ISRAEL APROVES 1,500 HOMES-WAY TO GO ISRAEL

Israel approves 1,500 settler homes in east Jerusalem: NGO by Steve Weizman – Thu May 19, 3:38 pm ET

JERUSALEM (AFP) – An Israeli government committee on Thursday approved the construction of more than 1,500 settler homes in east Jerusalem, as Israel's premier prepared to leave for talks in Washington, an NGO told AFP.A spokeswoman for the Ir Amim non-governmental organisation, which calls for Palestinians and Israelis to share Jerusalem, confirmed the interior ministry planning committee gave final approval for two projects.The decision authorised construction of 620 homes in the settlement neighbourhood of Pisgat Zeev, and another 900 in a second settlement neighbourhood, Har Homa.The committee hearing took place just hours before Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was due to fly to Washington, where he is to meet US President Barack Obama in the White House on Friday and make a keynote address to both houses of Congress next week.Israeli lobby group Peace Now deplored the timing and content of the interior ministry's decision.The prime minister is sacrificing relations with the US for the sake of his loyalty to settlers, it said in a statement. This is not just miserable timing but a miserable policy which endangers Israel's standing in the world.Netanyahu's decision to discuss Har Homa and Pisgat Zeev today is a clear message to the Americans about Israel's real policy which refuses to even discuss (sharing) Jerusalem, Hagit Ofran, of Peace Now's Settlement Watch unit told AFP.The Palestinians also slammed the decision, with president Mahmud Abbas's spokesman tying it to a key Middle East policy speech by US President Barack Obama.The decision of the Israeli government... is the immediate Israeli response to President Obama's speech, Nabil Abu Rudeina told AFP.He called on Obama's administration to hold Israel responsible for the breakdown in the peace process.In March 2010, the interior ministry announced a plan to build 1,600 settler homes in Ramat Shlomo, an Orthodox Jewish neighbourhood in east Jerusalem.

The announcement came as US Vice President Joe Biden visited Israel, provoking fierce American opposition and souring relations with Washington for months.The United States opposes Jewish settlement on land the Palestinians claim for their state, calling it an obstacle to peace.Ir Amim spokeswoman Orly Noi said her group had lodged formal objections to the Har Homa plan, which she said would have a particularly serious impact on Jerusalem's southeastern boundary with the West Bank.
On Har Homa, the objection is from us, on political grounds,she said.The planned construction will extend it... in the direction of Bethlehem, creating really significant changes, she told AFP.Arab east Jerusalem was captured by Israel with the rest of the West Bank in the 1967 Six Day War and later annexed in a move not recognised by the international community.Israel considers both east and west Jerusalem to be its eternal, indivisible capital, a view restated by Netanyahu on Monday in a speech to the Israeli parliament.It does not view construction in the east to be settlement activity and some 180,000 Israelis live in east Jerusalem amid nearly 270,000 Palestinians.The Palestinians, however, believe east Jerusalem should be the capital of their future state and are fiercely opposed to the extension of Israeli control over the sector.The issue of settlement construction has snarled peace talks, with Israel refusing to extend a building ban that expired in late September 2010, shortly after direct peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians restarted.Israel refused to renew the ban and the Palestinians have said they will not hold negotiations while settlements are being built on land they want for a future state.

Obama to unveil Arab economic plan
by Stephen Collinson – Wed May 18, 11:26 pm ET

WASHINGTON (AFP) – President Barack Obama will Thursday unveil a multi-billion dollar economic plan to spur and reward democratic change in the Arab world, modeled on the evolution of post-Soviet eastern Europe.The comprehensive US scheme, initially targeting Egypt and Tunisia, will serve as an incentive for other states currently rocked by Arab Spring turmoil, to embrace people power and turn towards democracy, officials said.Obama will lay out the initiative in a long-awaited major speech sketching Washington's response to the historic wave of change sweeping across the Middle East and North Africa, at the State Department at 1540 GMT Thursday.A senior official said the administration had asked: how do we take some of the successful efforts in Eastern Europe and apply them in countries that are transitioning to democracy in the Middle East and North Africa? It is the beginning of a long term effort. These transitions will play out over a period of years -- Egypt and Tunisia are at the forefront because they have already taken these steps.

