RUSSIA BACKS MODERN PALESTINIAN STATE

Russian president backs modern Palestinian state By JAMAL HALABY, Associated Press – Wed Jan 19, 12:56 pm ET

AMMAN, Jordan – Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Wednesday pledged his nation's continued support in helping the Palestinians acquire a modern, unified and sovereign state.Medvedev, who was in Amman for talks with King Abdullah II, also found time on the final day of his two-day trip to the region to take a dip in the Jordan River in commemoration of Jesus' baptism.In a statement released by the royal palace after his meeting with Abdullah, Medvedev was quoted as telling the king that Moscow will do its utmost to achieve a permanent peace in the Middle East.The Russian leader's visit comes during a time of deadlock in the U.S.-led Mideast peace efforts.Moscow is a member of the so-called Quartet of Mideast peace makers — along with the U.S., the EU and the U.N. Medvedev met with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Tuesday in the West Bank, where he gave Palestinian aspirations a boost.I told my Palestinian friends that our ultimate goal is the creation of a modern, unified and sovereign Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital, Medvedev said Wednesday.He did not visit Israel during the trip because of a strike by Israeli diplomats.Israeli-Palestinian peace talks briefly resumed in September, but quickly collapsed after a slowdown on Israeli settlement construction expired. The Palestinians say they won't negotiate unless Israel halts all construction in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, captured lands sought by the Palestinians for their state.

Israel has rejected calls to renew the freeze, and the Obama administration has been unable to bring the sides together again.Abdullah stressed the importance of the Russian role in the Middle East, which significantly contributed to the region's stability in the past, according to the statement.We will continue to welcome an effective and central Russian role in attaining stability in the region, resuming Palestinian-Israeli negotiations and achieving a two-state solution, Abdullah said.
The two leaders also discussed closer economic and energy cooperation, including possible Russian investment in Jordan's nascent nuclear energy program for peaceful purposes, the statement said.

It did not elaborate.

Official statistics show that two-way trade exchange reached $233 million in 11 months last year, the bulk of it is Jordanian imports of mainly Russian wheat, barely, wood, cars and spare parts. Jordan's exports to Russia included vegetables, pharmaceuticals and hygiene products.Russian media reported that Medvedev also took a dip in the Jordan River on Wednesday in a commemoration of Jesus' baptism.Russia's RIA Novosti and ITAR-Tass said Medvedev was dunked three times — in line with Orthodox tradition — at a site in western Jordan where Jesus is said to have been baptized by John the Baptist.No other details were available.Two Jordanian officials said the event was closed to the media at the request of Russian officials, who said the president wanted privacy. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not allowed to brief the press.Associated Press writer James Heintz in Moscow contributed to this report.

Palestinians hoist flag in Washington for first time
– Tue Jan 18, 5:28 pm ET

WASHINGTON (AFP) – The Palestinian diplomatic mission in Washington on Thursday hoisted its national flag for the first time, a highly symbolic gesture that drew an angry response from a senior US lawmaker.The US State Department, enmeshed in an uphill struggle to revive stalled Middle East peace talks, said that the ceremony was approved several months ago and did not change the status of the Palestinian representation in Washington.Maen Rashid Areikat, the envoy to the headquarters of the General Delegation of the Palestine Liberation Organization to the United States (PLO), raised the flag at a ceremony watched by journalists and others, the mission said.The statement said delegates from the State Department and Arab League Ambassador Hussein Hasouneh attended the ceremony.This flag symbolizes the struggle of the Palestinian people for independence, Areikat was quoted by his mission as saying.

The flag also is a clear message that the Palestinian people and the PLO are central players in the equation of the Middle East, without whom there will be no peace, security and stability in the region, he said.But House Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Republican, blasted the move as part of the Palestinian leadership's scheme to manipulate international acceptance and diplomatic recognition of their future state.The lawmaker charged that US President Barack Obama's administration was rewarding the Palestinians, whom she accused of refusing to negotiate with Israel while seeking shortcuts to statehood.Governments worldwide will interpret such actions as tacit US recognition of a Palestinian state. These actions send precisely the wrong message to foreign governments, said Ros-Lehtinen.

