meet immediate demand for some 2,000 housing units, as part of a longer-term plan to build about 13,000 new homes, all of which had already been approved.After the moratorium expired just over three weeks ago, Jewish settlers across the West Bank began building in earnest, although they were advised by the Israeli leadership to keep a low profile so as not to inflame international condemnation.As bulldozers lumbered into action, the Palestinian leadership held back on a threat to abandon talks, with Abbas and Arab foreign ministers giving Washington a few weeks grace period to find a diplomatic solution to the crisis.Although the freeze did not cover building in mostly Arab east Jerusalem, Ofran said there had been a certain slowdown in construction there since a visit in March by US Vice President Joe Biden.In an announcement which was seen as a slap in the face for the visiting Biden, Israel said it would build 1,600 new settler homes in annexed east Jerusalem, prompting a major crisis with Washington.Since then, Israel has not signed off on any new building in the east, until last week, when it approved plans for another 240 homes in the settlement neighbourhoods of Pisgat Zeev and Ramot.The move was sharply condemned by the Palestinians, who accused Israel of being intent on killing every opportunity to revive peace talks between the two sides.Netanyahu has so far refused to reimpose the freeze, largely because he lacks support for such a move within his right-wing coalition.Jewish settlement on occupied Palestinian land is one of the most bitter aspects of the conflict.About 500,000 Israelis live in more than 120 settlements across the West Bank, including east Jerusalem -- territories which the Palestinians want for their promised state.The Palestinians see the settlements as a major threat to the establishment of a viable state and view the freezing of settlement activity as a crucial test of Israel's intentions.
Clinton urges Arabs to give more money to Palestinians
– Wed Oct 20, 8:36 pm ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) – US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Wednesday urged Arab countries to offer greater financial support to the Palestinian Authority.It takes more than plans and commitments to support making the state of Palestine a reality, Clinton told the annual dinner of the American Task Force on Palestine, a pro-Palestinian group which calls for a Palestinian state.The chief US diplomat paid tribute to the Palestinian Authority's efforts, saying it needs a larger, steadier, and more predictable source of financial support.The United States and the European Union are the authority's main donors.But the broader international community, including many Arab states, can and should provide more financial support,Clinton said.The secretary also urged Arab countries to consider how to begin implementing the Arab peace initiative in concrete terms.The 2002 Saudi-inspired initiative calls for Arab states to normalize ties with Israel in return for Israel's withdrawal from Arab territories occupied in the 1967 war, the creation of a Palestinian state with east Jerusalem as its capital and a fair settlement of the Palestinian refugee issue.
Clinton also promised that, whatever the difficulties, the Obama administration will not give up seeking a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians.The peace negotiations that were relaunched in Washington on September 2 following a 20-month hiatus are threatened by Israel's refusal to renew a 10-month moratorium on Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank.On October 9, the Arab League gave the United States an additional month to try to save the peace talks.
Israel marks 15 years since Rabin assassination By DIAA HADID, Associated Press Writer – Wed Oct 20, 5:59 pm ET
JERUSALEM – Israel on Wednesday marked 15 years since Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated by an Israeli extremist who opposed his concessions for peace with the Palestinians.At ceremonies around the country, speakers assessed Rabin's legacy, and many warned that the incitement to violence that preceded his assassination has not disappeared.In 1995, Israel was in the midst of a peace process that aimed to create a Palestinian state in much of the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem. The process, which began with secret negotiations in Oslo, Norway in 1993, broke down in violence in 2000, and many Israelis now believe it was a mistake.Rabin was shot dead on Nov. 4, 1995. Israel marks the event according to the Hebrew calendar date, which fell on Wednesday.Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, President Shimon Peres and other dignitaries joined Rabin's family at a ceremony at his grave in Jerusalem.
Instead of just eulogizing Rabin, Netanyahu addressed the slain prime minister as if he were alive, recounting what happened in his absence.We haven't yet reached the desired peace, and it is not clear if this would have completely surprised you, Netanyahu said at the ceremony in the Jerusalem military cemetery on Mount Herzl.
