Lawlessness on Egypt streets, Mubarak clings on By Samia Nakhoul and Sherine El Madany - 8:45PM JAN 29,11
CAIRO (Reuters) – Looted stores, burned out cars and the stench of blazing tires filled the streets of Cairo early on Sunday as President Hosni Mubarak sought to bargain with angry crowds and security forces struggled to contain looters.In five days of unprecedented protests that have rocked the Arab world, more than 100 people have been killed, investors and tourists have taken fright, Mubarak has offered a first glimpse of a plan to step down and 80 million long-suffering Egyptians are caught between hope for democratic reform and fear of chaos.The United States and European powers were busy tearing up their Middle East policies, which have supported Mubarak at the head of the most populous Arab nation for 30 years, turning a blind eye to police brutality and corruption in return for a solid bulwark against first communism and now militant Islam.The biggest immediate fear was of looting as all public order broke down. Mobs stormed into supermarkets, banks, jewelry shops and government buildings. Thieves at the Egyptian Museum damaged two mummies from the time of the pharaohs.They are letting Egypt burn to the ground, said Inas Shafik, 35.On Saturday, the 82-year-old Mubarak bowed to protesters and named a vice-president for the first time, a move seen as lining up Omar Suleiman, hitherto his chief of intelligence, as an eventual successor, at least for a transition. Many also saw it as ending his son Gamal's long-surmised ambitions to take over.
Fearful of a descent into anarchy, some Egyptians may have been reassured by signs Mubarak may be readying a handover of power within the military establishment.
But those on the streets of Cairo, a teeming megalopolis of 15 million that is the biggest city in the Middle East, have scented weakness and remain impatient for Mubarak to go now.This is not acceptable. Mubarak must step down. Public unrest will not stop until this is achieved, Mohammed Essawy, a 26-year-old graduate student, said of the appointments.In Washington, State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said: The Egyptian government can't reshuffle the deck and then stand pat.Since protesters toppled Tunisia's leader two weeks ago, demonstrations have spread across north Africa and the Middle East in an unprecedented wave of anger at authoritarian leaders, many of them entrenched for decades and enjoying U.S. support.This is the Arab world's Berlin moment, said Fawaz Gerges of the London School of Economics, comparing the events to the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. The authoritarian wall has fallen, and that's regardless of whether Mubarak survives.As in Tunisia, Egypt's exploding young population, most of then underemployed and frustrated by oppression at the hands of a corrupt and rapacious elite, were demanding a full clear-out of the old guard, not just a reshuffle of the governing class.Police shot dead 17 people in Bani Suef, south of Cairo, as street battles intensified in some towns, even as police seemed to leave much of Cairo to the army, an institution generally respected by Egyptians and less associated with oppression.According to various estimates more than 100 people have been killed during the week in Egypt's capital and other cities.
VIGILANTES
On the Corniche promenade alongside the River Nile in Cairo, people stayed out after the curfew deadline, standing by tanks and chatting with soldiers who took no action to disperse them.At one point, dozens of people approached a military cordon carrying a sign reading Army and People Together. Soldiers pulled back and let the group through: There is a curfew, one lieutenant said. But the army isn't going to shoot anyone.Still, while many defied the curfew in a sign of political defiance, others took the opportunity to roam for booty. Civilian vigilantes stepped in to fill the void left by a vanished police force.There are no police to be found anywhere, said Ghadeer, 23, from an upscale neighborhood. Doormen and young boys from the neighborhoods are standing outside holding sticks, razors and other weapons to prevent people from coming in.