But US State Department spokesman Philip Crowley said: The granting permission to raise the flag does not change their fundamental status.The move came after direct US-brokered peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians ground to a halt late last year over Israel's refusal to renew a partial freeze on Jewish settlements on Palestinian land.It also came as Arab nations prepare to formally put a resolution to the UN Security Council on Tuesday demanding a condemnation of Israel's settlement building in Palestinian territories.But no vote was expected for several days as Palestinian and other Arab negotiators try to persuade the US administration not to veto the resolution, diplomats said.Our view hasn't changed... We do not think that New York or the UN Security Council is the right forum for this issue, and we'll continue to make that case, Crowley said.I'm not going to speculate on what happens from this point forward, he said when asked about a possible US veto.A senior State Department official told reporters on the condition of anonymity that the Palestinians have been told we think this is a bad idea... We're encouraging them not to move this forward.

Israel's Barak breaks away from Labour party
By Jeffrey Heller – Tue Jan 18, 5:03 am ET

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak broke away from his center-left Labour Party on Monday in a move Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said made his government stronger and more stable.Barak will remain as defense chief in the right-leaning government, while the three remaining Labour ministers quit the cabinet, bringing the once-dominant political party that pioneered peace efforts with the Palestinians into opposition.The split removes the risk that a left-wing rival could have replaced Barak as Labour leader and pulled the whole party out of the ruling coalition, possibly bringing the government down.The government has grown much stronger today, in its governance, in its stability -- and this is important for Israel, Netanyahu told reporters.The whole world knows and the Palestinians know that this government will be around for the next few years and that it is with this government that they should negotiate for peace.Labour's presence in the coalition had broadened the government's political base and softened its right-wing image abroad at a time when its policy of settlement-building on land Palestinians want for a state has led to a peace talks freeze.The split could further marginalize Labour, which dominated Israel for most of its history but saw its support erode in the past decade with the failure of the peace process pioneered in the 1990s under Labour leaders Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres.Barak served as Labour's last prime minister from 1999-2001, but was voted out after failing to finalize a peace deal with the Palestinians. His decision to join Netanyahu's right-wing government had alienated many core Labour supporters.

At a news conference announcing he and four of Labour's 13 legislators would form a new Atzmaut (Independence) faction, Barak said he had faced a never-ending fight watching Labour's continuous drift to the left and again to the left.In a letter to the Labour Party, Barak's deputy Matan Vilnai, who defected with him, said the split would enable the government to pursue peace without a stopwatch.An official close to Netanyahu said the prime minister had no plans to increase the number of ministers in the cabinet, although it was quite likely that members of Atzmaut would be the ones to replace the Labour ministers who had quit.A snap telephone poll aired by Channel 10 television showed that if elections were to be held now, Likud would become the largest party in the 120-seat parliament, gaining three seats from its current 27.Barak's party would drop to three and Labour would have only six seats.

HUMP ON ITS BACK

Labour stalwarts see leaving Netanyahu's government as a step toward restoring the movement's stature.The Labour Party, which founded the state of Israel and its institutions, rid itself today of a hump on its back, said Welfare Minister Isaac Herzog, one of the ministers to quit.Tzipi Livni, head of the main opposition Kadima party, said Barak's redrawing of Israel's political map meant that today the camp opposing Netanyahu grew, and it will keep growing until Netanyahu falls.Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, who held the trade and industry portfolio, seemed best placed to succeed Barak as Labour chief.The split left the government, which had controlled 74 seats in parliament, with 66 votes, still usually a comfortable governing margin in Israel.Ultimately, this move is going to serve to stabilize the government and in so doing we hope to strengthen the peace process,said a member of Netanyahu's staff.

There were people who were telling the Palestinian leadership that the Labour Party was about to bolt, that the coalition is unstable, that they can wait this government out, added the staff member, who asked not to be identified. Direct peace negotiations with the Palestinians that began under U.S. sponsorship in September quickly froze after Netanyahu refused to extend a partial moratorium on new housing in Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank.Nabil Abu Rdainah, a spokesman for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, called Barak's move an internal Israeli matter.
What matters to us is the presence of an Israeli government and Israeli parties committed to the peace process,he said.(Additional reporting by Ari Rabinovitch, Allyn Fisher-Ilan and Ori Lewis)

