Israel extends ban on immigration through marriage
JAN 2,10 4PM
JERUSALEM (AFP) – Israel on Sunday extended for six months a ban preventing Palestinians married to Israelis to immigrate to the Jewish state, the premier's office said in a statement.The ministerial committee for security affairs decided tonight (Sunday) to extend for six months a text on family unification, which expired December 31, said a statement from the office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.That extension until June 30 denies Palestinians the right to acquire Israeli citizenship or resident status through marriage.The so-called Family Unification provision has been the subject of an outcry from leftist movements and groups representing the country's Arab minority, who charge the ban is inhumane and racist.The ministerial committee also asked the justice minister to work towards early finalisation of a law on family unification, which will meet the national security and long-term interests of the government of Israel,the statement added.The Israeli government is concerned that uncontrolled immigration could slowly erode the state's Jewish identity.Israeli Arabs currently number some 1.4 million, or 20 percent of the population.
Israeli PM wants nonstop talks with Palestinians By JOSEF FEDERMAN, Associated Press – Sun Jan 2, 2:34 pm ET
JERUSALEM – Israel's prime minister on Sunday proposed nonstop, face-to-face talks with the Palestinian president until a peace agreement is reached — offering a possible way to advance talks that have stalled over the construction of Jewish settlements.Benjamin Netanyahu's proposal offers the appeal of leaders working together to make history, and it comes in response to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' latest claim — made over the weekend in South America — that genuine talks could yield a deal within months. But the Palestinians showed little enthusiasm for Netanyahu's offer.Reached by The Associated Press in Brazil on Sunday, Abbas reiterated his call for a settlement freeze. If he does so, we can reach an agreement not in six months, but in two months, he said.Abbas' chief negotiator, Saeb Erekat, said Netanyahu's offer amounted to little more than an empty declaration. He called on the Israeli leader to spell out a vision of peace, and specifically to commit to a near-complete withdrawal from the West Bank and east Jerusalem.In his comments Sunday, Netanyahu urged the Palestinians to turn their focus away from settlements and instead work with him on the broader issues needed to reach a final peace deal.
He said he was ready to sit with Abbas, also known as Abu Mazen, for continuous direct one-on-one negotiations until white smoke is wafting, an allusion to the Vatican's custom for announcing a new pope.If Abu Mazen agrees to my proposal of directly discussing all the core issues, we will know very quickly if we can reach an agreement, he said.Netanyahu did not spell out details, but his new approach would be based on the idea that all the outstanding issues would be on the table, as opposed to the Palestinian approach of demanding a settlement freeze and general agreement on borders before talks resume.President Barack Obama has made Mideast peace a top priority, personally launching the latest round of negotiations at the White House in early September and pledging to forge a deal within a year. But the U.S.-brokered talks broke down just three weeks later with the expiration of a limited Israeli freeze on settlement construction.Netanyahu grudgingly accepted the principle of a Palestinian right to statehood only two years ago, and the past months' diplomatic difficulties have deepened the Palestinians' distrust. Appearing to despair of restarting talks, they have embarked on a parallel track of seeking recognition by world governments for a Palestinian state even without Israeli agreement.The Palestinians want a state in the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem, areas captured by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war. They say that Israel's construction in these areas is a sign of bad faith and refuse to renew talks until settlement building is frozen again.Israel has refused, and U.S. officials have been unable to find a way to get talks moving again. There was no immediate comment from the Americans on Netanyahu's latest idea, which — in ratcheting up the level and intensity of negotiation — could offer a creative way to sidestep the settlement issue.The fate of the settlements is critical to any future deal. Some 300,000 settlers now live in the West Bank, in addition to 200,000 Israelis living in east Jerusalem.