BEGINNING OF THE END
While clearly anxious to avoid an anarchic collapse that might destabilize a region vital to world oil supplies, Mubarak's allies in Western governments appear to share a sense that what has happened so far does not go far enough.In Europe, the German, French and British leaders issued a joint statement thanking Mubarak for his contribution to stability in the Middle East -- Egypt led the way in agreeing to a peace with Israel -- but demanding that he now start the move to free elections, a move that would certainly end his power.Of Suleiman's appointment, analyst Gamal Abdel Gawad Soltan said: This is the beginning of a process of power transfer.At the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Jon Alterman said: I can't see how this is not the beginning of the end of Mubarak's presidency. It seems that his task now is to try and manage the transition past his leadership.If the plan is for Mubarak to hand power to Suleiman, it remains to be seen whether the population would tolerate him.He is just like Mubarak, there is no change, one protester said of Suleiman, a key figure at the top of Mubarak's inner circle and hated security apparatus.The prospect of even greater upheaval across the Middle East is prompting some investors to see risks for oil supplies that could in turn hamper global economic growth.Many saw Mubarak's concessions as echoes of those made two weeks ago by Tunisia's Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali. Just a day later, Ben Ali had fled his country, deserted by an army which preferred to back less hated figures in his government.Like other Arab leaders, the president portrays himself as a bulwark against the West's Islamist enemies. But Egypt's banned opposition movement the Muslim Brotherhood has been only a small part of the week's events, and lays claim to moderation.A new era of freedom and democracy is dawning in the Middle East, Kamel El-Helbawy, a cleric from the Brotherhood said from exile in London. Islamists would not be able to rule Egypt alone. We should and would cooperate.
THE ARMY'S MOMENT
While the police are generally feared as an instrument of repression, the army is seen as a national institution.Rosemary Hollis, at London's City University, said the army had to decide whether it stood with Mubarak or the people: It's one of those moments where as with the fall of communism in Eastern Europe they can come down to individual lieutenants and soldiers to decide whether they fire on the crowd or not.So far, the protest movement seems to have no clear leader or organization. Prominent activist Mohamed ElBaradei, a Nobel Peace Laureate for his work with the U.N. nuclear agency, returned to Egypt from Europe to join the protests. But many Egyptians feel he has not spent enough time in the country.Hosni Mubarak has not heard the people, ElBaradei told Al Jazeera, renewing his call for the president to step down.Banks will be shut on Sunday as a precaution, Central Bank Governor Hisham Ramez told Reuters. The stock market, whose benchmark index tumbled 16 percent in two days before shutting on Friday for the weekend, will also be closed on Sunday.
(Additional reporting by Dina Zayed, Marwa Awad, Shaimaa Fayed, Sherine El Madany, Yasmine Saleh, Alison Williams and Samia Nakhoul in Cairo, Alexander Dziadosz in Suez, Arshad Mohammed in Washington and Peter Apps, Angus MacSwan and William Maclean in London; Writing by Alastair Macdonald; Editing by Peter Graff)
Egypt shutdown worst in Internet history: experts by Katia Dolmadjian – Sat Jan 29, 12:05 pm ET
PARIS (AFP) – The scale of Egypt's crackdown on the Internet and mobile phones amid deadly protests against the rule of President Hosni Mubarak is unprecedented in the history of the web, experts said.US President Barack Obama, social networking sites and rights groups around the world all condemned the moves by Egyptian authorities to stop activists using cellphones and cyber technology to organise rallies.It's a first in the history of the Internet, Rik Ferguson, an expert for Trend Micro, the world's third biggest computer security firm, told AFP.Julien Coulon, co-founder of Cedexis, a French Internet performance monitoring and traffic management system, added: In 24 hours we have lost 97 percent of Egyptian Internet traffic.According to Renesys, a US Internet monitoring company, Egypt's four main Internet service providers cut off international access to their customers in a near simultaneous move at 2234 GMT on Thursday.Around 23 million Egyptians have either regular or occasional access to the Internet, according to official figures, more than a quarter of the population.In an action unprecedented in Internet history, the Egyptian government appears to have ordered service providers to shut down all international connections to the Internet, James Cowie of Renesys said in a blog post.
Link Egypt, Vodafone/Raya, Telecom Egypt and Etisalat Misr were all off air but Cowie said one exception was the Noor Group, which still has 83 live routes to its Egyptian customers.He said it was not clear why the Noor Group was apparently unaffected but we observe that the Egyptian Stock Exchange (www.egyptse.com) is still alive at a Noor address.Mobile telephone networks were also severely disrupted in the country on Friday. Phone signals were patchy and text messages inoperative.