Today's peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians, which started in early September in Washington, have stalled over Netanyahu's refusal to extend a building slowdown in Jewish settlements in the West Bank — a territory that Palestinians seek for their future state.Weeks before the assassination, Netanyahu — at the time a bitter political enemy of Rabin — vilified his planned concessions in a vitriolic rally in downtown Jerusalem. After taking office for a second term last year, Netanyahu for the first time accepted the concept of a Palestinian state.At Wednesday's memorial, Netanyahu said many Israelis understand that we cannot exist long term without a (peace) agreement and without compromises.At a separate memorial in the central Israeli city of Rehovot, longtime Rabin aide Eitan Haber complained that extremist rabbis who backed violence were not arrested.Rabin's assassin, Yigal Amir, would not have carried out his murderous act if he had not felt backing from his religious leaders, said Haber, warning that extremism and incitement are still common.Israeli newspapers featured pictures of Rabin and memorial ceremonies on their front pages. The Haaretz daily carried a picture of youth forging a six-sided Star of David from traditional memorial candles at Tel Aviv's Rabin Square, named for the fallen leader after the assassination.Echoing the findings of a public opinion poll, columnist Ben Caspit wrote in the Maariv daily: Yigal Amir must never be released from prison.(This version CORRECTS that Netanyahu took office last year, not this.)
S.Africa draws on past to boost Palestinian reconciliation
– Wed Oct 20, 1:38 pm ET
RAMALLAH, Palestinian Territories (AFP) – South Africa has launched a new initiative aimed at encouraging Palestinian reconciliation by sharing its experience in overcoming Apartheid, officials said on Wednesday.Pretoria's representative to the Palestinian Authority Ted Pekane announced the initiative, which will be carried out by Alex Boraine, the former deputy head of the country's Truth and Reconciliation Commission.That commission, which in the 1990s probed human rights violations committed during Apartheid, was widely credited with easing tensions and helping the country come to terms with its legacy of racial discrimination.I received an invitation from the South African embassy to come here to see the Palestinian factions and try to reach reconciliation with them, Boraine told reporters in the West Bank political capital Ramallah.The two main Palestinian factions, Fatah and Hamas, have been fiercely divided since Hamas seized power in Gaza in June 2007 in a week of bloody street battles, confining the Western-backed Palestinian Authority to the occupied West Bank.I have met with many people from Fatah during the last week and with a few Hamas leaders and some independents... All of them expressed that they want to see the South African experience, he said.The secular Fatah and its Islamist rivals had planned to hold a second round of talks in Syria on Wednesday but the meeting was scrapped when Fatah requested a change of venue.Egypt tried to mediate between the two rival factions for months but those efforts ground to a halt a year ago when Hamas refused to sign a unity deal endorsed by Cairo and Fatah.
Boraine said he had no intention of interfering with Cairo's mediation.He said he had been denied Israeli permission to travel to Gaza for meetings with senior Hamas leaders there, adding that he hoped to meet with the Islamist movement's exiled leadership in Syria.Since 2007, each side has accused the other of persecuting its members, and Palestinian and international human rights groups have been critical of both.
Jordan warns of steep price if Mideast peace fails
– Wed Oct 20, 11:30 am ET
AMMAN (AFP) – Jordan's King Abdullah II warned that the world will pay a heavy price if the Israeli-Palestinian peace process collapses, in talks on Wednesday with The Elders group of retired global figures.The region and the world will pay the price in case of the failure of the peace efforts which require action from all parties to reach a two-state solution, he said in a statement released by the royal palace. consequences.Only a settlement of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict will clear the way for security and stability in the region, he told former US president Jimmy Carter and the three other Elders.The palace said the king and the visiting delegates discussed the obstacles which are blocking progress in the US-brokered direct talks between Israel and the Palestinians.Former Irish president and UN high commissioner for human rights Mary Robinson, Indian women's rights campaigner Ela Bhatt and former Algerian foreign minister and UN envoy Lakhdar Brahimi also took part in the meeting.The delegation, as part of a group which seeks to work for world peace, left Amman after the talks and were to travel on to Israel and the Palestinian political capital of Ramallah in the West Bank.The respected statesmen have also visited Damascus and Cairo after kicking off the tour in Gaza, apart from Carter who joined them on the second leg in the Egyptian capital.Direct peace talks, which resumed in Washington at the start of September, have run into the ground over Israel's refusal to renew restrictions on Jewish settlement construction in the occupied West Bank.Jordan's King Abdullah II on Monday told the visting foreign ministers of France and Spain that Europe has a key role in Middle East, after the pair were snubbed by their Israeli counterpart.
