Activists prepare new Gaza flotilla By CHRISTOPHER TORCHIA, Associated Press – Tue Apr 26, 12:34 pm ET
ISTANBUL – Pro-Palestinian activists said Tuesday they are in the final stages of organizing a sea convoy to the Gaza Strip, likely to be much bigger than a similar flotilla that was raided a year ago by Israeli forces, leaving nine people dead.The campaign sets up the possibility of another showdown with Israel, which eased its land blockade of Gaza following the international furor over the raid, but is gearing up to thwart any attempt to breach its blockade off the Gaza coast.Eight Turks and one Turkish-American died in the botched commando operation on a Turkish boat, the Mavi Marmara, that was part of the flotilla on May 31, 2010. The incident drew world attention to the humanitarian situation in Gaza and plunged ties between former allies Israel and Turkey to a new low.Activists on the boat said they acted in self-defense in international waters during the melee, but Israel says troops opened fire after coming under assault by men with clubs and axes as they rappelled from helicopters during the nighttime raid onto the ship's deck. Seven Israeli soldiers were wounded.
Huseyin Oruc, a spokesman for IHH — an Islamic aid group that operates the Mavi Marmara — said this time an international coalition of 22 non-governmental groups hopes to send 15 vessels with up to 1,500 people. Last year, six ships and about half that number participated.The target date for departure of the new flotilla is the first anniversary of the raid, but it could be delayed, partly because it clashes with Turkish election campaigning. Organizers say the new effort includes activists from Europe, the Middle East, Southeast Asia, Latin America, Canada and the United States.The Mavi Marmara was seized during the raid along with five other ships and docked in Israel, where it was thoroughly searched. On being returned to Turkey in August it was renovated by activists for the new flotilla. The boat has since become an icon for the IHH, which hands out small plastic models of the ship, emblazoned with the Turkish and Palestinian flags, to visitors at its headquarters.
Everybody is getting ready, Oruc said in an interview with The Associated Press at the Istanbul office. He predicted that Israel, mindful of negative fallout from last year's raid, would not try a similar operation this year.IHH is a Turkish acronym that means Foundation for Human Rights and Freedoms and Humanitarian Relief, and many of its regional missions are aimed at helping Palestinian refugees. Israel has accused the group of terrorist links, though it is not on a U.S. list of terrorist organizations.Israel has vehemently defended its land and sea blockade of Gaza, saying it prevents weapons from reaching Iran-backed Hamas militants who violently seized control of the territory in 2007. Last month, Israel intercepted a cargo ship in the Mediterranean that it said was carrying arms for Hamas.Israeli military officials say naval forces have been busy preparing for the new flotilla for weeks. They said the navy is taking the flotilla very seriously, but plans to use different tactics this time around. They declined to elaborate, but said the goal is to stop the flotilla while avoiding casualties.The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because of the secrecy of the operation.Yigal Palmor, spokesman for the Israeli Foreign Ministry, said a recent conference of donors to the Palestinians had called on all parties to send any humanitarian aid through land crossings.People coming by sea are doing it as a provocation and are looking for violent confrontation. We call on all relevant parties to display responsibility and shun violence, said Palmor, noting aid for the region is provided by the United Nations, international groups and through the Palestinian Authority.There is no reason to try to circumvent the existing channels, he said.
Espen Goffeng, an activist in Norway, said the target for departure of the new flotilla was early summer, and that activists might finalize the date at a meeting in Europe in early May.It's not like a march up the street, he said by telephone.We need to buy boats, we need to buy cargo, we need to move people around, we need hotel rooms, we need food.Turkey holds parliamentary elections on June 12. IHH, which says it plans to send 100 to 150 people on the flotilla, is inclined to launch its ship after the vote for fear any controversy could disrupt the election debate. The group communicates closely with the Turkish government, but says it does not need permission to send its boat to Gaza. We can advise, we can say something, but we cannot stop the flotilla, Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said in an interview with The Sydney Morning Herald that was published Monday.Turkey has harshly criticized Israel since the three-week war in Gaza that ended in early 2009. In an April 20 column in The New York Times, however, President Abdullah Gul alluded to Turkey's role as a facilitator of talks between Israel and Syria before the war, saying Turkey wanted to help the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.We are therefore ready to use our full capacity to facilitate constructive negotiations, Gul wrote. Turkey is ready to play the role it played in the past, once Israel is ready to pursue peace with its neighbors.Associated Press writer Matti Friedman contributed from Jerusalem.