Talks would have to also address other difficult issues: final borders between Israel and a future Palestine; the fate of Palestinian refugees and their millions of descendants; and perhaps most explosive, the competing claims to the holy city of Jerusalem, which Netanyahu has insisted must remain entirely Israeli. The gaps on all these issues are wide — although previous, more liberal Israeli governments did make progress on borders.Netanyahu said his proposal was a response to Abbas' claim over the weekend that serious talks could yield an agreement in just two months. Speaking in Brazil, Abbas suggested that Netanyahu adopt the positions of his more dovish predecessor, Ehud Olmert.We were close to an agreement, Abbas said. The Palestinian position is clear to the Israelis and the Israeli position presented by Olmert is clear to us.Olmert has said he offered the Palestinians virtually all of the West Bank and parts of east Jerusalem. The Palestinians did not accept the offer, and negotiations broke down in late 2008. Netanyahu, who leads a more hardline coalition government, has given no indication that he is prepared to make similar concessions.Eitan Bentsur, a former director general of Israel's Foreign Ministry and onetime peace negotiator, said direct talks might give the negotiating process a fresh start, but were unlikely to bridge all the deep differences at this stage. Very soon they will face the core issues that have to be overcome,he said.
Yossi Beilin, a dovish former Israeli negotiator, said Netanyahu does not have a peace plan, so such an invitation (to nonstop talks) is hollow. Beilin told the AP that Netanyahu is very, very far from the demands of the most pragmatic Palestinian leadership ever.Erekat, the Palestinian negotiator, complained that during the three weeks of direct talks last September, Netanyahu made no proposals for future arrangements between Israel and Palestine. It is time for him to present his vision of peace, two states based on the 1967 lines, with minor, mutually agreed land swaps, Erekat said. A broad withdrawal offer would likely cause Netanyahu's government to collapse, though he could seek the support of more liberal parties. The main opposition party, Kadima, is also the largest in parliament, and its leaders have said they would prop up Netanyahu if he made genuine peace moves.
Netanyahu's spokesman, Mark Regev, said the prime minister knows that reaching peace will require hard choices from both sides.To be successful, it has to be done eye to eye, directly between the leaders of both sides,he said. But (Netanyahu) firmly believes this is doable. In fact, there is no other way to peace.
Israel preparing for large scale war: cable
– Sun Jan 2, 9:20 am ET
OSLO (AFP) – Israel's army chief told a US Congress delegation in late 2009 he was preparing for a large war in the Middle East, probably against Hamas or Hezbollah, leaked US diplomatic cables showed on Sunday.I am preparing the Israeli army for a large scale war, since it is easier to scale down to a smaller operation than to do the opposite, Lieutenant General Gabi Ashkenazi was quoted as saying in a cable from the US embassy in Tel Aviv.The document, dated November 15, 2009, was quoted Sunday in Norwegian by Oslo-based daily Aftenposten, which said it had obtained WikiLeaks' entire cache of 251,187 leaked US embassy cables.The rocket threat against Israel is more serious than ever. That is why Israel is putting such emphasis on rocket defence, Ashkenazi told the US delegation led by Democrat Ike Skelton, the cable showed.The army chief lamented that Iran has some 300 Shihab rockets that can reach Israel and stressed that the Jewish state would have only between 10 and 12 minutes warning in case of an attack.However, it was Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon that posed the most acute threat, he cautioned.According to the quoted cable, Hezbollah is thought to have more than 40,000 rockets, many of which are believed capable of reaching deep into Israel.
US officials meanwhile reportedly estimate the militant group has acquired an arsenal of around 50,000 rockets.A 2006 war between Hezbollah and Israel killed 1,200 Lebanese, many of them civilians, and 160 Israelis, most of them soldiers.And in his comments made nearly a year after Israel on December 27, 2008 launched the deadly Gaza war, Ashkenazi said Israel is on a collision course also with Hamas, which rules Gaza.Hamas will have the possibility to bombard Tel Aviv, with Israel's highest population concentration, he was quoted as saying.The Gaza war -- a response to hundreds of rockets fired into the Jewish State -- killed some 1,400 mainly civilian Palestinians and 13 Israelis, 10 of them soldiers. It ended on January 18, 2009.Israel had been harshly criticised for putting civilians at risk during fighting in the densely populated Gaza Strip.However, in the cable leaked Sunday Ashkenazi is quoted saying Israel next time will not accept any restrictions on warfare in populated areas,and insisted the army had never intentionally attacked civilian targets.