It is our hope that there are other transitions to democracy that follow in the years to come, the official said on condition of anonymity, perhaps referring to states like Syria that has launched a crackdown on protests.Specifically, the plan will seek to reorient the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, which helped rebuild market economies in post-communist Europe, to play a similar role in the Middle East.To help Egypt meet critical development following the fall of president Hosni Mubarak, Washington will develop a new mechanism to cancel debt to provide cash and investment funds, a program worth a billion dollars..It will also guarantee up to a billion dollars in borrowing to finance infrastructure development and to support job creation through the US Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC).The White House, which already sends billions of dollars of aid, including military support to Egypt's way, will also seek authorization from Congress to establish a US-Egyptian enterprise fund.The United States will also work with the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the African Development Bank to unlock more funding and financing guarantees to encourage democratic reform in the Arab world, officials said.The plan was unveiled following calls for an initiative similar to the Marshall Plan, which rebuilt shattered Europe after World War II and checked the spread of communism.The rationale of Obama's Arab plan appears to be an attempt to tackle the economic deprivation and miserable prospects of vast swathes of Arab population, which, along with repression of basic rights, triggered a wildfire of protests.

US officials said they would also seek to support better economic management in transitioning nations, try to improve economic stability by easing deficits and spurring growth and would support economic modernization and reform.Trade will also be used as a lever, in an attempt to help nations help themselves.If you take out oil exports, (in) the countries of this region, 400 million people export about the same amount of goods as Switzerland does, with eight million people, another senior official said.The countries are not terribly well integrated with each other nor are they terribly well integrated with the global economy.Obama will seek Thursday to sketch a plausible policy response to the sudden, complex and often contradictory demands thrown up by revolts that started in Tunisia, and spread to nations including Egypt, Syria, Yemen.But it was unclear whether the president would use the speech to relaunch his stalled drive for Israeli-Palestinian peace.The breathtaking speed, historical scope and complexity of change sweeping the region caught Washington, like the leaders it challenged, unawares.For many Americans, the most significant foreign event of the year is the US killing of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan, a fact pointing to a key domestic audience for Thursday's speech.The president is also expected to have harsh words for US foes Syria and Iran.On Wednesday, Obama imposed direct sanctions on President Bashar al-Assad and six top aides over Syria's deadly crackdown on protests, telling Assad to move to democracy or step down.It is up to Assad to lead a political transition or to leave, a document accompanying the sanctions declaration said.

More Palestinian reform needed, says World Bank
– Wed May 18, 11:40 am ET

JERUSALEM (AFP) – The Palestinian Authority has taken significant steps to improve governance and tackle rampant corruption but must follow through with implementation, the World Bank said on Wednesday.In a report on the state of economic governance in the West Bank, where the PA is the ruling power, and the Gaza Strip, where Islamist Hamas is in charge, the bank acknowledged the major obstacles faced by the PA.And it said that while public perception of government corruption remained high, actual experience of corruption was fairly low.Major reforms have been carried out, particularly in public finance, and the PA is now able to better manage its public financial systems and equity holdings, World Bank country director Mariam Sherman said in a statement accompanying the report.However, there are still important reforms that remain incomplete and other areas where work has not yet begun.The Palestinian Authority has won praise since president Mahmud Abbas appointed former International Monetary Fund economist Salam Fayyad to the post of prime minister, where he has championed a programme of institution-building.In April, the World Bank said those reforms had helped the Palestinian Authority position itself for statehood, though it said the prospects for sustainable economic growth remained bleak.On Wednesday, the bank said the Palestinian Authority had made progress in the areas of public procurement, public sector employment, and the regulation of the private sector.But it warned there was little progress on reform of management of state land assets, transparency in licensing, and public access to information.It also said public faith in efforts to combat corruption remained low and urged measures to boost confidence.The PA needs to take a more proactive approach to investigating and prosecuting corruption, as well as communicating these efforts in order to build public confidence in government accountability, said Mark Ahern, team leader for the report.Efforts to build institutions and boost governance have also been hampered by the ongoing split between the Abbas's Fatah party, which dominates the PA, and the Hamas movement, which rules the Gaza Strip.

Hamas won legislative elections in 2006, prompting much of the international community to reroute funding away from the group, which is designated a terrorist organisation in the United States and Europe.This undermined a major achievement of earlier reform efforts; consolidation and management of financial inflows in a transparent manner,the report said.The two groups signed a reconciliation deal earlier this month, which paves the way for a transitional government of independents and elections within a year.But it is not yet clear how international donors will treat any interim government or whether funds will be delivered if Hamas is elected to any future government.

