WikiLeaks shows Netanyahu supports land swaps By JOSEF FEDERMAN and DAN PERRY, Associated Press – Tue Nov 30, 2:33 pm ET
JERUSALEM – A throwaway line in the mountain of Wikileaks memos may hold the key to a major riddle: Is Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu prepared to go the distance for peace with the Palestinians? In a February 2009 memo that reflects the delicate machinery of diplomacy at work, a senior U.S. diplomat assessed the newly elected leader was not only willing to cede West Bank land but also territory in Israel itself.Netanyahu said this week that he believes secrecy is essential for negotiations to succeed. And in 20 months in office, including a short-lived round of negotiations with Palestinians, he has revealed very little about his vision for peace.But the newly leaked memo indicates the head of a government dominated by nationalist and religious politicians opposed to broad pullouts from occupied land may be willing to go much further than commonly believed.With hard-liners accusing him of abandoning his ideals, Netanyahu's office on Tuesday downplayed the leaked document and said he was already on record as favoring territorial concessions for peace.WikiLeaks began publishing more than 250,000 leaked U.S. embassy cables over the weekend — and on Tuesday, Israeli media zeroed in on a confidential Feb. 26, 2009memo.
In the memo, dated two weeks after elections that landed Netanyahu in office, a senior American diplomat said that during a meeting a few days before Netanyahu expressed support for the concept of land swaps, and emphasized that he did not want to govern the West Bank and Gaza but rather to stop attacks from being launched from there.Two seemingly innocuous words — land swaps — speak diplomatic volumes: They are understood to refer to Israel ceding land inside its recognized territory in exchange for being allowed to keep small parts of the West Bank where there are large concentrations of Jewish settlers.This concept suggests a willingness to cede the vast majority of the Palestinian area occupied in 1967, and it was a key element of a proposal made two years ago by Netanyahu's predecessor Ehud Olmert. Olmert says he offered the Palestinians some 95 percent of the West Bank with land swaps compensating them fully, in terms of land mass, for the remainder.Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has also endorsed the concept of land swaps — but he never embraced the Olmert offer. Olmert was hounded out of office soon after by a financial scandal and replaced by Netanyahu.Asked on Monday whether he would be willing to duplicate the Olmert offer under the right circumstances, Netanyahu demurred.I can say that I will tell that to (Abbas) and to our American interlocutors when we actually engage in the final stages of a final settlement negotiation,he said.That's how I negotiate.Netanyahu noted that the ability to negotiate under a cloak of secrecy was critical to Israel's ability to reach a peace deal with Egypt in 1979. Had the Israeli public known that Prime Minister Menachem Begin was preparing to cede the entire Sinai desert, he suggested resistance might have scuttled the agreement.That could explain why Netanyahu might agree to land swaps in private conversations only.In public, he had been an outspoken critic of Olmert's offer. But after taking office, his positions gradually started to erode.In mid-2009, Netanyahu endorsed the concept of forming an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel — something he had opposed for virtually his whole public career. A year ago, he agreed to a 10-month moratorium on settlement-building, which has since expired. In September, he opened peace talks with the Palestinians aimed at forging an agreement within a year, but they quickly stalled over Israel's refusal to extend the settlement moratorium.
The challenge negotiators face is great.
Netanyahu says Israel must retain a security presence in parts of the West Bank and keep east Jerusalem — home to sensitive Jewish, Muslim and Christian holy sites — as an integral part of its capital. Both demands are rejected by the Palestinians, who seek all of the West Bank and east Jerusalem, both captured by Israel in 1967. Closing the gaps depends largely on Netanyahu moving still further toward the Palestinians — and the report by U.S. diplomat Luis G. Moreno suggested this is not outside the realm of possibility.Netanyahu now faces unrest in his governing coalition, where pro-settlement hard-liners are pressuring him not to cave in to the American demands to renew the settlement curbs.Danny Danon, a lawmaker from Netanyahu's Likud party, said members had met over the leaked memo and want to prevent more concessions.If the prime minister is trying to appease Obama, he risks losing the support he has within the Likud,he said.Danon and his hardline cohorts may have reason to fear, given Netanyahu's own words a day before: Transparency is fundamental to our society, and it's usually essential — but there are a few areas, including diplomacy, where it isn't essential.