Arabs held for plotting Jerusalem stadium attack
by Steve Weizman – Sun Jan 2, 11:07 am ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – Two Arabs have been arrested for a suspected plot to fire a rocket into a Jerusalem football stadium along with three other men who sold them firearms, Israel's Shin Bet intelligence service said Sunday.Shin Bet, the Jewish state's domestic security agency, said two of the men, Mussa Hamada and Bassem Omari, had been active for several years in the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood in Jerusalem.They received support from the Muslim Brotherhood in Saudi Arabia, it said in a statement.The two were formally charged on Sunday with membership in and support for a terrorist organisation, firearms offences and conspiracy to commit a crime, it said.Three other men have already been charged with trafficking in weapons, it added.Shin Bet said Omari, a resident of Beit Safafa in annexed east Jerusalem, is an Israeli citizen.Hamada and the three accomplices were described as residents of east Jerusalem, a term used to describe Palestinians authorised to live in Jerusalem but who do not have Israeli citizenship.The statement was the first news of the arrests, which the agency said were made in November.It said the suspects began plotting an attack after Israel's December 2008-January 2009 Operation Cast Lead offensive in Gaza, and had planned to target the 21,000-capacity Teddy Stadium during a football match.
From their Shin Bet interrogation it transpires that after Operation Cast Lead the two began to plan a terror operation in Jerusalem, as part of which they examined the possibility of firing a missile at Teddy Stadium while a game was in progress, the statement said.The two went to a ridge overlooking the stadium in order to select the best place for an attack and carried out reconnaissance of the area, although the planning was not translated into action, it added.The statement said the men had bought several pistols and were trying to acquire a rifle and explosives.It added that Hamada's cousins, Mohammed and Omar Hamada, obtained pistols from Balal Bahtan and the three had been charged within the past few days on many firearms violations. All had confessed, it added.The Israeli military's website added that Omari had also been planning an attack against Israeli soldiers.The Shin Bet statement that during the past two years Hamada made several visits to Saudi Arabia, where he met a local member of the Muslim Brotherhood.During one of the meetings, the Saudi representative gave Mussa Hamada money for the purchase of weapons and asked in return that he gather information on Jerusalem, the statement said.More than 270,000 Arabs live in east Jerusalem, which was occupied by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war and annexed shortly after, in a move not recognised by the international community.
Very few of them hold Israeli citizenship although Palestinian residents of the city have special status which allows them free movement throughout Israel, unlike those from the West Bank.In 2001, two Palestinians died in an explosion near Teddy Stadium and police said they were killed when a bomb they were assembling exploded prematurely.The blast occured shortly before then-prime minister Ariel Sharon was due to arrive at the stadium to attend the ceremonial opening of the Maccabiah Games, an international sporting event also known as the Jewish Olympics.
Israel says direct negotiations best path to peace
– Sat Jan 1, 2:19 pm ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – Face-to-face negotiations are still the best path to peace with the Palestinians, an Israeli official said Saturday dismissing calls for a new peace plan as premature.On Friday, Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas called for the international community, spearheaded by the peacemaking Quartet of the United Nations, the United States, Russia and the European Union, to come up with a new approach.We demand that the Middle East Quartet and the various UN bodies, headed by the Security Council, draft a peace plan which conforms with international law, instead of keeping up negotiations which do not solve the problem, he said, without elaborating.
