Turkey won't be silent if Israel strikes Lebanon
NOV 25 AMERICAN THANKSGIVING 2010
BEIRUT (AFP) – Turkey will not remain silent if Israel attacks Lebanon or Gaza, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said in Beirut on Thursday, as ties between the longtime allies remained at an all-time low.Does (Israel) think it can enter Lebanon with the most modern aircraft and tanks to kill women and children, and destroy schools and hospitals, and then expect us to remain silent?" Erdogan said at a conference organised by the Union of Arab Banks.Does it think it can use the most modern weapons, phosphorus munitions and cluster bombs to kill children in Gaza and then expect us to remain silent? We will not be silent and we will support justice by all means available to us.Turkey was once Israel's closest military and diplomatic ally in the Middle East but ties began to deteriorate when Ankara criticised Israel's December 2008 to January 2009 offensive against Gaza.Relations then nosedived on May 31, 2010 when Israeli naval commandos stormed a Turkish-registered protest ship, the Mavi Marmara, part of a flotilla attempting to break the Israeli blockade of the Palestinian territory.
Nine Turkish activists were killed in the operation.Erdogan has said his country will not begin to restore relations with Israel until it apologises for its savage attack on the vessel.Thursday was the final day of the Turkish premier's two-day visit to Lebanon, during which he inaugurated a burns treatment centre in Sidon, a major southern coastal city.South Lebanon was badly hit during the Hezbollah militia's deadly 2006 war with Israel.
Israeli troops raze mosque, buildings in West Bank
– Thu Nov 25, 7:09 am ET
KHIRBET YARZA, Palestinian Territories (AFP) – Israeli troops razed a mosque and more than 10 other structures in two areas of the occupied West Bank on Thursday, Palestinians sources said.
Most of the demolition activity took place in the village of Khirbet Yarza in the northern Jordan Valley, where residents said troops had razed a very old mosque and its much-larger extension, which was built last year.They also said troops had levelled more than 10 buildings used for sheep.The army confirmed knocking down what it described as eight temporary structures which had been built inside a military firing zone.During the morning, the security forces and the Civil Administration destroyed eight temporary structures and the frame of another structure, which were built without the required permits inside a firing zone endangering the lives of the residents, said a statement from COGAT, the defence ministry unit which acts as a link between the army and the Palestinians.At the opposite end of the West Bank, Israeli troops destroyed a building which was home to 18 people in the southern town of Yatta, the family and municipal officials told AFP.Khirbet Yarza is located in Area C of the West Bank, which is under full Israeli control and where all construction and planning issues come under the jurisdiction of the Israeli Civil Administration.Figures from the Israeli NGO Bimkom show that around 95 percent of applications for a building permit are rejected, with the Civil Administration only granting around 12 permits a year.UN figures show that in 2009, Israel destroyed 180 Palestinian structures in Area C, including 56 residential buildings.
Palestinian official: Western Wall not Jewish By Diaa Hadid, Associated Press – Wed Nov 24, 2:40 pm ET
JERUSALEM – An official Palestinian report claiming that a key Jewish holy site — Jerusalem's Western Wall — has no religious significance to Jews evoked an angry response from Israelis Wednesday, threatening to further inflame tensions over the disputed city.Decades of archaeology have shown that the Western Wall, the holiest place where Jews can pray, was a retaining wall of the compound where the two biblical Jewish Temples stood 20 centuries ago. The Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, Islam's third-holiest site, is built atop the ruins.The latest claim about the Temples, echoing positions taken in the past by Palestinian leaders including the late Yasser Arafat, underlined the deeply held, conflicting beliefs that must be untangled if a peace accord is to be reached between Israel and the Palestinians.Al-Mutawakil Taha, deputy minister of information in the Western-backed Palestinian Authority that rules the West Bank, told The Associated Press on Wednesday that his five-page study published on a Palestinian government website reflected the official Palestinian position.Part of the report disputes that the Western Wall was a retaining wall of the Temple compound, discarding centuries of documentation and archaeology.
This wall has never been a part of what is called the Jewish Temple, the report claimed. However, it was Islamic tolerance which allowed the Jews to stand before it and cry over its loss.The report concludes that since Jews have no claim to the area, it is holy Muslim territory and must be part of Palestinian Jerusalem.Both sides say the clashing narratives are political. Israel captured east Jerusalem in the 1967 Mideast war and annexed it. Palestinians claim east Jerusalem, including the Old City, as the capital of their future state.Of course it's a political position, Taha said.Taha said he wrote the report after Israeli officials on Sunday approved a five-year renovation plan for the Western Wall area.Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev described the report as incitement by denying the historic Jewish connection to Jerusalem.