Israel approves more east Jerusalem settler homes
– Mon Jan 17, 1:12 pm ET

JERUSALEM (AFP) – The city council on Monday approved the building of another 122 Israeli settler homes in east Jerusalem, a councillor said, a move likely to bring fresh censure from the international community.Elisha Peleg, head of the conservative Likud group on the city council, told AFP its planning and construction committee had given the green light for construction of 90 housing units in Talpiot East and another 32 in Pisgat Zeev.It's no big deal, he said. It's routine construction, we're always building in Jerusalem neighbourhoods ... does anyone know where the (dividing) line was? It's not Berlin where they had a wall.On Sunday, the city said it was planning to add 1,400 new homes to the annexed east Jerusalem settlement neighbourhood of Gilo, one of the first and largest Jewish districts in Jerusalem that Israel has built on land captured in the 1967 Six-Day War.That announcement drew criticism from the international community, from Israeli left-wing politicians and activists, as well as Palestinian condemnation.We strongly condemn this Israeli escalation and continued decisions in the area of settlements and the imposition of new facts on the ground, chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat told AFP.At the United Nations in New York, Arab ambassadors held talks Monday on when to put before the Security Council a resolution condemning Israeli settlement in the occupied territories.

The Palestinians want the resolution passed to put pressure on Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over the settlements. But US opposition to the resolution is at the heart of the timetable, diplomats said.The Security Council is to hold a meeting on the Middle East and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on Wednesday.The draft resolution could be submitted for then, but some Arab nations want to wait a few extra days in hope of persuading the United States to support the move.US-brokered peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians have deadlocked over the issue of Jewish settlement in the occupied West Bank and east Jerusalem.The Palestinians walked out of direct peace talks three weeks after they started in September when Israel baulked at extending a 10-month partial freeze on settlement construction in the West Bank.They refuse to negotiate with Israel while it builds on land they want for a future state.In March 2010, the Israeli interior ministry announced plans to build 1,600 settler homes in Ramat Shlomo, a Jewish Orthodox Jewish neighbourhood in east Jerusalem.The announcement, which came as US Vice President Joe Biden was visiting Israel, provoked fierce American opposition and soured relations with Washington for several months.

Gaza rocket hits Israel despite truce
– Mon Jan 17, 3:31 am ET

JERUSALEM (AFP) – A rocket fired by militants in Gaza landed in southern Israel early on Monday, in the first incidence of firing since armed Palestinian groups there agreed to observe a truce last week.The projectile, a home-built Qassam rocket, caused no injuries or damage when it landed in the Shaar HaNegev regional council which flanks Gaza's northeastern border.Last Wednesday, Gaza's main militant factions agreed to observe a period of calm after weeks of increased rocketfire and rising tensions along the border which prompted a warning from Arab leaders that they were risking a major new Israeli invasion.Gaza's Hamas rulers said they would ensure the national consensus truce was observed and deployed forces along the border zone.Over the past month, Gaza militants have fired scores of rockets into the Jewish state, prompting a flurry of retaliatory air strikes and raising fears of another massive operation along the lines of the 2008-9 war.The 22-day conflict, which ended in a ceasefire on January 18, 2009, killed 1,400 Palestinians, more than half of them civilians, and 13 Israelis, 10 of them soldiers.

Israeli PM: Tunisia reflects regional instability By DIAA HADID, Associated Press – Sun Jan 16, 11:37 am ET

JERUSALEM – Israel's prime minister said Sunday that the unrest in Tunisia over the weekend shows why Israel must be cautious as it pursues peace with the Palestinians.

Benjamin Netanyahu told his Cabinet that the violence surrounding the ouster of Tunisia's longtime president illustrated the widespread instability plaguing the Middle East. He also said it underscored the need for strong security arrangements in any future peace deal with the Palestinians.We need to lay the foundations of security in any agreement that we make, he said. We cannot simply say We are signing a peace agreement, close our eyes and say We did it because we do not know with any clarity that the peace will indeed be honored, he said.Palestinians accused the Israeli leader of searching for excuses.If there was a tsunami in Asia, a flood in Latin America or a lunar eclipse, Netanyahu would use it as a pretext not to negotiate, said chief negotiator Saeb Erekat.Netanyahu, who leads the hawkish Likud Party, has long made security a top demand for any future peace deal with the Palestinians.Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad has spent several years reforming his security forces, which now include hundreds of officers who have received U.S. training.Both U.S. and Israeli officials have praised the progress of the Palestinian forces in cracking down on militants and maintaining law and order in the West Bank.