Middle East peace process set for new airing
by Christophe Schmidt – Sun Apr 24, 2:58 pm ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) – Shelved since late 2010 and eclipsed by the pro-democracy Arab uprisings, the faltering Middle East peace process may soon be back in focus as Palestinians push for UN recognition of their state.Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas has already unveiled his plan to achieve the long-cherished dream of Palestinian statehood which he hopes will win backing at the annual United Nations General Assembly in September.And Abbas believes some of his European peace partners are ready to support his unilateral move to secure UN recognition of a Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders with Jerusalem as its capital.Frustrated by seven months of stalemate, which has only compounded decades of failed initiatives, Abbas's diplomatic initiative has been gaining ground even if he still seeks a negotiated comprehensive peace deal with Israel.After talks in Paris last week, he travels to Berlin on May 5 to press his cause. If France backs the unilateral move, other European nations may follow, much as a slew of Latin American countries followed Brazil's recognition late last year.
But neither Israel nor the United States wants to see a unilateral declaration of Palestinian statehood.Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is now under mounting pressure to present his own peace plan rather than be faced with an imposed solution.President Shimon Peres, Israel's elder statesman and a Nobel peace laureate, Friday urged the premier to act before events overtake him. According to Israeli media reports Netanyahu will unveil his own plan in a speech to the US Congress in late May.If we don't want foreign plans, the best way would be a plan of our own, and if we do that, others won't go ahead with theirs, Peres said.Peres was responding to reports that US President Barack Obama is preparing to lay out his own vision for a peace settlement.Obama would make a speech on the Middle East perhaps soon, one US official confirmed to AFP.He will be talking about what's been going on in the Middle East, the various revolutions. It's not going to be a speech for just the peace process.The Arab uprisings sweeping many Middle East nations -- traditional partners in helping bring Israel and the Palestinians to the negotiating table -- have complicated the equation for the United States.A lot of this, we're still sorting out. When you look at what's happening in Syria... For any peace to work, Syria has to be a part of that, the official said.The outlines for any peace deal have long been drawn -- the Palestinians insist on a state based on the 1967 borders before the Israeli occupation, while Netanyahu has refused a total withdrawal from the West Bank where thousands of Jewish settlers live.The two sides also remain at odds over the status of east Jerusalem, which the Palestinians want as capital of their future state, while the Israelis maintain the city must remain their undivided capital.
So there is little room for any new initiatives.According to the New York Times, the White House will propose a Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders with Jerusalem as a joint capital. But it won't envisage the right of return for Palestinian refugees -- something which will anger the Palestinian side. Without confirming any details, a senior US official said:We're looking at ways to re-energize the process but mindful of fact that no outside party can impose a solution.At end of day, this is about the two sides sitting at the table and finding ways to resolve these hard issues.For observers however the differences over the core issues at the heart of any peace deal are still too wide.Negotiations remain the only realistic path forward, but the gaps on the core issues are too large to bridge at present, wrote former diplomat Aaron David Miller, a veteran of the peace negotiations.He judged the chances of success of any new Washington initiative as slim to none in a commentary published by the Council of Foreign Relations.
Israeli shot by police in West Bank, army says
By Hassan Titi – Sun Apr 24, 12:20 pm ET
NABLUS, West Bank (Reuters) – A Palestinian policeman shot dead an Israeli and wounded four others after they entered a holy site in a West Bank city without permission on Sunday, the Israeli military said.The group of ultra-Orthodox Jewish worshippers were shot at Joseph's Tomb, which some Jews believe to be the burial place of the biblical patriarch, in the Palestinian city of Nablus.The man killed, Ben-Yosef Livnat, was in his mid-twenties and a nephew of Culture and Sports Minister Limor Livnat, a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud party.
