Iraqi Shi'ites want Saudis to withdraw from Bahrain
APR 23,2011 – 11AM
BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Hundreds of Iraqi Shi'ites rallied in Baghdad on Saturday to demand the immediate withdrawal of Saudi troops from Bahrain, which has sparked reminders of Iraq's own sectarian divide.Shi'ites in Iraq, Lebanon and Iran have expressed anger over the movement of forces from Sunni Arab states into Bahrain to help its Sunni royal family squash pro-democracy rallies by majority Shi'ites.
Protesters in central Baghdad on Saturday chanted no to al-Saud. Some carried banners which read Saudi occupation should end and Why is there Arab silence toward the massacres committed in Bahrain?.We advise (our) brothers in Saudi Arabia to immediately withdraw from Bahrain,Hadi al-Amiri, Iraq's transportation minister and head of the Badr Organization, which arranged the protest, said in an address to demonstrators.Badr is the former armed wing of the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council (ISCI), a main faction in Iraq's Shi'ite alliance, which also includes that of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.Maliki has criticized the intervention by Gulf states in Bahrain and said it could spark a sectarian war in the region.Like Bahrain, Iraq has a Shi'ite majority that complained for decades of oppression under a Sunni ruling class which is dominant throughout the Arab world.
Since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion which toppled Sunni dictator Saddam Hussein and enabled the Shi'ite majority to take power, Baghdad has had uneasy relations with Sunni neighbors.Neighboring Sunni countries have been unnerved by the Shi'ite-led uprising in Bahrain and Gulf Arab rulers have accused non-Arab Shi'ite Iran of interfering.Amri criticized Bahraini authorities for suppressing its Shi'ite population and asked the Arab League and human rights groups to do fact-finding missions in the Gulf Arab kingdom.Barbarian acts against people asking for freedom should stop and the Saudi occupation is not tolerated anymore,Hadi al-Ghurabi, a Shi'ite cleric said.(Reporting by Hadeer Abbas; Writing by Ahmed Rasheed; Editing by Serena Chaudhry)
Latest developments in Arab world's unrest
By The Associated Press – Fri Apr 22, 4:55 pm ET
LIBYA-U.S. Sen. John McCain calls for increased military support for Libya's rebels, including weapons, training and stepped-up airstrikes, in a full-throated endorsement of the opposition in its fight to oust Moammar Gadhafi. A day after the U.S. began flying armed drones to bolster NATO firepower, the top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee says the United States and other nations should recognize the opposition's political leadership as the legitimate voice of the Libyan people.The White House disagrees, saying it is for the Libyan people to decide who their leaders are.McCain is the highest profile U.S. visitor to meet with the rebels.
SYRIA-Syrian security forces fire bullets and tear gas on pro-democracy demonstrations across the country, killing at least 75 people — including a young boy — in the bloodiest day of the uprising against President Bashar Assad's authoritarian regime, witnesses and a human rights group say. The protests, held every Friday, have become weekly bloodbaths as security forces try to crush the demonstrations. But the mounting death tolls have only served to invigorate a protest movement whose demands have snowballed from modest reforms to the downfall of the 40-year Assad dynasty.Bullets started flying over our heads like heavy rain, says one witness in Izraa, a southern village in Daraa province, the same region where the uprising began in mid-March.
YEMEN-A sea of hundreds of thousands of anti-government protesters swells along a five-lane boulevard reaching across Yemen's capital in the largest of two months of demonstrations, as the government tries to halt military defections by arresting dozens of officers. The defections have chipped away at a critical line of defense for President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who calls his opponents renegades and cowards.Two people are killed in new protests across the country, including a 15-year-old boy shot in the eye and a soldier killed in clashes with demonstrators and armed tribesmen.
EGYPT-Tens of thousands of Egyptians led by hard-line Islamists escalate their protests against the appointment of a Coptic Christian governor in southern Egypt, deepening mistrust between religious communities during the bumpy aftermath of Egypt's revolution.Friday's demonstrations were the largest in a week of protests against the newly appointed Qena governor, Emad Mikhail, and coincide with Good Friday services for most of Egypt's estimated 10 million Christians.Meanwhile, Egypt's general prosecutor extends the detention of ousted President Hosni Mubarak for a second 15-day period to allow questioning to continue over the killings of protesters.
OMAN -Witnesses say protesters calling for investigations into state corruption have staged a march in southern Oman in a sign that high-level concessions have failed to quell demands for reforms. The rally in Salalah, about 500 miles (850 kilometers) southwest of the capital, Muscat, includes calls to investigate state officials for alleged financial abuses in the Arabian peninsula nation.