Israeli officials say the forces are limited in their capabilities. They also note that the Gaza Strip, the other territory claimed for a future Palestinian state, is ruled by the Hamas militant group.The Palestinians have refused to negotiate with Israel until Netanyahu renews a freeze on Jewish settlement construction in captured areas claimed by the Palestinians.Israeli officials said they were concerned — but not overly worried — over the safety of Tunisia's tiny Jewish community, which is concentrated on the southern island of Djerba and in the capital, Tunis.Tunisia has experienced looting, arson and random violence since autocratic President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali was driven from power Friday.Tunisia's 2,000 Jews generally have good relations with the Muslim majority, but in 2002 an al-Qaida suicide bombing targeting a synagogue on Djerba killed 19 people, including 14 German tourists.I don't think they will face problems but we have to take everything into account and get prepared if something will happen, but I don't think it will, said Israel's deputy prime minister, Silvan Shalom, who was born in Tunisia and moved to Israel with his family as an infant.His views were echoed by Israel's Foreign Ministry and tour operators who send Israelis to Tunisia.Israelis frequently visit Tunis for tourism and to discover their roots. There are some 100,000 Israeli Jews of Tunisian descent, according to Michael Laskier, a North Africa expert at Israel's Bar-Ilan University.Tunisian Jews speaking anonymously to Israel Radio said they feared for their safety, but no violence has been reported against them.We saw the situation deteriorate in seconds, said one man who identified himself as a local community leader. The gangs are taking advantage of the fact that there is no government. Nobody is in charge here.

Hezbollah expected to be named in Hariri probe
– Sat Jan 15, 7:40 am ET

PARIS (AFP) – Draft charges hinting at Hezbollah in the 2005 murder of Lebanese premier Rafiq Hariri are likely to be presented under wraps to the Special Tribunal for Lebanon on Monday, French daily Le Monde reported.Citing sources close to the tribunal, the newspaper said on Saturday that prosecutor Daniel Bellemare will present the findings of his probe into the murder to pre-trial judge Daniel Fransen at a hearing behind closed doors in The Hague, where the tribunal is based for security reasons.According to several sources close to the office of the prosecutor, the charges target members of Hezbollah, it said.The Shiite militant group and its allies withdrew from the Lebanese cabinet on Wednesday in protest against an ongoing UN-backed investigation, prompting the collapse of the unity government led by Prime Minister Saad Hariri, son of the murdered former premier.According to the tribunal's rules of procedure, Fransen will next be tasked with confirming the confidential indictment before any arrest warrants or summonses to appear can be issued.The tribunal was created by a 2007 UN Security Council resolution to find and try the killers of Hariri, assassinated in a massive car bombing on the Beirut seafront on February 14, 2005 that also killed 22 other people.Hezbollah, which dismisses the tribunal as part of a US-Israeli plot, has repeatedly stated it would not accept an of its members and warned of repercussions, raising regional fears of renewed Sunni-Shiite sectarian violence.Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah warned in November the group will cut off the hand of anyone who tries to arrest any of its partisans for the Hariri killing.

Tunisia riots offer warning to Arab governments
By Tom Pfeiffer – Fri Jan 14, 2:35 pm ET

CAIRO (Reuters) – Nervous Arab leaders watching young Tunisian demonstrators force an aging strongman to step aside are wondering if their own old established formula of political repression will have to change too.There seems little likelihood that Tunisia's violence will quickly spread and unseat autocratic governments from Rabat to Riyadh, partly as opposition movements are weak and demoralized.Few think Tunis is the Arab Gdansk, heralding a toppling of dominos of the kind that swept communist eastern Europe in 1989. It was not yet even clear whether the departure of President Zine al-Abedine Ben Ali spelled a revolution in favor of democracy or a change of face for the established authority.Yet some wonder how long the region's other unpopular rulers -- from absolute monarchs to aging revolutionaries clinging to power -- can rely on the hard, old ways to stay in power.The unprecedented riots that have shaken Tunisia have been closely followed on regional satellite television channels and the Internet across the Middle East where high unemployment, bulging young populations, sky-rocketing inflation and a widening gap between rich and poor are all grave concerns.This could happen anywhere, said Imane, a restaurant owner in Egypt who did not want to give her full name. The satellite and Internet images we can see nowadays mean people who would normally be subdued can now see others getting what they want.

We are not used to something like this in this part of the world, said Kamal Mohsen, a 23-year-old Lebanese student. It is bigger than a dream in a region where people keep saying what can we do.While in recent decades democracy has supplanted despotism in regions once plagued by dictators, governments in the Arab world are almost uniformly autocratic and heavily policed.Yet some think the departure of veteran Tunisian President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali, as well as efforts in Algeria to appease anger over price increases, have punctured the fear factor that has long kept discontent in check across the region.Perhaps all the Arab governments are monitoring with eyes wide open what is happening in Tunisia and Algeria, columnist Abdelrahman al-Rashed wrote in Asharq al-Awsat newspaper, after Ben Ali made sweeping concessions, but before he finally quit.Much of what prevents protest and civil disobedience is simply the psychological barrier, Rashed said.Tunisia's president has promised all he can to stop the trouble and Algeria reversed price decisions, but the psychological barrier is broken.