But Shahar Azrami, an Israeli foreign ministry spokesman, disagreed.Israel has been quite adamant in the last few months in trying to get the Palestinians to sit with Israel around the negotiating table and only once this option is exhausted should we think about trying to reach new solutions,Azrami told AFP.We haven't reached the moment yet, at least as far as Israel is concerned, in which we give up negotiations, he said.On Friday Abbas laid the cornerstone of a new Palestinian embassy in Brazil, part of a strategy to clinch recognition of Palestinian statehood from as many countries as possible as a prelude to going to the Security Council and asking to be admitted as a full UN member.Brazil was the first of several Latin American states that recognised Palestinian statehood this month within the borders of 1967, the boundaries that existed before Israel captured the West Bank, including east Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip in that year's Middle East war.Argentina, Bolivia and Ecuador have followed suit and Uruguay said it will do likewise later this year.
Israel opposes such moves and has reportedly ordered its own diplomats worldwide to mount a counter-offensive.It would be more viable to seek peace in the immediate neighbourhood, that is through direct negotiations with Israel rather than elsewhere in the world, be that in South America or in the United Nations,Azrami said.Direct talks between Israel and the Palestinians, the first for nearly two years, began on September 2 but stalled after a 10-month Israeli settlement-building freeze expired three weeks later and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu refused to renew it.Abbas says talks cannot resume as long as Israeli settlement construction continues.
AP Interview: Abbas says recognitions hit Israel By BRADLEY BROOKS, Associated Press – Fri Dec 31, 7:24 pm ET
BRASILIA, Brazil – Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas said Friday that a recent wave of nations recognizing a Palestinian state based upon 1967 borders is pressuring Israel and the U.S. to return to negotiations and reach a peace deal.Abbas, in Brazil to lay the cornerstone of a Palestinian Embassy and attend the inauguration of President-elect Dilma Rousseff, told The Associated Press in an interview that recent recognition of a Palestinian state by several Latin American nations would help push the U.S. and Israel into new talks.These recognitions of a Palestinian state will help us to convince the Israelis on the necessity to reach a two-state solution,said Abbas.The current round of peace negotiations collapsed in late September, just weeks after they were launched, when Israel ended a slowdown on settlements in West Bank areas it captured in 1967, land where the Palestinians plan to build their state. By December, the U.S. abandoned trying to persuade Israel to halt the settlements.The Palestinians refuse to negotiate while Israel builds homes for Jews in the West Bank and east Jerusalem.Abbas said he expects other Latin American and European nations to soon join Brazil, Argentina and Bolivia in recognizing a Palestinian state.Uruguayan officials have said they'll likely recognize the state soon. Cuba and Venezuela did so long ago.
Eventually, Abbas said, It will only be Israel and maybe the United States who do not recognize the Palestinian state — and this will put pressure on them.The Israeli government has reacted testily to the recognitions, saying that inaugurating an embassy for a nonexistent state — and Palestinians efforts for recognition of that state — is not the best way to achieve peace.The Israeli government has been trying to relaunch and re-engage Palestinians in direct talks for a very long time, Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Shachar Azani told the AP. Unfortunately, so far there has been no response.Azani said that the Palestinians must remember that at the end of the day peace is done with your neighbor and not in faraway continents or with the United Nations.Earlier this week, Palestinian officials said they plan to ask the U.N. Security Council to declare Israeli settlements illegal and demand a halt to their construction. That would be a key element in a Palestinian campaign to rally international support for independence.
Abbas said the settlements were the cause of the stalled talks.It's not that we don't want the negotiations. We were extending our hand always to the negotiations with the Israelis, he said.Despite the deadlocked talks, Abbas said he is optimistic that 2011 will be the year of peace.The Palestinian people have suffered a lot. They need to live free in their own state and they hope this will be achieved in 2011, he said.Earlier Friday, Abbas laid the cornerstone for a future Palestinian Embassy in Brazil.We seek peace. We demand this peace not only for our generation but also for our children, our grandchildren and their children, Abbas said at the ceremony.We know the Israelis believe in this peace.Brazil donated a plot of land in its embassy district in Brasilia — as it has done for nations in the past. At the ceremony, white doves were released and a banner overhead read: Palestinian Homeland in Arabic.Associated Press writers Marco Sibaja in Brasilia and Ian Deitch in Jerusalem contributed to this report.