British-based Vodafone said all mobile operators in Egypt had been instructed Friday to suspend services in some areas amid spiralling unrest, adding that under Egyptian law it was obliged to comply with the order.Egyptian operator ECMS, linked to France's Telecom-Orange, said the authorities had ordered them to shut them off late Thursday.We had no warning, it was quite sudden, a spokesman for Telecom-Orange told AFP in France.The shutdown in Egypt is the most comprehensive official electronic blackout of its kind, experts said.Links to the web were were cut for only a few days during a wave of protests against Myanmar's ruling military junta in 2007, while demonstrations against the re-election of Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in 2009 specifically targeted Twitter and Facebook.Egypt -- like Tunisia where mass popular unrest drove out Zine El Abidine Ben Ali earlier this month -- is on a list of 13 countries classed as enemies of the Internet by media rights group Reporters Without Borders (RSF).
So far there has been no systematic filtering by Egyptian authorities -- they have completely controlled the whole Internet,said Soazig Dollet, the Middle East and North Africa specialist for RSF.Condemnation of Egypt's Internet crackdown has been widespread.Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called on Cairo to restore the Internet and social networking sites.Facebook, the world's largest social network with nearly 600 million members, and Twitter also weighed in.Although the turmoil in Egypt is a matter for the Egyptian people and their government to resolve, limiting Internet access for millions of people is a matter of concern for the global community, said Andrew Noyes, a Facebook spokesman.Twitter, which has more than 175 million registered users, said of efforts to block the service in Egypt: We believe that the open exchange of info & views benefits societies & helps govts better connect w/ their people.US digital rights groups also criticised the Egyptian government.This action is inconsistent with all international human rights norms, and is unprecedented in Internet history, said Leslie Harris, president of the Center for Democracy and Technology in the United States.
Israel watches Egypt uprising with fear By Josef Federman, Associated Press – Sat Jan 29, 4:12 pm ET
JERUSALEM – Behind an official wall of silence, Israel watched nervously Saturday as anti-government unrest worsened in Egypt, fearful that the violent and growing street protests could topple Israel's most important ally in the Arab world.Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered his government to remain silent about the situation in Egypt. But in a clear reflection of Israel's concerns, Sun D'Or, a subsidiary of Israel's national airline, El Al, whisked dozens of Israelis, including diplomats' families, out of Egypt on an emergency flight. The government also urged Israelis to avoid travel to Egypt.The stability of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's regime is a key interest for Israel.Egypt was the first Arab country to make peace with Israel, and since succeeding the assassinated Anwar Sadat in the wake of that historic peace treaty three decades ago, Mubarak has steadfastly honored the deal.While relations have often been cool, Mubarak has remained a key bridge to the Arab world, frequently mediating between Israel and the Palestinians. Mubarak also has cooperated with Israel in containing the militant Hamas group, which rules the Gaza Strip, a volatile coastal strip that borders both Israel and Egypt.
Israeli officials, ordered to speak on condition of anonymity, expressed grave concerns about Mubarak's tenuous grip on power. Some said they feared the violence could spread to neighboring Jordan, the only other Arab country with a peace deal with Israel, or to the Palestinian territories.There were also concerns that anti-Israel opposition groups, including the fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood, might gain a larger voice in Egyptian decision-making.A stable Egypt with a peace treaty with Israel means a quiet border, one Israeli official told The Associated Press. If there is a regime change Israel will have to reassess its strategy to protect its border from one of the most modern militaries in the region.Early Saturday evening, the Sun D'Or International Airlines plane touched down in Israel with about 40 Israelis who were in Egypt on private business plus an undisclosed number of diplomats' spouses and children on board, officials said. The Israeli Foreign Ministry said its diplomats would remain in Egypt for the time being.The Egyptian unrest dominated Israeli media. Israeli TV news channels provided nonstop updates throughout the day. State-funded Israel Radio reported extensively on developments and dubbed its broadcasts Fire on the Nile.Writing in the Haaretz daily Saturday, columnist Aluf Benn speculated that Mubarak's fading power leaves Israel with few friends in the Middle East.