US, Obama's image sour in Muslim nations: poll
– Tue May 17, 7:15 pm ET

WASHINGTON (AFP) – The image of the United States has soured in Muslim nations in the past year, says a poll released two days before President Barack Obama is due to deliver a speech on the pro-democracy revolts sweeping the Arab world.Only in Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation where Obama spent part of his childhood, does a majority have a favorable view of the United States, says the poll by the Pew Research Center.But even the number of Indonesians with a favorable view of the United States was down by five percentage points from 59 percent in 2010.The Pew survey found that the US president remains unpopular in most Muslim nations, and most disapprove of the way he has handled calls for political change roiling the Arab world.Even in the United States' key allies of Jordan and Turkey, views of the United States soured in the past year.The percentage of Jordanians who regard the United States in a favorable light fell by eight points since 2010 to just 13 percent this year, and in Turkey, just 10 percent of people had a positive opinion about the United States, down from 17 percent in 2010.

A mere 12 percent of Turks said they had confidence in Obama, a drop of 11 points from 2010. In Jordan, confidence in Obama rose in the past year, but only by two percentage points, to 28 percent approval.Pakistanis' views of the United States were also less positive this year compared to last, falling from 17 percent in 2010 to 11 percent.But confidence in Obama among Pakistanis grew from a paltry eight percent in 2010 to 10 percent, shows the poll -- although if the same survey were conducted today, that result might be different.Polling for the survey was concluded just before US special forces killed Osama bin Laden on May 1 in the Pakistani town of Abbottabad.Around 1,000 people each were surveyed for the poll in Egypt, Indonesia, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, the Palestinian Territories and Turkey, and 2,000 were polled in Pakistan over a 30-day period in March and April.

Syria's stoking Golan protests unacceptable: US
– Mon May 16, 4:32 pm ET

WASHINGTON (AFP) – The White House accused Syria on Monday of stoking protests in the Golan Heights as a distraction from its repression of anti-government protests and warned that such behavior is unacceptable.It seems apparent to us that that is an effort to distract attention from the legitimate expressions of protest by the Syrian people and from the harsh crackdown that the Syrian government has perpetrated against its own people, said spokesman Jay Carney.The United States is strongly opposed to the Syrian government's involvement in inciting yesterday's protests in the Golan Heights, Carney told reporters aboard President Barack Obama's official Air Force One airplane.Such behavior is unacceptable and does not serve as a distraction from the Syrian government's ongoing repression of demonstrators in its own country, Carney said.State Department spokesman Mark Toner echoed his remarks.We do think that this is an effort by the Syrian government to play a destabilizing role there. It's clearly an effort by them to take focus off the situation that's happening right now in Syria, Toner told reporters.

And it's a cynical use of the Palestinian cause to encourage violence along its border as it continues to repress its own people within Syria, he added.Fourteen people were killed Sunday and hundreds injured in some of the bloodiest violence in years along Israel's borders, and police fanned out across the occupied Golan Heights on Monday in search of refugees who crossed over from Syria during the unrest.The violence occurred as Palestinians marked the anniversary of Israel's founding in 1948, in an event known in Arabic as the nakba or catastrophe.

Palestinians turn back clock in Israel struggle
By Tom Perry and Ali Sawafta – Sun May 15, 2:55 pm ET

RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) – The Palestinians who forced their way across Israel's border on Sunday turned back the clock on the Middle East conflict, putting center stage the refugee question that many believed would be negotiated away.
Protests at Israel's borders with Syria and Lebanon also cast the spotlight on a diaspora marginalized in Palestinian politics since Yasser Arafat moved from exile to the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip two decades ago.It was not without cost -- at least 13 demonstrators were shot dead. Organized by members of a refugee community claiming a right to return to their old homes in modern-day Israel, the protests generated pride and delight in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, home to some 2 million members of that diaspora.When some protesters breached the frontier with Syria, in scenes broadcast live on satellite TV, to Palestinians it seemed the impossible had happened, even if only for a brief while.This is a message to anyone who thinks of giving up the right of return, said Abdel Qader al-Beshawi, a 50-year old Palestinian from Balata refugee camp in the West Bank, captured along with Gaza in the 1967 Middle East war.His family were forced from their home in the seaside town of Jaffa in the 1948 war that helped set the borders of the state of Israel and sparked the departure of hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees to surrounding Arab lands.For the first time I felt that that we could return to our town after years of deep despair, said Beshawi, one of some 4.8 million Palestinian refugees registered with the U.N. in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and the occupied Palestinian territory.