Israel's Peres urges govt to lay out peace plan
– Fri Apr 22, 11:47 am ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – Israel's Shimon Peres on Friday urged the government to lay out a plan for peace with the Palestinians before the international community imposes its own initiative, the Haaretz website said.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,the Israeli president was quoted as saying in the online version of the left-leaning paper.His comments were made during a visit to southern Israel just and came in response to questions about a possible initiative being prepared by US President Barack Obama, reports of which first emerged in the New York Times on Thursday.
Quoting unnamed White House officials, the paper said the plan, which was described in very vague terms, could include four principles, or terms of reference ... (which) could call for Israel to accept a Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders.It also suggested the Palestinians could have to forgo the right of return to land they fled or were forced out of, that Jerusalem would be the capital of both states, and would also include principles safeguarding Israel's security.Asked to comment on the report, Peres said it was all speculation while adding that it was too early to say anything about a possible new US initiative.Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is to travel next month to Washington where he will address the US Congress to outline a new political initiative aimed at kick-starting peace talks and pre-empting a Palestinian bid for UN recognition later this year.Following the breakdown of direct talks late last year, 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.
Abbas in Paris as France mulls recognising Palestine
by Herve Rouach – Thu Apr 21, 3:52 pm ET
PARIS (AFP) – President Nicolas Sarkozy hosted Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas in Paris on Thursday as France told the United Nations that Europe was considering giving formal recognition to a Palestinian state.Recognition of the state of Palestine is one of the options which France is considering, with its European partners, with a view to creating a political horizon for relaunching the peace process, French ambassador Gerard Araud told a UN Security Council debate on the Middle East.His statement came as Abbas was in the French capital to seek Sarkozy's advice, in his own words, on the Palestinian Authority's bid to convince the world to accept its statehood even ahead of an ever elusive peace deal.Any move to welcome a Palestinian state into the community of nations would be seen as an attempt to give a jolt to peace talks with Israel that stalled last September after Israel refused to extend a moratorium on settlements.Abbas told the French daily le Figaro that US President Barack Obama should propose a peace plan ahead of a September deadline previously set for an accord to create a Palestinian state.The United States, as the big power, has the duty to make proposals. It is they who can convince Israel, he said in an interview to be published on Friday.
European ambassadors at the UN Security Council, meanwhile, called for bold US leadership to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as Britain also indicated that state recognition could be considered.Nothing is off the table with regard to recognition in September, said a British spokesman.Pressure has mounted on Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu amid heightened Palestinian-Israeli hostilities and a US block on European attempts to break the deadlock.Abbas told France 24 television that, while he hoped to return to talks with Israel, he thought most European governments were ready to recognise a Palestinian state come what may.
All the signs from these organisations and states show that they're waiting for the right moment to recognise us, he said, while admitting there have been no outright promises to do so.Sarkozy has not recently taken a position on the issue, having distanced himself in January last year from his then foreign minister Bernard Kouchner's suggestion that France might unilaterally recognise Palestine.But Abbas' visit comes at a time when France, which holds the G8 and G20 presidencies, is adopting a more muscular foreign policy designed to revive its global role, in particular its position in the Arab world.
France led international calls for action against Moamer Kadhafi's Libyan regime, spearheading coalition air strikes and becoming the first power to adopt ties with the rebel shadow government in Benghazi.Paris backs the goal of statehood by the time of the UN General Assembly in September.But, as ever, profound differences remain between Israeli and Palestinian camps that could yet delay a vote.Ongoing Jewish settlement construction in the occupied West Bank claimed by Palestinians has sharpened divisions, but the wider international community is also divided on how best to push the talks forward.The Middle East Quartet -- a diplomatic body overseeing the peace roadmap made up of Russia, the European Union, the United Nations and the United States -- postponed a meeting that had been scheduled for April 15. Europe hoped to announce the parameters of an imagined final agreement, but its partners in the process were not ready.Last week, the Palestinian Authority urged Washington to clearly support the idea of a Palestinian State based on its 1967 borders -- those used before the Six Day War with Israel -- with East Jerusalem as its capital.