Mubarak has faced days of massive anti-government protests, with tens of thousands of people filling the streets of Cairo and other major cities demanding his resignation after nearly 30 years in power. The protesters have said they are fed up with the massive unemployment, lack of opportunities and corruption that plague the country.On Saturday, Mubarak named Omar Suleiman, his powerful intelligence chief, as vice president, the first time someone has held that position since he became president in 1981. It was unclear whether the move, which followed promises of reform and a new government, would be enough to calm the unrest.There was no immediate reaction from Israel, but the appointment was likely to calm nerves in Israel, where Suleiman is a frequent visitor and has good working relations with his Israeli counterparts.Israeli officials said it was unclear if Mubarak would survive the protests, and they fear that ties could be damaged if Egypt's popular opposition group, the Muslim Brotherhood, makes gains.Israeli lawmaker Benyamin Ben-Eliezer, who has maintained a friendship with Mubarak, broke ranks with other Israeli officials who remained silent about events in Egypt.He told Israeli Channel 10 TV that he had spoken with Mubarak in the past few days, and that the Egyptian leader sounded optimistic, saying he had known that riots would break out and that he had prepared for it.Still, Ben-Eliezer said he was concerned about Egypt's future. This could lead to a completely different regime, one that is a lot more radical Islamic.
Eli Shaked, a former Israeli Ambassador to Egypt, offered similar speculation on Channel 10. It's good that Israel is keeping quiet, but there is no doubt that what is happening in Egypt is not good for Israeli interests,Shaked said. It will only be a matter of time before a leader of the revolution arises and he will come from the Muslim Brotherhood.
A stronger Muslim Brotherhood could also affect the balance of power between the rival Palestinian camps, the government of President Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank and the rival Hamas regime in Gaza.Abbas is backed by the West, while his Islamic militant rivals draw their support from Iran, Syria and Hezbollah. Hamas is the Gaza branch of the Muslim brotherhood and could gain strength if their Egyptian brethren rise to power.Abbas on Saturday called Mubarak, according to the Palestinian news agency Wafa. Abbas told the Egyptian leader that he is eager to see Egypt stable and secure, the agency said. There was no immediate comment from Hamas.In Gaza, Palestinian residents rushed to buy extra gasoline, concerned that fuel supplies would run out. In the past few years, the majority of Gaza's fuel has come from Egypt through underground smuggling tunnels on the Gaza-Egypt border.Palestinian smugglers who work in the tunnels said Saturday that there were fewer fuel supplies available from Egypt, but that they were continuing to smuggle Egyptian fuel into Gaza. The Hamas-run National Economic Ministry, which oversees fuel supplies, said there were currently no fuel shortages in Gaza.Hamas Interior Ministry spokesman Ihab Ghussein said there were no infiltrations on the Gaza-Egypt border.The southern border with the Gaza Strip is quiet. There is no security breach on that border, Ghussein said.Ibrahim Barzak in Gaza City, Gaza Strip, contributed to this report.
Iranian opposition leader hails Egypt protests By ALI AKBAR DAREINI, Associated Press – Sat Jan 29, 12:32 pm ET
TEHRAN, Iran – Iran's opposition leader expressed hope Saturday that protests engulfing Egypt can bring the kind of change that has so far evaded his own country.
Mir Hossein Mousavi compared the uprisings in Egypt, Tunisia and Yemen with the protest movement that followed the 2009 disputed presidential election in Iran.Mousavi, who claims to have been the real victor in the vote, said Iran's protest movement was the starting point but all aimed at ending the oppression of the rulers.The wave of protests that erupted after the re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was the biggest challenge faced by Iran's clerical leadership since it came to power in the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Hundreds of thousands took to the streets in support of Mousavi, and some powerful clerics sided with the opposition.But a heavy military crackdown suppressed the protests, and many in the opposition — from midlevel political figures to street activists, journalists and human rights workers — were arrested. The opposition has not been able to hold a major protest since December 2009.Mousavi said he hoped protesters in Egypt and Yemen would succeed in bringing change to their country amid a wave of Arab unrest that was unleashed when Tunisians succeeded in driving their authoritarian president from the country earlier this month.
Our nation respects and salutes the huge revolution by the brave Tunisian people and the rightful uprising of the Egyptian and Yemeni people, Mousavi said in a comment posted Saturday on his website kaleme.com. We demand that God bestow on them victory in their truthful struggle.Mousavi said Iranians peacefully took to the streets to demand where is my vote? and now Egyptians chant the nation wants the ouster of the regime.In a twist, Iran's hard-line rulers also have tried to take credit for the uprisings, calling them a replay of the 1979 Islamic Revolution that toppled the pro-U.S. shah and brought hardline clerics to power.An Islamic Middle East is taking shape, Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami said in his Friday prayer sermon. A new Middle East is emerging based on Islam ... based on religious democracy.He said chants of Allahu Akbar, or God is Great, from protesters signal a new Middle East based on Islamic values, not U.S. goals, is emerging.Iran and Egypt broke diplomatic relations in 1979 after Tehran condemned Egyptian President Anwar Sadat for signing the Camp David peace treaty with Israel. In the late 1980s, they resumed contact but at a low level. They now have interest sections, not embassies, in each other's capitals.