Controversial OECD tourism conference opens in Jerusalem
– Wed Oct 20, 7:33 am ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – An Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development tourism conference opened in Jerusalem on Wednesday with 28 out of 33 members attending over Palestinian protests, Israel's tourism ministry said.Critics had said Israel would use the forum held by the club of developed economies, to which it was admitted earlier this year, to lend international legitimacy to the Jewish state's claim to the entire Holy City as its capital.The Palestinians, who have demanded annexed Arab east Jerusalem as the capital of their promised state, had called on the international community to boycott the gathering, as did the Arab League.Britain and Spain had earlier said they would not send delegations to the conference, the former citing financial reasons and the latter a scheduling conflict. Both denied they were boycotting the event.An official in Turkey's tourism ministry said it too would not be participating, without giving further details. Israel's tourism ministry did not disclose the two other absentees.Relations between Israel and its once-close military ally Turkey have been severely frayed since a May 31 raid on a Gaza-bound aid ship, in which Israeli naval commandos shot dead nine Turkish activists.Israeli Tourism Minister Stas Misezhnikov sparked a row with the OECD earlier this month when he suggested that the conference constituted international recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital.
The minister, from the ultra-nationalist Yisrael Beitenu party, later backed away from the remarks, saying the gathering should be apolitical and strictly professional.In remarks at the opening of the three-day summit, which will focus on green tourism, Misezhnikov highlighted the growing cooperation between Israel and the Palestinian Authority in the area of tourism.Based upon stability and common interest, cities like Jerusalem and Bethlehem are cooperating for the well-being of thousands of visitors, daily crossing from Israel to the Palestinian Authority and vice-versa, he said.I am confident that this tourism dynamism will spread and we can anticipate the combination with other localities like Jericho joining in that form of cooperation.The fate of Jerusalem, with major holy sites sacred to Jews, Christians and Muslims, has been one of the most intractable issues in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.Wednesday's opening session was closed to the public.
Hezbollah slams UN interference in Lebanese affairs
– Wed Oct 20, 3:36 am ET
BEIRUT (AFP) – Lebanon's Shiite Hezbollah movement Wednesday accused the United Nations of interfering in Lebanese affairs, days after the world body warned tension in the country could affect the entire region.The UN on Monday released a report on the implementation of Security Council Resolution 1559, which calls for the disbanding and disarmament of all militias on Lebanese soil and the withdrawal of all foreign forces from Lebanon.In the report, released after a controversial visit to Lebanon by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad last week, UN chief Ban Ki-moon warned that Lebanon had been hit by a new climate of uncertainty that could cause instability across the Middle East.The report released by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Resolution 1559 ... marks interference in internal Lebanese affairs as well as political interference in the affairs of the international tribunal, Hezbollah said in a statement.Tension has been rising in Lebanon over the UN-backed tribunal, which is probing the 2005 assassination of Lebanese ex-premier Rafiq Hariri, amid unconfirmed reports the court will indict members of Hezbollah.The Iranian-backed group has warned such an eventuality will have repercussions in Lebanon and called for a local investigation into the murder instead.It would seem that Ban Ki-moon... failed to notice that Hezbollah, and for quite some time, has been at the heart of Lebanese politics through its representation in parliament and cabinet,Hezbollah's statement said.It would also seem that he did not find the time to read Lebanon's government statement.Saad Hariri's hard-won government in November adopted a policy statement that acknowledged Hezbollah's right to use its weapons against Israel, despite disagreement by mainly Christian members of the ruling majority.
Hezbollah, which fought a bloody 2006 war with Israel, is the only group that refused to turn in its arms after the 1975-1990 Lebanese civil war.It argues its arsenal is necessary to protect the country against the Jewish state, which withdrew from southern Lebanon in 2000 after a 22-year occupation.