INALIENABLE RIGHT

Like the fate of Jerusalem, the refugee question is one of the issues at the heart of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.But the refugees have long suspected that their longed-for return was being negotiated away in the Middle East peace process aimed at the establishment of a Palestinian state alongside Israel in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.To Israel, the idea of a mass return of refugees is a non-starter that would destroy the Jewish state.Israel says any solution to the refugee question should be found within the borders of a future Palestine and described Sunday's clashes as cynical provocation inspired by its foe Iran.Syria, an ally of Iran, has always kept tight control of its border with Israel and, even with current internal unrest faced by the Damascus government, observers said it was hard to imagine Sunday's protest happening without official approval.To the Palestinians, the protests cut to the very core of their struggle, falling on the day they call the Nakba,or catastrophe, which marks the creation of Israel 63 years ago.The right of return has been the main theme of posters put up all over Ramallah to mark this year's Nakba anniversary.Details of peace talks between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) have spoken of the return of a token number of refugees to Israel and a solution agreed upon by both sides. To refugees, such ideas amount to a sell-out.Hamas, which governs in Gaza, is not part of the PLO and has always rejected the idea of a negotiated peace deal with Israel.

The crowds we have seen in Palestine, Egypt, Syria, and Lebanon is an evidence of the imminent victory and return to the original homes as promised by God, said Taher Al-Nono, spokesman of the Hamas government in Gaza.Leading members of the Palestine Liberation Organization said Sunday's protests gave new life to the demand for the right of return to homes lost when Israel was created.The right of return is a fixed, inalienable right and the Palestinians revived it this time on the Nakba anniversary in its own special way, inspired by what happened in the Arab states, said Tayser Khaled, a member of the PLO executive.(Additional reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi in Gaza; Editing by Matthew Jones)

Background of Palestinian nakba
By The Associated Press – Sun May 15, 12:46 pm ET

Palestinians marked May 15, the anniversary of creation of the state of Israel, with nakba demonstrations in the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon. Here are some key points:

_Nakba is the Arabic word for catastrophe.
_Palestinians regard the creation of the state of Israel in 1948 a catastrophe because hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled or were forced from their homes during the two-year war that followed.
_Hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees still live in camps in the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Syria, Lebanon and Jordan. Only Jordan has offered them citizenship.
_Estimates of the number of Palestinian refugees and their descendants range from 5 to 7 million.
_Palestinians demand the right of return of all the refugees and their descendants to their original homes in present-day Israel.
_Israel has offered to take in a small number of refugees but insists that the rest must be resettled in a Palestinian state that will be created in a peace accord or in the countries where they now live.
_The refugee issue is one of the toughest in Israel-Palestinian peace negotiations.

Israel-Palestinian violence erupts on three borders
By Haim Shafir – Sun May 15, 8:56 am ET

MAJDAL SHAMS, Golan Heights (Reuters) – Violence erupted on Israel's borders with Syria, Lebanon and Gaza on Sunday, leaving at least eight dead and dozens wounded, as Palestinians marked what they term the catastrophe of Israel's founding in 1948.

Israeli troops shot at protesters in three separate locations to prevent crowds from crossing Israeli frontier lines in the deadliest such confrontation in years.Israeli and Syrian media reports said Israeli gunfire killed four people after dozens of Palestinian refugees infiltrated the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights from Syria, along a disputed border that has been quiet for decades.Witnesses on the nearby Lebanese frontier said four Palestinians were killed after Israeli forces fired at rock-throwing protesters to prevent them from crossing the border.The Lebanese army had also earlier fired in the air in an attempt to hold back the crowds.On Israel's tense southern border with the Gaza Strip, Israeli gunfire wounded 60 Palestinians as demonstrators approached Israel's fence with the Hamas Islamist-run enclave, medical workers said.In Tel Aviv, Israel's commercial hub, a truck driven by an Arab Israeli slammed into vehicles and pedestrians, killing one man and injuring 17 people.Police were trying to determine whether the incident was an accident or an attack. Witnesses said the driver, who was arrested, ran amok with his truck in downtown traffic.