U.N. urges bold steps to relaunch Mideast peace
By Patrick Worsnip – Thu Apr 21, 3:21 pm ET
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – The United Nations called on Thursday for bold and decisive steps to relaunch the Israeli-Palestinian peace process as the region awaits a possible new initiative by U.S. President Barack Obama.U.N. political chief Lynn Pascoe and ambassadors of key Security Council countries said it was important to break the deadlock soon as a proclaimed September deadline for reaching an agreement draws closer.Peace talks opened last September with the aim of an accord in one year but quickly broke down after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu refused to extend a partial freeze on Jewish settlement building in the occupied West Bank.Palestinian leaders have said that if the deadline expires with no deal, they may seek U.N. backing for a Palestinian state -- a move that Israel and its big power ally the United States are keen to avoid.Bold and decisive steps are needed to resolve this decades-long conflict, with vision, leadership and responsibility from all concerned,Pascoe told a monthly meeting of the Security Council on the Middle East.
He said it was a matter of concern that the political track is falling behind the significant progress made by the Palestinian Authority in its preparations to become a functioning government ready for statehood.A planned meeting of the Quartet of Middle East mediators -- the United States, Russia, the United Nations and the European Union -- has twice been called off in recent weeks.European diplomats said the delays had been requested by the United States. Last week Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Obama would lay out plans for a new U.S. push for Arab-Israeli peace in a speech to be made in coming weeks.Netanyahu is expected to address a joint meeting of the U.S. Congress during a visit to Washington next month. He was invited by Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives John Boehner, one of Obama's chief critics.
STRONG LEADERSHIP
European countries believe the Palestinians could drop their push for U.N. recognition if parameters are announced for fresh peace talks. Diplomats said they had been hoping the Quartet would announce them, but now hoped Obama might do so.The parameters, spelled out in a British-French-German statement to the Security Council in February, include: Palestinian and Israeli states based on 1967 borders but amended by land swaps, security arrangements for both sides, Jerusalem as capital of both states, and a refugee solution.German Ambassador Peter Wittig told Thursday's council meeting that his country was looking forward to Obama's speech and that strong U.S. leadership is required.French Ambassador Gerard Araud said the time has passed for imagining new interim solutions.U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice gave little clue as to what Obama would propose, saying only that Washington favored a two-state solution achieved through direct negotiations.But she called on the United Nations to end, once and for all action on its controversial Goldstone report, which accused Israel and Hamas Palestinian militants of war crimes during the December 2008-January 2009 conflict in Gaza.Richard Goldstone, the South African judge who led the inquiry, has recently said he no longer believes Israel had a policy of targeting civilians, as his report had alleged.Palestinian envoy Riyad Mansour appeared to lend support to the European initiative, saying Palestinians wanted to resume a credible peace process on the basis of internationally supported parameters.Israeli Ambassador Meron Reuben gave no detailed account of where he saw negotiations heading, but voiced long-standing Israeli skepticism about U.N. involvement, quoting President Shimon Peres as saying, We need solutions, not resolutions.(Editing by Xavier Briand)
Europe ups pressure on US over Mideast
– Thu Apr 21, 3:09 pm ET
UNITED NATIONS (AFP) – France said Thursday that European nations are considering recognizing a Palestinian state, heightening pressure on the United States and Israel to relaunch the Middle East peace process.European ambassadors at the UN Security Council joined the Palestinian envoy in calling for bold US leadership to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.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 Security Council debate on the Middle East.Britain also indicated that state recognition could be considered.Nothing is off the table with regard to recognition in September,said a British spokesman.But nor are we specifying what conditions would be necessary, or sufficient, to recognize, or indeed not to recognize -- we'll have to look at all relevant factors at the time.Pressure has mounted on US President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu amid heightened Palestinian-Israeli hostilities and a US block on European attempts to break the deadlock.Obama will soon make a speech on the Middle East conflict, diplomats said while adding that details on US plans remain vague.We expect that in a couple of weeks the president will have an opportunity to talk in more depth about the Middle East and North Africa,a senior US official said ahead of Thursday's UN Security Council debate.
At the meeting, US ambassador Susan Rice reinforced US calls for the Palestinian leadership to return to direct talks, frozen since last September amid recriminations over Israeli settlement building.Negotiations between the parties remain the only path to a solution that resolves all issues and establishes a sovereign state of Palestine alongside a secure state of Israel, Rice told the Security Council, without mentioning Obama's plans.Netanyahu is to outline his bid to tempt the Palestinians back to talks during a US visit in May. The US Republican party leadership has invited the Israeli leader to address a joint meeting of the US Senate and House of Representatives.Israel's ambassador Meron Reuben insisted there could only be peace through face-to-face talks.It cannot be imposed from the outside, Reuben said.And any lasting peace agreement must be built on the core principles of mutual recognition and security.Obama last year set a target of September 2011 for an accord to set up a Palestinian state. But talks between the rivals ended within weeks after Israel refused to extend a moratorium on settlements.