Einat Wilf, a legislator from the moderate Israeli Labor Party, a part of the governing coalition, said Palestinians are stupidly trying again and again to somehow create an alternative reality in which the Jewish people are a strangers in this land.After Israel seized control of east Jerusalem, it cleared away shacks built next to the Western Wall and built a wide, open plaza there.In contrast, Israel turned over administration of the hilltop itself, with the Al-Aqsa Mosque and Dome of the Rock shrine, to the Muslim Supreme Council, or Waqf, while Israel maintained overall security control.Plans that won preliminary approval in earlier, failed peace negotiations envisioned dividing Jerusalem along ethnic lines — leaving Israel in control of Jewish neighborhoods while Arab sections would be part of the Palestinian state — but no formula emerged for the disputed hilltop.
Report: Clinton and Obama Pulled Bait and Switch on Netanyahu
by Maayana Miskin NOV 24,10
As Israel waits for a letter clarifying America's guarantees in exchange for a proposed building ban for Jewish residents of Judea and Samaria, a diplomatic source has come forward saying that no such letter is on its way. United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton misled Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, and contrary to reports, the U.S. does not guarantee an end to the freeze, the source said.The source, a senior diplomat with inside knowledge of Netanyahu's recent meetings in Washington, said Clinton made commitments when talking to Netanyahu, but later slipped out of them by claiming that she had not been speaking on behalf of U.S. President Obama – who, she said in the end, did not give his approval.When Netanyahu called the State Department to clarify America's position, officials expressed surprise at his surprise, the source continued. While Clinton made promises, Netanyahu knew from the beginning that Obama has the final word, they allegedly said.
Clinton had told Netanyahu that the proposed construction freeze would last for three months, and that it would end regardless of whether or not there was progress in talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. After that, she said, America would not push for a third building freeze.However, according to the diplomat, U.S. leaders have since said that the building ban for Jews in Judea and Samaria would only end if Israel and the PA reached an agreement on the borders of a proposed PA state.Several other American promises have been called into question as well. While it was initially reported that Israel would receive F-35 fighter jets in exchange for the freeze, Israeli ministers later clarified that the jets are part of a separate package, and that Israel will pay for them in full. It was also suggested that the construction ban would not apply to Jews living in Jerusalem; however, U.S. officials later stated that it would apply to all Jews living east of the 1949 armistice line, including those in Israel's capital city.If America does not openly declare that a second construction freeze would end in three months with or without a deal with the PA, Netanyahu is unlikely to get the cabinet's support for the new construction ban. Ministers in Shas and within Netanyahu's own Likud party have already stated that they would vote against the proposal without a U.S. promise.
Netanyahu previously made the unprecedented step of unconditionally freezing construction for Jews in Judea and Samaria for 10 months, in an attempt to bring the PA to the negotiating table. PA leaders reluctantly agreed to talk just as the 10-month freeze reached its conclusion, but left the talks again when the freeze ended.
(IsraelNationalNews.com)
Iran's Parliament Planned to Oust Ahmadinejad
by Gil Ronen NOV 24,10
Iran's parliament planned to impeach President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad but refrained from doing so following the intervention of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Wall Street Journal reported. Four members of Tehran's parliament launched a petition to hold a debate on Ahmadinejad's impeachment, conservative Iranian newspapers said.The papers reported Monday that legislators started a move to collect the 74 signatures needed to hold an open debate on the president's impeachment. Forty lawmakers have already signed the motion.This is the first time in the history of the Islamic Republic that parliament has discussed impeachment of a president. However, the move needs Khamenei's support in order to succeed – and it does not appear to have it at this time.In a report discussed in parliament Monday, four lawmakers voiced unprecedentedly harsh criticism of Ahmadinejad, accusing him of breaking the law and acting without the approval of the legislature. The Iranian president was charged with illegally importing gasoline and oil, failing to provide budgetary transparency and withdrawing millions of dollars from Iran's foreign reserve fund without getting parliament's approval, WSJ reported.