STRAINED BUDGETS

Tunisia's drama is a warning to Arab governments that still rely on tough policing, tight control of media and subsidizing basic needs to quash dissent.Satellite news and Internet social media can sidestep such autocratic tactics and can quickly fuse frustrations of young people in isolated, deprived regions into a broad movement.
Rights groups in Tunisia say the government blocks access to much of the Internet, but that did not stop activists uploading videos of badly wounded demonstrators onto the Web, sparking more anger and giving the protests momentum.The whole story would not have been the same without Facebook and Twitter and other new media, said Ahmed Mansoor, a UAE-based rights activist and blogger. It played a vital role in bringing what's going on there to the world.The stock response to street protests across the Middle East and North Africa, where between half and two thirds of the population is under the age of 25, is to offer concessions on jobs and cheap food. Riots in several Algerian towns subsided last weekend after the government promised to do whatever was necessary to protect citizens from the rising cost of living. Libya, Morocco and Jordan have also announced plans to ease prices of basic goods.But budgets are creaking under the cost of imported food and fuel, especially in those countries lacking big energy reserves, leaving less leeway to buy off popular discontent.

The International Monetary Fund said that with current unemployment rates already very high, the region needs to create close to 100 million new jobs by 2020.
Supporters of the region's governments have tended to blame rioting on a dearth of cheap food, not bad government. Rights activists said the Tunisia protests spread fast because freedom of expression and association has been so long suppressed.
There is a danger in ... getting a bit too comfortable with the Arab state will muddle through argument, said Stephen Cook of the U.S. Council on Foreign Relations in a blog this week. It may not be the last days of ... (Egypt's President Hosni) Mubarak or any other Middle Eastern strongman. But there is clearly something going on in the region.

BADLY ORGANISED OPPOSITION

Qatar-based satellite channel Al Jazeera, launched in 1996, has been devoting airtime to the Tunisia unrest, showing on-air interviews with witnesses to clashes and opposition figures.In an apparent recognition that the channel is influencing Tunisian opinion, government ministers appeared on air to give their views on what was happening. The government has blamed the riots on a violent minority of extremists.But opposition parties and civil society in the Arab world still seem too weak to capitalize on disaffection, as governments lose their grip over the flow of information.Whose fault is all of this? The opposition's, which has been focusing on defaming regimes and not organizing properly, said Larbi Sadiki, Senior Lecturer in Middle East Politics at Exeter University in Britain. Anyone expecting a region-wide revolution would do well to look at Egypt, which imports around half of the food eaten by its 79 million population and is struggling with inflation of more than 10 percent.With a massive security apparatus quick to suppress large street protests and the main opposition Muslim Brotherhood excluded from formal politics, the state's biggest challenge comes from factory strikes in the Nile Delta industrial belt.Egypt's Internet based campaign for political change, the country's most critical voice, has failed to filter down from the chattering middle classes to the poor on the street.There has been such a division between economic struggles and political struggles in Egypt, said Laleh Khalili, a Middle East Politics expert at the University of London. Strikes have been going on, but not spilling into the public domain.

This could however change if rising discontent over food price inflation feeds into the wider malaise about political and economic stagnation and the lack of opportunities and freedom, especially for the armies of young graduates entering the workforce each year with little prospect of a meaningful job. Other analysts say the Internet has the power to turn disparate local demands into a cohesive political campaign, and point to Web activism in non-Arab Iran that helped bring millions onto the street in 2009 to contest an election result.Young people across the Arab world should go to the streets and do the same. It is time that we claim our rights, said Mohsen, the Lebanese student.Arab leaders should be very scared now because they do not have anything to offer their people but fear and when Tunisians win, the fear will be broken and what happens there will be contagious. It is only a matter of time, he added.(Additional reporting by Mariam Karouny, William Maclean, Christian Lowe, Yasmine Saleh, Marwa Awad, Andrew Hammond, Ulf Laessing, Zakia Abdennebi and Mahmoud Habboush; Editing by Samia Nakhoul and Alastair Macdonald)