Lebanon PM designate briefs president on government
– Sat Jan 29, 5:58 am ET
BEIRUT (AFP) – Lebanon's premier-designate Najib Mikati, who is backed by Hezbollah, on Saturday briefed the president on his talks on forming a new government, set to be boycotted by outgoing prime minister Saad Hariri.Mikati, appointed this week after the Shiite Hezbollah toppled Hariri's pro-Western government, did not make any comments after his meeting with President Michel Sleiman.The telecoms tycoon and former premier held two days of talks with parliamentary groups on forming his government, ending on Friday with the Hariri camp still refusing to join his administration.A source close to Mikati told AFP that Mikati's cabinet would likely consist of 24 to 30 ministers, most of whom would represent political parties but which would also include technocrats.Contacts are ongoing with all parties in order to secure the widest participation possible in the new government, the source said.
Mr Mikati wants to form his government quickly but not hastily.The Hariri government collapsed on January 12 when Iranian- and Syria-backed Hezbollah and its allies pulled 11 ministers from cabinet in a dispute over the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL).The Netherlands-based STL is investigating the 2005 assassination of Rafiq Hariri, father of the outgoing premier, and is expected to implicate Hezbollah operatives in the murder.The Shiite militant group has warned against any such accusation and is demanding Lebanon end all cooperation with the tribunal.A Hariri-led alliance in turn is demanding Mikati, a political moderate with good ties to former powerbroker Syria, guarantee he will not disavow the tribunal.Saudi-backed Hariri has refused to join a cabinet led by a Sunni prime minister whom he says was appointed by the Shiite Hezbollah.
Paraguay says recognizes Palestinian state
– Fri Jan 28, 12:10 pm ET
ASUNCION (Reuters) – Paraguay's government said on Friday it had decided to recognize a Palestinian state based on borders before the 1967 war, following similar moves by other South American countries in recent months.Brazil, Argentina, Ecuador, Bolivia and Uruguay have recently recognized a Palestinian state along the pre-war borders. Chile and Peru have also given recognition to a Palestinian state, but without specifying borders.Announcing the decision, Paraguay's Foreign Ministry said bilateral negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians, which are currently at a standstill, are essential for both peace and security.Israel disputes the Palestinian claim on the West Bank and eastern Jerusalem, areas it captured from Jordan during the Six-Day War in 1967, and peace negotiations have stalled numerous times over the last few years.Israel said last month the recognition of a Palestinian state by Latin American countries was highly damaging interference by countries that were never part of the Middle East peace process.
U.S. Under Secretary of State William Burns said in a recent visit to Chile that the move by Latin American nations was premature.Paraguay's move comes just before a summit between Latin American and Arab countries, which will be held in Lima in February.(Reporting by Daniela Desantis; Writing by James Matthews; Editing by Helen Popper and Jackie Frank)
In memoirs, ex-Israeli PM regrets failure of talks By MATTI FRIEDMAN, Associated Press – Fri Jan 28, 11:23 am ET
JERUSALEM – Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas made a historic mistake by rebuffing an Israeli peace offer during negotiations in 2008, Israel's former prime minister wrote in excerpts from his forthcoming memoirs published Friday.The new details from Ehud Olmert's memoirs were published days after the Arab TV station Al-Jazeera released secret documents revealing the details of the Palestinians' positions during the same negotiations, in which both sides appear to have been prepared to make major concessions.Talks have largely been deadlocked since Olmert left office in early 2009.Olmert offered Abbas a state including the West Bank, east Jerusalem and Gaza, according to the excerpts published in the daily Yediot Ahronot. Israel would have annexed 6.3 percent of the West Bank to retain major Jewish settlements and would have given an equivalent amount of land inside Israel to the Palestinians as compensation.The proposal would have seen the area around Jerusalem's Old City, with its holy sites, governed by an international consortium, and a 40-kilometer tunnel linking the West Bank and Gaza through Israeli territory. The contents of the negotiations were kept secret at the time, but have emerged slowly since then.