The moves against Ahmadinejad are a manifestation of domestic unrest over his plans to gradually eliminate subsidies for fuel, food and utilities, a move that is expected to drive up inflation. The opposition to Ahmadinejad is described as politically conservative, while Ahmadinejad himself is an ultraconservative– as is Khamenei.U.S. officials Monday said they are following the political struggle in Tehran and believe that they are caused, in part, by the sanctions imposed on the Iranians by the US, the United Nations and the European Union.However, observers noted that Ahmadinejad's opponents, too, favor Iran's nuclear weapons program, and that even if Ahmadinejad is toppled, the program is likely to continue.Parag Khanna, Director of the Global Governance Initiative at the New America Foundation, predicts that the next Iranian revolution is very close, in an interview with Globes. Khanna, who was an adviser to U.S. President Barack Obama, said that there are many underground tremors in Iran, that will lead to a change in the power structure in the next few years.Regarding the Islamic Republic's nuclear arms program, Khanna estimated at 50% the chances that the West will be able to check the Iranian program before it reaches the point of no return. He is not sure if this will happen through military or diplomatic means, but says – I have hunch that we will succeed in stopping them.(IsraelNationalNews.com)
Abbas Plans PLO Office in Jerusalem
by Maayana Miskin NOV 24,10
Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas said Tuesday that while the PLO has built a new office in Ramallah, north of Jerusalem, it does not plan to stay in the city. Ultimately, the PLO will return to Jerusalem, he said.His remarks were made during a ceremony opening the new Ramallah headquarters.Abbas recalled a visit to PLO headquarters in Jerusalem prior to the Six Day War of 1967 in which the city was reunited. The PLO had centers in Judea and Samaria during the 19-year period in which the region was under Jordanian occupation, from which it launched frequent terrorist attacks on Israeli civilians.The PA Chairman joined PA negotiator Saeb Erekat in condemning Israel for passing the Referendum Law, which will allow Israelis to vote on whether or not to cede land in Jerusalem or the Golan for the sake of a peace treaty. This step puts obstacles in the way of the political process, he said.The PA claims all land east of the 1949 armistice line, including much of Jerusalem, as part of a future Arab state.Israeli activists in Jerusalem have charged that the PA is attempting a de facto annexation of parts of Israel's capital city. The PA has claimed credit for paving roads and planting trees in Arab neighborhoods, and recently reported that it had invested two million shekels in Arab schools.(IsraelNationalNews.com)
Fatah meets for talks on Israel, Hamas
– Wed Nov 24, 8:10 am ET
RAMALLAH, Palestinian Territories (AFP) – Senior members of Fatah, the party of Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas, met on Wednesday to discuss issues ranging from peace talks with Israel to reconciliation with Hamas.The representatives from Fatah's Revolutionary Council gathered in the West Bank city of Ramallah from early morning for a day of talks on domestic and international political affairs.Abbas was during the day expected to deliver a very important address on the developments in the political situation, the reconciliation process and the internal situation of the movement, council member Hussein al-Sheikh told AFP. He said Fatah's efforts to reconcile with Hamas would be discussed and would show the Islamist group was to blame for the failure to reach a deal on a government of national unity.The bitter divisions between Fatah and Hamas go back to the start of limited Palestinian self-rule in the 1990s, when Fatah strongmen cracked down on the Islamist militant group.
Their divisions boiled over in June 2007 when Hamas -- which had won a parliamentary election a year earlier -- drove Abbas's loyalists from Gaza in a week of bloody clashes, seizing control of the impoverished territory.All attempts at reconciliation, most of them mediated by Egypt, have failed, with Fatah and Hamas accusing each other of undermining trust by persecuting political rivals in the territory under its control.The last round took place in Damascus earlier this month, but ended without agreement, and the two sides said they would meet again after Eid al-Adha, which ended on Friday.In a sign of the continuing divisions, the Revolutionary Council's deputy secretary-general Sabri Saidam slammed Hamas's decision to stop members of the Revolutionary Council in Gaza from coming to take part in the meeting.In response, Taher al-Nunu, a spokesman for the Hamas government in Gaza, said they would allow them to leave in return for the release of a Hamas member arrested in Nablus.The council members would be allowed to attend in exchange for a symbolic gesture, the release of Tamam Abu Su'ud as a positive message to our people in the context of reconciliation efforts and national dialogue,Nunu said.By refusing to release Abu Su'ud, Fatah bears sole responsibility for the restriction of movement of its leaders, he added.