Brazil hosts first Palestine embassy in Americas
– Fri Dec 31, 12:26 pm ET
BRASILIA (Reuters) – Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas thanked Brazil on Friday for recognizing his nation's statehood with the first embassy in the Americas and said other countries were following suit.Brazil became the first of several South American countries in recent weeks to recognize a Palestine state along pre-1967 borders.Since then Argentina, Uruguay, Bolivia and Ecuador have done the same. Chile, Mexico, Peru and Nicaragua are reported to be considering recognition.Israel says the moves are seriously harmful to the Middle East peace process and Washington has called them premature.We thank Brazil for its support in the construction of a Palestine state. This favor we will never forget, said Abbas after laying the cornerstone in Brasilia for his nation's first embassy in the Western Hemisphere.
We see several countries following the example of Brazil in recognizing the Palestinian state, Abbas said before meeting with outgoing President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.Palestinian authorities are hoping for a diplomatic domino effect to give international validity to their claim for a state in all of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, which Israel captured along with East Jerusalem in a 1967 war.Direct peace talks revived by Washington in September after a year's suspension collapsed within weeks. A U.S. drive to keep the process alive via third-party talks is in limbo.The Palestinians reject further negotiation with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu until Jewish settlement of West Bank land is frozen and Netanyahu states clearly what size and shape of country he envisages agreeing to eventually.
Lula has raised eyebrows in some Western countries with his mediation efforts in the Middle East peace process. He also angered Washington earlier this year when he held talks with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad over Iran's nuclear program.In a further sign of growing pro-Palestinian sentiment in South America, the regional trade bloc Mercosur signed a trade accord earlier this month with the Palestinian authority.Bolivia broke ties with Jerusalem in 2009 after an Israeli attack on Palestinian territories.
Abbas will attend the swearing-in of Brazilian President-elect Dilma Rousseff on Saturday.(Reporting by Raymond Colitt; Editing by Eric Beech)
2010 sees drop in Palestinian attacks: Shin Bet
– Thu Dec 30, 3:00 pm ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – The year 2010 saw the fewest militant attacks against Israel and the least number of casualties since the outbreak of the Palestinian uprising a decade ago, the Shin Bet security agency said Thursday.However, Israel's internal security agency cautioned that the Gaza Strip's Hamas rulers have intensified efforts to smuggle in advanced weapons as they prepare for a future conflict with Israel.The Shin Bet said that nine Israelis were killed in attacks by Palestinian militants in 2010, down from 15 in 2009 and a high of 452 in 2002.For the second year in a row there were no suicide bombings, the Shin Bet said in a statement.
And despite a recent spate of rocket and mortar attacks fired from Gaza into Israel, 2010 was significantly quieter with 150 rockets and 215 mortars launched.This was down from 569 rockets and 289 mortars in 2009, and 2,048 rockets and 1,668 mortars in 2008, the Shin Bet said.In December 2008 Israel launched its devastating 22-day assault on Gaza in a bid to halt the rocket fire. The conflict killed 1,400 Palestinians, mostly civilians, and 13 Israelis, 10 of them soldiers.The Shin Bet warned that despite the quiet, Hamas continued to try and smuggle quality weapons into Gaza.In the last year hundreds of military-grade rockets were smuggled into the Strip (most with a range of 20-40 kilometres, 12-24 miles), about one thousand mortars and tens of anti-tank weapons and tons of raw materials for making explosives,the statement said.It said most of the weapons came from Iran and were smuggled into Gaza through Sudan and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula.
JERUSALEM DIVIDED
ZECHARIAH 12:1-5 King James Bible
1 The burden of the word of the LORD for Israel, saith the LORD, which stretcheth forth the heavens, and layeth the foundation of the earth, and formeth the spirit of man within him.