The United States vetoed a UN Security Council resolution in February which would have condemned Israel's settlements.It also frustrated a plan by Britain, France and Germany to get the diplomatic Quartet -- the United States, European Union, Russia and United Nations -- to set out the parameters for a peace accord, including setting out frontiers and the future of Jerusalem.The Europeans had hoped a Quartet statement would tempt the Palestinians back to talks. But the United States blocked a meeting planned for Berlin on April 15.We are looking forward to the speech President Obama will give on the region,Germany's UN ambassador Peter Wittig told the Security Council. Strong US leadership is required.Risks are growing and chances are dwindling,Wittig added.We must overcome the deadlock and re-establish a credible political process -- well in advance of September deadlines, otherwise we might face serious consequences.Amid the diplomatic standoff, increased rocket attacks from Hamas-controlled Gaza and counter-attacks by the Israeli military have only been halted with an uneasy and unofficial truce. The Palestinian ambassador to the UN, Riyad Mansour, called for bold leadership by the United States. Mansour said US backing for setting out the conditions for a peace accord would seriously contribute to revival of the political process.If the peace efforts remain deadlocked, Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas has said he will in September seek recognition at the UN General Assembly for an independent state.
Israeli intellectuals endorse Palestinian state
– Thu Apr 21, 2:50 pm ET
TEL AVIV (Reuters) – Barely audible above the chants of traitor, an Israeli actress who lost a leg in a Palestinian attack read out on Thursday a declaration by Israeli intellectuals endorsing the creation of a Palestinian state.The event, attended by dozens of left-wing artists and academics, was held outside the hall where Israelis united to declare independence in 1948. Sixty-three years later, deep divisions over Israel's future played out at the historic venue.Right-wing demonstrators were out in force, heckling and sounding horns, as Hanna Maron, the 87-year-old grande dame of Israeli theater, struggled to make herself heard on Tel Aviv's Rothschild Boulevard.She read from a Declaration of Independence from the Occupation that she and some 50 other peace activists signed ahead of an expected Palestinian bid to win broad endorsement of statehood at the U.N. General Assembly in September.In 1970, the German-born Maron was wounded when Palestinian militants attacked passengers waiting to board an Israeli airliner at Munich airport. One of her legs was amputated, but she continued to perform on stage and on television.
We are here assembled ... to welcome the coming Declaration of Independence of the Palestinian State,the document said, calling for its creation, alongside Israel, on the basis of what is known today as the '67 borders.Israel's government opposes any one-sided steps and has said that a peace deal may be reached only through direct talks.Palestinian Authority leaders, citing an impasse in peace talks that collapsed last year over the issue of Jewish settlements, say they will aim to seek U.N. recognition for statehood in all the territory captured by Israel in a 1967 war.That would include the Islamist Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, over which the Western-backed Palestinian Authority has no control. Israel withdrew settlers and soldiers from Gaza in 2005 but still largely controls the territory's borders.More than 100 nations have said they recognize Palestine as a state. But full U.N. membership would also require Security Council approval, diplomats say, a development they see as unlikely given U.S. reservations about unilateral moves.The left-wing group, whose members include prize-winning writers, artists, professors and a former cabinet minister, Shulamit Aloni, demanded the complete end of occupation, referring to the lines that existed before Israel seized the West Bank and Gaza Strip some 44 years ago.Limor Livnat, Israel's culture and sport minister, and a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's right-wing Likud party, said she respected the Israel Prize laureates who signed the declaration, but did not agree with their extreme views.This is a group that is acting to spread a wrong message and is causing Israel serious harm internationally,she said on Israeli radio.(Additional reporting by Tom Perry in Ramallah; writing by Jeffrey Heller and Allyn Fisher-Ilan; editing by Mark Heinrich)
The Geneva Accord: a breakthrough model
By Yossi Beilin – Thu Apr 21, 11:03 am ET
Tel Aviv – Just over a decade ago, Israelis and Palestinians met at Camp David. The weeks leading to the summit were full of expectation. There was a sense that an agreement was within reach. It was the last summer of the Clinton administration, and everyone thought that the president of the United States would not convene a summit that would lead to anything short of a historic triumph. So determined, it seemed, was everyone to succeed, that success almost seemed predetermined. And indeed, some even believed that an agreement had already been secretly reached – that it was a done deal. Peace, it seemed, was at hand.But this, as it turned out, was not the case. Instead, the Camp David summit of July 2000 came to be one of the most tragic milestones of the peace process between Israel and the Palestinians. It was a particularly ironic tragedy, for the gap between expectations and results could not have been greater.The reasons for the summit's failure are complex and will probably remain in dispute. But the failure was real and the frustration was felt by everyone. It was felt particularly acutely by those of us members of the negotiating teams at Camp David and the too-brief round of talks that followed at Taba, Egypt.