Netanyahu said no peace with right of return: WikiLeaks
– Mon Nov 29, 1:14 pm ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – The Palestinians will not be a partner for peace until they drop demands for the right of return, Benjamin Netanyahu said two years before being elected premier, leaked US cables showed on Monday.And a withdrawal by Israeli forces to the pre-1967 borders would only encourage radical Islamic elements, he said during talks with senior US officials in April 2007 when he was leader of the opposition.Details of his remarks were catalogued in a diplomatic cable sent by the then US ambassador to Israel Richard H. Jones, which was one of hundreds of secret documents released by WikiLeaks late on Sunday.Netanyahu told the officials that Israel would not have a partner for peace until the Palestinians dropped their demand for refugees to return to homes they either left or were forced out of in the war which accompanied Israel's creation in 1948.Netanyahu noted that he thought dropping the 'right of return' was the acid test of Arab intentions and insisted that he would never allow a single Palestinian refugee to return to Israel, the leaked cable said.Israel will only have a peace partner when the Palestinians drop the right of return,it quoted him as saying, noting Israel's rejection of the so-called Arab peace initiative because it kept the option for the right of return open.
Asked whether Israel could accept case-by-case exceptions, Netanyahu insisted not one refugee could ever return. Israel, after all, was not asking for the right of Jews to return to Baghdad or Cairo.He also ruled out a return to the pre-1967 borders, saying those lines were indefensible and that such a move would serve only to encourage Islamic radicals in the region.Netanyahu stated that a return to the 1967 borders and dividing Jerusalem was not a solution since further withdrawals would only whet the appetite of radical Islam, it said.The 1967 borders were not the solution since Israel was the only force blocking radical Islam's agenda of overrunning Jordan and Saudi Arabia.The issue of refugees is one of the thorniest elements of the conflict, with the Palestinians demanding that Israel recognise the right of return of refugees who, with their descendants, now number 4.7 million people.Israel rejects the demand, saying they should be accommodated within a Palestinian state.
US memos: Iran armed Hezbollah through ambulances By BASSEM MROUE, Associated Press – Mon Nov 29, 12:42 pm ET
BEIRUT – Iranian Red Crescent ambulances were used to smuggle weapons to Lebanon's militant Hezbollah group during its 2006 war with Israel, according to newly leaked U.S. diplomatic memos, which say the IRC shipments of medical supplies served also to facilitate weapons shipments.According to one of the documents, a person whose name was not published had seen missiles in the planes destined for Lebanon when delivering medical supplies to the plane. The plane was allegedly half full prior to the arrival of any medical supplies, according to the memo.Hezbollah and Israel fought a 34-day war that killed 1,200 Lebanese and 160 Israelis.The more than 250,000 classified State Department documents were released Sunday by online whistleblower WikiLeaks.A Hezbollah spokesman declined to comment, saying he had yet not read the document.Iran, whose ties to Hezbollah date back nearly 30 years, allegedly funds the militant group, sending millions of dollars a year, and is suspected of supplying much of its arsenal.Paul Conneally, a spokesman for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, said the Geneva-based body took the allegations against one of its members very seriously.We will of course discuss it with the Iranian Red Crescent, but for now they remain allegations which are unsubstantiated to the best of our knowledge, and based on a source who is not named, Conneally told The Associated Press.Conneally said the Iranian Red Crescent had been contacted by Britain's Guardian newspaper ahead of the publication of the memo. They denied those allegations vociferously,he said.
The IFRC, which represents 186 national societies and is a separate organization from the International Committee of the Red Cross, relies heavily on its status as a neutral organization.We have very strict rules and regulations on the use of our emblem, said Conneally. It is the integrity of the use of the emblem which we depend on for access to humanitarian situations around the world.Conneally said the IFRC hadn't previously been contacted by U.S. officials before the memo was leaked.It was most definitely news to us.During the monthlong conflict in Lebanon, Hezbollah fired nearly 4,000 rockets at northern Israel, including several medium-range missiles that for the first time hit Israel's third-largest city, Haifa. Israeli weaponry, including warplanes, destroyed areas in southern and eastern Lebanon and Hezbollah's stronghold of Dahiyeh in southern Beirut.The New York Times, which along with several European publications was provided advanced access to the documents, reported that they describe the United States' failure to prevent Syria from supplying arms to Hezbollah.It said a week after Syrian President Bashar Assad promised a top State Department official that he would not send new arms to Hezbollah, the United States complained that it had information that Syria was providing increasingly sophisticated weapons to the group.Syria, like Iran, is one of Hezbollah's strongest backers and much of the militant group's weapons are reportedly smuggled through Syria's long border. Damascus is also Iran's closest ally in the Arab world.Associated Press Writer Frank Jordans in Geneva contributed to this report.