2 Behold, I will make Jerusalem a cup of trembling unto all the people round about, when they shall be in the siege both against Judah and against Jerusalem.
3 And in that day will I make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all people: all that burden themselves with it shall be cut in pieces, though all the people of the earth be gathered together against it.
4 In that day, saith the LORD, I will smite every horse with astonishment, and his rider with madness: and I will open mine eyes upon the house of Judah, and will smite every horse of the people with blindness.
5 And the governors of Judah shall say in their heart, The inhabitants of Jerusalem shall be my strength in the LORD of hosts their God.
JOEL 3:2
2 I will also gather all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat, and will plead with them there for my people and for my heritage Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations, and parted my land.
ZECHARIAH 14:1-9 King James Bible
1 Behold, the day of the LORD cometh, and thy spoil shall be divided in the midst of thee.
2 For I will gather all nations against Jerusalem to battle; and the city shall be taken, and the houses rifled, and the women ravished; and half of the city shall go forth into captivity, and the residue of the people shall not be cut off from the city.
3 Then shall the LORD go forth, and fight against those nations, as when he fought in the day of battle.
4 And his feet shall stand in that day upon the mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east, and the mount of Olives shall cleave in the midst thereof toward the east and toward the west, and there shall be a very great valley; and half of the mountain shall remove toward the north, and half of it toward the south. 5 And ye shall flee to the valley of the mountains; for the valley of the mountains shall reach unto Azal: yea, ye shall flee, like as ye fled from before the earthquake in the days of Uzziah king of Judah: and the LORD my God shall come, and all the saints with thee.
6 And it shall come to pass in that day, that the light shall not be clear, nor dark:
7 But it shall be one day which shall be known to the LORD, not day, nor night: but it shall come to pass, that at evening time it shall be light.
8 And it shall be in that day, that living waters shall go out from Jerusalem; half of them toward the former sea, and half of them toward the hinder sea: in summer and in winter shall it be.
9 And the LORD shall be king over all the earth: in that day shall there be one LORD, and his name one.
ISRAELS INHERITED LAND IN THE FUTURE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytWmPqY8TE0&feature=player_embedded
DEUTERONOMY 7:7-8
7 The LORD did not set his love upon you, nor choose you, because ye were more in number than any people;(ISRAEL) for ye were the fewest of all people:
8 But because the LORD loved you,(ISRAEL) and because he would keep the oath which he had sworn unto your fathers, hath the LORD brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you out of the house of bondmen, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.
ZECHARIAH 2:8
8 For thus saith the LORD of hosts; After the glory hath he sent me unto the nations which spoiled you: for he that toucheth you toucheth the apple of his eye.
JEREMIAH 3:14
14 Turn, O backsliding children, saith the LORD; for I am married unto you:(ISRAEL) and I will take you one of a city, and two of a family, and I will bring you to Zion:
ISAIAH 42:1
1 Behold my servant, whom I uphold; mine elect,(ISRAEL) in whom my soul delighteth; I have put my spirit upon him: he shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles.
ISAIAH 45:4
4 For Jacob my servant’s sake, and Israel mine elect, I have even called thee by thy name: I have surnamed thee, though thou hast not known me.
ISAIAH 65:9,22
9 And I will bring forth a seed out of Jacob, and out of Judah an inheritor of my mountains: and mine elect (ISRAEL) shall inherit it, and my servants shall dwell there.
22 They shall not build, and another inhabit; they shall not plant, and another eat: for as the days of a tree are the days of my people, and mine elect (ISRAEL) shall long enjoy the work of their hands.
ISAIAH 56:5
5 Even unto them (ISRAELIS) will I give in mine house and within my walls a place and a name better than of sons and of daughters: I will give them an everlasting name,(ISRAEL) that shall not be cut off.
And here are the bounderies of the land that Israel will inherit either through war or peace or God in the future. God says its Israels land and only Israels land. They will have every inch God promised them of this land in the future.