Olmert said he made the offer on September 16, 2008, placing a map on the table at his official residence in Jerusalem.Abbas looked at me and I looked at him. He was silent, Olmert wrote.He said he couldn't decide immediately and needed time. I told him he was making a historic mistake.Abbas said he wanted to consult.No,I answered. Take the pen and sign now. You will never get a more fair or just offer. Don't hesitate. It's difficult for me, too, but we cannot opt out of an agreement. Even in another fifty years there will not be a government in Israel that will offer you what I offered.I saw that he, too, was anguishing over it. Finally, he told me, Give me a few days. I'm no expert in maps,Olmert wrote.Abbas, known as Abu Mazen, suggested a meeting the next day between Israeli and Palestinian advisers, but then postponed it, Olmert wrote. The meeting never took place. I did not meet Abu Mazen after that. The map remained in my hands, he wrote.The sides were closer to a deal than at any time in the past, he wrote.Abbas told The Washington Post in May 2009 that he didn't accept the offer because the gaps were wide.Israel was prepared to absorb 5,000 Palestinian refugees over five years, a number the Palestinians considered far too low. And the Palestinians were prepared to agree to a land swap of just under 2 percent of the West Bank, not the 6.3 percent proposed by Olmert.
Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erekat has said they made a counteroffer three months later. But by then Olmert's time in office was running out because of mounting corruption charges, and shortly thereafter Israel launched a military offensive in the Gaza Strip to halt Palestinian rocket fire.Weeks after the offensive ended, hard-line parties won a national election in Israel and Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu formed a government.The documents released by Al-Jazeera this week show that the Palestinians were prepared to allow Israel to retain sovereignty over most of the Jewish neighborhoods built in east Jerusalem.Though Palestinian negotiators told their Israeli counterparts that refugees must be able to choose if they want to return to what is now Israel, the leaks quoted Abbas as telling Palestinian negotiators that it would be illogical to expect 5 million or even 1 million to exercise the right of return.Those revelations have sparked outrage among some Palestinians, and Abbas' rivals from the Islamic group Hamas have called him a traitor. The Palestinians wanted Netanyahu to use Olmert's offer as a starting point for negotiations, but the more hawkish Likud leader has taken it off the table. The Palestinians have demanded a full freeze to Israeli settlement construction as a condition for talks — a demand they did not make of Olmert.
Negotiations between Abbas and Netanyahu began only in September 2009, only to break down three weeks later when an Israeli settlement freeze expired. Deadlock has ensued.In the excerpts published Friday, Olmert said President Barack Obama's administration had erred in making a settlement freeze central to talks. I believe this was a grave error, and I was sorry the U.S. administration was dragged into that trap, he wrote.Olmert also described his transformation from a hard-line supporter of Israeli settlements to a believer in territorial compromise.Many, and I among them, ignored the ramifications of the mixing of the populations, of the grave harm to freedom of movement, quality of life and civil rights of Palestinian residents who lived next to the growing Jewish population, he wrote.
Mideast peace talk leaks destabilising: Blair
– Fri Jan 28, 5:54 am ET
LONDON (AFP) – Middle East envoy Tony Blair said Friday he believed the leak of hundreds of documents on the Israel-Palestinian peace negotiations was destabilising.
I think it is hard to tell right now but its intention was to be extremely damaging, Blair told the BBC from the world economic forum in Davos, after being asked about the leaks to the Al-Jazeera television station.Citing one of his successes when he was Britain's prime minister, he said: We couldn't have done the Northern Ireland peace process if the entire time everything was being put out there, with frankly a pretty severe spin on it.So I think it is destabilising for the Palestinians.
However, I think we have just got to be big enough and strong enough to say 'OK, look, whatever Al-Jazeera are putting out, we are just going to get on with making peace'.The leak of more than 1,600 documents has shaken the Palestinian Authority, revealing that it offered Israel far-reaching concessions on the sensitive subjects of Jerusalem and refugees during peace talks.
In the West Bank, demonstrators have offered their support for Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas, but in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, protests have been held criticising Abbas for collaborating with Israel.Blair was Britain's prime minister between 1997 and 2007 and is currently envoy for the Middle East diplomatic Quartet of the European Union, Russia, the United Nations and the United States.