Israel could wage new war on Lebanon: Hezbollah chief
– Sun Nov 28, 4:38 pm ET
BEIRUT (AFP) – Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah warned on Sunday that Israel could wage a new war on Lebanon after the publication of indictments by a UN-backed tribunal probing the murder of ex-premier Rafiq Hariri.The Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) could be a cover for a new Israeli war, Nasrallah said in a speech on closed-circuit television during a ceremony paying tribute to Hezbollah students.In Israel they have begun to celebrate the fact that the indictment will implicate Hezbollah, said Nasrallah, who believes that Israel and its American ally are pulling the strings of the tribunal.He urged the Lebanese to unite and protect the country ahead of the results of the UN probe amid mounting tensions between his Iran- and Syria-backed group and supporters of Hariri's son and current Western-backed Prime Minister Saad Hariri.What we fear, in light of the Israeli-American plot, is that if we wait until the indictment is published to begin to close ranks and unite... it will be too late, Nasrallah said.It is widely believed in Lebanon's political circles that the UN-backed tribunal investigating Rafiq Hariri's 2005 assassination could publish its indictments before the end of the year, although no date has been set.On Monday the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation aired a documentary citing unidentified sources saying that UN investigators had evidence that points overwhelmingly to the involvement of members of Hezbollah in the murder.
And on Wednesday Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu convened his inner Forum of Seven ministers on concerns that Hezbollah could attempt a coup in Lebanon in the face of a UN probe, Israeli media reported.Nasrallah has already warned against any attempt to target his party and said on November 11 that Hezbollah would cut off the hand of anyone who tried to arrest any of its partisans over the Hariri assassination.Israel fought a devastating war against Hezbollah in the summer of 2006 in which more than 1,200 people in Lebanon, mainly civilians, and 160 Israelis, mainly soldiers, were killed.
German president on official visit to Israel
– Sat Nov 27, 2:03 pm ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – Christian Wulff, Germany's first head of state to be born after World War II, arrived on Saturday on his first official visit to Israel and the Palestinian territories, the German embassy in Tel Aviv said.During his three-day visit, Wulff who flew into Tel Aviv will meet his Israeli counterpart Shimon Peres, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas.Wulff, 51, was elected in June and is Germany's fifth president to pay an official visit to Israel.His predecessor Horst Koehler in 2005 laid a wreath at Jerusalem's Yad Vashem memorial to the six million Jews killed in the Nazi Holocaust and also addressed the Knesset, the Israeli parliament.Wulff will also visit the Holocaust memorial during his trip.In this official visit, I see a sign of our responsibility towards the existence of Israel and the very relationship between our two countries,Wulff said in an official statement before leaving Germany.He also linked responsibility towards Israel to the fight against anti-Semitism.A quarter of a century ago, Richard von Weizsaecker became the first German president to visit Israel in 1985.
In March 2008, German Chancellor Angela Merkel visited 60 years after the Jewish state was founded in the wake of the Holocaust, also laying a wreath at Yad Vashem.The Holocaust fills us Germans with shame, Merkel, the first German chancellor born after World War II, told the Knesset during her visit.I bow before the victims, I bow before the survivors, and before all those who helped them so they could survive.Several Israeli lawmakers stayed away from the chamber, however, in protest at the chancellor speaking in German.The two countries set up full diplomatic relations in 1965 and Germany is now one of Israel's closest partners in Europe.
Syria says lack of peace in Mideast hurts development
– Sat Nov 27, 8:13 am ET
DAMASCUS (AFP) – Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said on Saturday the absence of peace in the Middle East harms the region's economic development, following talks with the visiting Indian president.The absence of peace in our region due to Israel's policies... raises tensions and undermines economic development and prosperity, Assad said at a news conference with visiting President Pratibha Patil.
He also expressed the hope that Syria-India relations will aid international efforts to help put an end to the suffering of the Palestinian people.Assad reiterated that key ally Iran and all (other) countries have a right to nuclear energy for peaceful means.But he stressed that the Middle East must be free of weapons of mass destruction -- a presumed reference to Israel which is widely believed to be the region's sole if undeclared nuclear-armed power.Patil arrived in Damascus on Friday after visiting the United Arab Emirates.Assad said he discussed with Patil ways of bolstering ties with emerging markets in India, namely in the sectors of information technology, pharmaceuticals and textiles.