Egypt east of the Nile River, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, The southern part of Turkey and the Western Half of Iraq west of the Euphrates. Gen 13:14-15, Psm 105:9,11, Gen 15:18, Exe 23:31, Num 34:1-12, Josh 1:4.ALL THIS LAND ISRAEL WILL DEFINATELY OWN IN THE FUTURE, ITS ISRAELS NOT ISHMAELS LAND.
Arab majority in historic Palestine after 2014: survey
– Thu Dec 30, 1:15 pm ET
RAMALLAH, Palestinian Territories (AFP) – The Arab population in historic Palestine will equal the Jewish population by 2014, and quickly outstrip it thereafter, Palestinian statistics released Thursday said.The figures published by the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics show the Arab population in Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip nearing the size of the Jewish population, but with a significantly higher birth rate.The bureau said the Arab population in the West Bank and Gaza currently stands at 4.1 million, with another 1.4 million Arabs living inside Israel.That gives a total not far short of the 5.8 million Jews living in the same area, according to current Israeli data.The number of Palestinians (Arabs) will reach that of Jewish residents by the end of 2014, around 6.1 million, at the current growth rate, the Palestinian bureau said.It noted that the birth rate in the Palestinian territories is currently 32.8 per thousand residents, as compared to 26.2 per thousand in Israel.The bureau put the current number of Palestinian refugees living overseas at 5.6 million, primarily in Arab countries.A number of Israelis have advanced the demographic argument to push for a two-state solution, warning that without a resolution, the growing Arab population will erase Israel's character as a Jewish state.
Gaza militants meet over Israel tensions
– Wed Dec 29, 10:38 am ET
GAZA CITY, Palestinian Territories (AFP) – Hamas, the militant group that controls the Gaza Strip, called a meeting of Palestinian factions overnight as tension rises along the border with Israel, a source told AFP.In past weeks, Palestinian militants have fired a series of rockets into southern Israel and the Israeli military has launched retaliatory air raids.At the meeting on Tuesday night, the factions discussed the question of rocket fire and not providing the Israeli occupation with a pretext for increasing its aggression, a source with knowledge of the meeting told AFP.There was a consensus on the need to coordinate a response to the aggression, the source added, without providing additional detail.The meeting included all the main Palestinian factions except Fatah, the bitter Hamas rival that the Islamist group drove out of power in Gaza in 2007.Khader Habib, a leader of the Islamic Jihad, told AFP the meeting discussed the growing Zionist threats to launch a new war against the Gaza Strip, and we agreed that the Palestinian people have the right to resistance to defend themselves.The renewed tensions come just two years after Israel launched the devastating Operation Cast Lead in response to rocket fire from Gaza.The war, which ended in a ceasefire on January 18, 2009, killed 1,400 Palestinians, mostly civilians, and 13 Israelis, 10 of them soldiers.
Palestinian leader to lay first stone of Brazil embassy
– Tue Dec 28, 4:16 pm ET
BRASILIA (AFP) – Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas is to lay the symbolic first stone of an embassy in Brazil this week, following Brasilia's decision to recognize a Palestinian state, the Palestinian representative here told AFP.Abbas will head the stone-laying ceremony on Friday, and on Saturday he will attend the inauguration ceremony for Brazil's new president, Dilma Rousseff, Palestinian diplomatic representative Ibrahim al-Zeben said.Brazil angered Israel and the United States early this month when it declared it was recognizing a sovereign Palestinian state within the borders before the 1967 Six Day War.
Argentina, Uruguay and Bolivia have since followed suit.The other Latin American countries that previously recognized an independent Palestine are Cuba, Nicaragua, Costa Rica Venezuela.Israel has called the declarations regrettable, and said a Palestinian state should only be defined with its assent.Lawmakers in the United States, Israel's close ally, have also criticized the moves.Washington regularly uses its veto power in the UN Security Council to block any motions deemed to run counter to Israeli interests.