An Israeli civilian was killed and four others injured after entering Joseph's Tomb in Nablus un-permitted, the military said in a statement in English.The military said it had been notified by Palestinian officials that the civilians were shot by a Palestinian policeman who, after identifying suspicious movements, fired in their direction.Israeli and Palestinian security officials will meet to investigate the shooting, the statement said.The governor of Nablus, Jibreen al-Bakri, said the group of Israelis had entered the area without coordinating it with the Palestinian Authority, as is the understanding with Israel.We have detained the forces responsible for securing the area and are investigating what happened, Bakri told Reuters.Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a statement condemning the killing and demanded that the Palestinian Authority take harsh steps against the perpetrators who carried out the criminal act against Jewish worshippers.Defense Minister Ehud Barak said a lack of coordination did not justify the shooting and called on the Palestinian Authority to take all necessary measures against those responsible.
A tearful Livnat said at her nephew's funeral in Jerusalem that he was an innocent victim murdered by a terrorist in the guise of a Palestinian policeman while on his way to prayers during the Passover holiday.It was the first reported fatal attack on Israelis in the West Bank since the killing of five family members last month in the settlement of Itamar in a nearby area in the central West Bank.After Sunday's incident, some settlers threw stones at Palestinian vehicles near the Hawara checkpoint close to Nablus, Israeli police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said.Violence in the West Bank has fallen significantly since its peak during a Palestinian uprising a decade ago.Some 500,000 settlers live among 2.5 million Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Palestinians say the presence of the enclaves will deny them a viable state on land Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East war.
(Additional reporting by Ali Sawafta in Ramallah; writing by Ori Lewis; editing by Robert Woodward)
Pressure mounts for Netanyahu peace plan
by Jean-Luc Renaudie – Sat Apr 23, 2:48 pm ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is under mounting pressure to present his own peace plan rather than be faced with an imposed solution or the unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state.President Shimon Peres, Israel's elder statesman and a Nobel peace laureate, was the latest to add his voice to the growing chorus, urging Netanyahu to act before events overtake him.If we don't want foreign plans, the best way would be a plan of our own, and if we do that, others won't go ahead with theirs, Peres said on Friday.Peres was responding to reports indicating that US President Barack Obama was preparing to lay out his own vision for a peace settlement between Israel and the Palestinians.First reported in the New York Times, it said the vision could include four principles, or terms of reference ... (which) could call for Israel to accept a Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders of before that year's Middle East war.It also suggested the Palestinians could have to forgo the right of return to land inside Israel, that Jerusalem would be the capital of both states, and would also include principles safeguarding Israel's security.
Netanyahu has said he will deliver a policy speech to the US Congress in late May, where he is expected to present his plan.But it's not just the fear of being pre-empted by Obama and a settlement imposed by the United States that is spurring calls for immediate and far reaching action.Following the breakdown of direct talks last September, the Palestinians have adopted a diplomatic strategy aimed at securing UN recognition of a Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders with Jerusalem as its capital.The move is expected to take place in September, when the UN General Assembly holds its annual meeting.The Palestinians have already won recognition from several South American nations and on Thursday France said European nations were also considering recognising a Palestinian state.Recognition of the state of Palestine is one of the options which France is considering, with its European partners in a bid to relaunch the peace process, French ambassador Gerard Araud told a UN Security Council debate on the Middle East.Defence Minister Ehud Barak, one of Netanyahu's closest allies, has warned that Israel faced a diplomatic tsunami.There is an international movement for the recognition of a Palestinian state within 1967 borders, Barak said, warning that only an Israeli diplomatic initiative could limit the risks to Israel.
Adding to international pressure on Israel is the turmoil in the region churned up by the Arab Spring.The Europeans in particular are constantly telling us that Israel must make concessions to meet the wave of protests in Arab countries and restart negotiations with the Palestinians, as if the two cases were linked, a senior Israel official told AFP on condition of anonymity.In fact, these movements differ from country to country and should rather encourage us to be cautious and wait to see what happens said the official.Netanyahu is likely to continue with the cautious approach. The Israeli leader has so far rejected dividing Jerusalem, wants to hold on to all major Israeli settlement blocs in the occupied West Bank and to keep Israeli troops on the West Bank's eastern border with Jordan.This, he argues, will prevent the West Bank turning into a base for Iranian supplied missiles like the other areas from which Israel has pulled back: the Gaza Strip and southern Lebanon.
But Israeli officials concede this is unlikely to lure the Palestinians back to the negotiating table.I don't see them coming back to the negotiating table. Their strategy is that they don't want to negotiate, so you can't force them, Deputy Prime Minister Dan Meridor told AFP last week.