Israel mulls rail link to West Bank settlement
– Fri Nov 26, 7:28 am ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – Israel is considering building a rail link to the sprawling Jewish settlement of Ariel, which lies deep inside the occupied West Bank, a transport ministry spokesman told AFP on Friday.The spokesman stressed that it was only one of a number of projects under consideration but the right-wing Maariv daily said three million shekels (800,000 dollars) had been allocated for a feasibility study.The proposed rail line would link the town of Rosh Ha Ayin, east of Tel Aviv, with Ariel and also serve Barkan, another settlement.The idea was first mooted a few months ago by Transport Minister Israel Katz of the right-wing Likud party of hawkish Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.No operational decision has been taken at this stage, the ministry spokesman told AFP. It's just one among a number of proposals.Although Ariel lies 17 kilometres (11 miles) from the 1967 border between Israel and the West Bank, and cuts a deep indentation into the territory, successive Israeli prime ministers have insisted on keeping the settlement in any peace deal with the Palestinians.With a population of 18,000 and a higher education college, it is one of the largest Jewish settlements in the West Bank.
Israeli settlement watchdog Peace Now reported earlier this month that a private developer was poised to begin work on 800 new homes in Ariel, despite US pressure for a freeze on new settlement construction to rescue moribund peace talks with the Palestinians.The Palestinians see the settlements as a major threat to the establishment of a viable state, and they view the freezing of settlement activity as a crucial test of Israel's intentions.Peace Now spokeswoman Hagit Ofran said the proposed new neighbourhood in Ariel would encircle the Palestinian town of Salfit just to the south and described it as a grave provocation.There is no demand for housing now in Ariel,she said.
Hariri visits Iran to lobby for stability
By Mariam Karouny – Fri Nov 26, 4:39 am ET
BEIRUT (Reuters) – Lebanon's Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri visits Iran on Saturday, seeking its help to prevent political tensions turning violent if a U.N.-backed tribunal indicts Hezbollah members for killing his father.Western diplomats have said that the tribunal could indict members of Hezbollah, which is backed by Iran and Syria, by early next year for the 2005 bombing which killed former premier Rafik al-Hariri and 21 others.Lebanese politicians fear the indictments could prompt confrontation and possible violence between the Shi'ite Hezbollah, which has denied any involvement in Hariri's killing, and allies of the Sunni prime minister.
Lebanese officials hope a recent initiative by the leaders of Saudi Arabia and Syria, who back rival camps in Lebanon, will help prevent any escalation. Iran's endorsement of the Saudi-Syrian efforts is vital for their success.Hariri's visit ... is a piece in the regional movement toward (accomplishing) the deal, Lebanese analyst Oussam Safa said, adding it will give Hariri direct access to Iran without having to go through Tehran's allies -- Hezbollah or Syria.It will help Hariri to get Iran's support in calming Hezbollah's reaction if the indictment is issued, he said.Hariri's visit follows a trip to Lebanon last month by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who stressed support for all Lebanese but also made a high profile tour of Hezbollah strongholds which highlighted the influence of Tehran's ally.Tensions over the investigation have already paralyzed Hariri's unity government, which includes Hezbollah ministers.Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah has urged all Lebanese to boycott the tribunal and vowed to block the arrest of any of his members. He has also called on Hariri to repudiate the tribunal, which he described as an Israeli project.
FEARS OF VIOLENCE
A 2008 political crisis led to street fighting between Hezbollah and supporters of Hariri, who is backed by the West and Saudi Arabia, and analysts warn that indictments against Hezbollah could spark worse violence.A joint visit to Beirut in July by Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad helped ease the discord, without reaching solution on avoiding future conflict.The framework of the Saudi-Syrian initiative is in place and its roadmap is there. Now the discussion is in its details, said Okab Sakr, a parliamentarian close to Hariri, adding the initiative will ensure both justice and stability.Sakr gave no details of the initiative, which is being kept confidential until it was finalized, but said Iran was satisfied with it.If Iran objects it, then it will stop but actually there is an Iranian content.But Iran's support comes at a price.If Iran is to help in containing Hezbollah's reaction after the indictment it must take something in return and that is Hariri disavowing the indictment, Safa said.Saad Hariri has maintained support for the tribunal, leading to a standoff with Hezbollah which has left Lebanon with a weakened government unable to push through economic reforms.
The country's 2010 budget has been stuck in parliament since June with no sign it will pass this year. Lebanese officials said that they were optimistic that the Saudi-Syrian initiative would find the solution but it was on pause until Saudi King Abdullah returns from medical treatment.It is still in the work and hopefully it will be concluded after the king comes back from America, a Lebanese official who declined to be named said.(Editing by Samia Nakhoul)