Particularly frustrating was an emerging narrative that saw our failure as a sign that the very conflict was insoluble. Someone had to prove that this was not the case. And so, in a meeting with Palestine Liberation Organization Executive Committee member Yasser Abed Rabbo, I suggested that we continue the work that was interrupted in Taba until we could conclude an agreement. Frustrated as we were, we were determined to demonstrate to both Israelis and Palestinians that despite the disappointment, despite the violence, peace was possible.Our work was not easy – not only because of the essence of what we had set out to do, but also because of the conditions under which we worked. The violence that erupted in the wake of the failed Camp David summit led to roadblocks and closures and restrictions on travel that made a meeting itself nearly impossible. Sometimes we had to meet abroad because meeting at home was not possible. Other times we could only meet at a checkpoint and hold our discussions in a car. The contrast between the backdrop to our work (violence and crisis) and the center of our work (a comprehensive permanent-status peace agreement) could not have been greater.To support our effort, we built broad coalitions. On the Israeli side, we brought in a number of individuals from the heart of the establishment, including former senior military officers. On the Palestinian side we brought in officials from Fatah, parliamentarians, and leading academics. In 2003, after almost three years of hard work, our negotiating teams concluded the detailed draft agreement that has since been named the Geneva Initiative.
How the agreement worksOur proposal details what a credible, negotiated Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement could look like. It addresses all the major issues between the parties, including security arrangements, the status of Jerusalem, access to holy places, and a just and agreed-upon solution to the problem of refugees.And, of course, it addresses the contours of permanent borders and the future of West Bank settlements. In this, it draws heavily on the ideas presented to us by President Clinton. With pre-1967 lines (the Green Line) as our starting point, we devised a series of agreed-upon, minor land swaps on a reciprocal, one-to-one basis, according to a formula that would require Israel to evacuate the smallest number of settlements while granting Palestinians the greatest part of the land.The result is a model that would create a Palestinian state on nearly 98 percent of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, with the shortfall compensated for by territories inside the Green Line. The borders we drew would allow the vast majority of the settler population (75 percent) to remain in territory that could come under Israeli sovereignty.Implementation of the plan would take place gradually over 30 months, in accordance with the detailed timetable set out in the Annexes to the Geneva Accord, which were produced under the collaboration of our Israeli and Palestinian teams and published in 2009.The key to our success in reaching a comprehensive agreement was not in the specific solution we offered to each issue †although there was also a lot of creative thinking there, too †but rather in the concurrence of the solutions we offered.
Comprehensive and conclusive That is to say, borders and settlements are not simply inter-related with one another alone, but with each of the other final-status issues – most notably those with the greatest symbolic significance: refugees and Jerusalem. We could not reach an agreement without understanding them as such. After all, the question of borders pertains to the area of Jerusalem as well. And as often happens in negotiations, a concession by one side on one issue often allowed a breakthrough in another. In short, we drafted an accord that, true to its name, became an accord not only between the two parties but also resolved all the outstanding issues between the two sides. It was comprehensive and conclusive.As such, it has drawn the support of majorities in both societies. According to the most recent polling data, solid majorities in both societies support a comprehensive, negotiated final-status agreement based on the parameters outlined in the Geneva Accords. These numbers reflect support for the total package that is higher than support for several of its individual elements.What now? In December, speaking to a delegation of senior Israelis in Ramallah, West Bank, at an event organized by the Geneva Initiative, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas suggested that [Once we] resolve the issue of borders, it will be possible to also resolve all the others.It is fortunate, then, that a mutually agreeable formula already exists.My colleagues and I – both Israeli and Palestinian – have pledged to work together and within our respective communities to turn Geneva into reality. We hope that people of goodwill around the world will join us in our pursuit of a just and lasting peace between our two peoples, so that we may live side by side in freedom and security as equal neighbors.Yossi Beilin is a former member of the Knesset and former minister in the Israeli government. A veteran Israeli negotiator, he launched the Geneva Initiative with Yasser Abed Rabbo in 2003, presenting a full model agreement between Israel and the Palestinians. He is the author of several books, including Israel: A Concise Political History and Touching Peace.