ALERT

Israeli security forces had been on alert for violence on Sunday, the day Palestinians mark the Nakba, or catastrophe, of Israel's founding in a 1948 war, when hundreds of thousands of their brethren fled or were forced to leave their homes.In the Druze village of Majdal Shams, on the Golan Heights captured by Israel from Syria in 1967, Mayor Dolan Abu Salah said between 40 and 50 Nakba demonstrators from Syria tore through the frontier fence.Hundreds of protesters flooded the lush green valley that marks the border area, waving Palestinian flags. Israeli troops attempted to mend the breached fence, firing at what the army described as infiltrators.We are seeing here an Iranian provocation, on both the Syrian and the Lebanese frontiers, to try to exploit the Nakba day commemorations, said the army's chief spokesman, Lieutenant-Colonel Yoav Mordechai.Syria is home to 470,000 Palestinian refugees and its leadership, now facing fierce internal unrest, had in previous years prevented protesters from reaching the frontier fence.This appears to be a cynical and transparent act by the Syrian leadership to deliberately create a crisis on the border so as to distract attention from the very real problems that regime is facing at home,said a senior Israeli government official who declined to be named.

In a Nakba protest in the occupied West Bank, Palestinian youths threw rocks at Israeli soldiers, who fired tear gas and rubber bullets in a clash at the Israeli military checkpoint outside the city of Ramallah -- a constant flashpoint.A Palestinian teenager was shot dead during protests in Jerusalem on Friday. Police said it was unclear who had shot him and they were investigating.That shooting took place in the tense neighborhood of Silwan in East Jerusalem, where violence regularly breaks out between Palestinian stone throwers and Israeli police and Jewish settlers.Palestinians want East Jerusalem as the capital of the state they intend to establish in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.(Additional reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi in Gaza, Jeffrey Heller, Dan Williams and Ori Lewis in Jerusalem, Ali Sawafta in Ramallah and Yara Bayoumy in Beirut, Writing by Douglas Hamilton; editing by Crispian Balmer)

Mideast envoy resigns as US refocuses on region
By JIM KUHNHENN, Associated Press – Sat May 14, 7:45 am ET

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama is losing his special envoy to the Mideast just as the administration is showing a renewed focus on the long-troubled region.George Mitchell, who helped broker peace in Northern Ireland, announced Friday he is stepping down after fruitless attempts at rekindling Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.
Obama, accepting the resignation, called Mitchell a tireless advocate for peace.
Mitchell's departure comes as Obama prepares for a flurry of activity on the Middle East, which has seen popular uprisings sprout in several countries but little movement in the effort to find a peaceful settlement between Israel and the Palestinians. That peace process has been moribund since last fall and further complicated by an agreement between Palestinian factions to share power.Obama plans to deliver a speech next Thursday at the State Department about his administration's views on developments in the region. The next day — Mitchell's last on the job — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will visit Washington.Obama also will play host to Jordan's King Abdullah II on Tuesday. And the White House was looking to schedule a speech by Obama to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the country's largest pro-Israel lobby, before he leaves for Europe May 22, officials said.

White House spokesman Jay Carney said the administration remains focused on reviving Middle East peace negotiations.The president's commitment remains as firm as it was when he took office, Carney said.This is a hard issue, an extraordinarily hard issue.
David Hale, Mitchell's deputy, will serve as acting envoy, Obama said in a statement.
Mitchell wrote a two-paragraph letter to Obama saying he took the diplomatic job intending to only serve two years.I strongly support your vision of comprehensive peace in the Middle East and thank you for giving me the opportunity to be part of your administration, Mitchell wrote.On his second full day in office in January 2009, Obama appointed Mitchell to the special envoy's post. The former Democratic senator from Maine, who rose to majority leader, had established his credentials as an international mediator by helping broker peace in Northern Ireland.Since his appointment, Mitchell, 77, has shuttled among the Israelis, Palestinians and friendly Arab states in a bid to restart long-stalled talks that would create an independent Palestinian state. But in recent months, particularly after the upheaval in Arab countries that ousted longtime U.S. ally and key peace partner Hosni Mubarak from power in Egypt, his activity had slowed markedly.Mitchell never established a firm presence, preferring to jet in for short visits lasting several days or even several hours. More critically, Mitchell never established a rapport with either side.With Israelis suspicious of Obama even before he assumed office, Mitchell further unnerved them by taking a tough line against West Bank settlements, saying that any construction was unacceptable. The Palestinians, initially encouraged, became disillusioned when the U.S. was unable to persuade Israel to freeze settlement construction.Jon Alterman, director of the Middle East program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said Mitchell's task held greater hope at the time of his appointment.But the way the politics worked out, you have an Israeli government that is very skeptical about the ability of negotiating with the Palestinian Authority, Alterman said. And you have a Palestinian Authority where the internal politics are increasingly fraught.

So it's hard to find a political consensus either among the Israelis or the Palestinians to move forward on the kinds of negotiations that George Mitchell was appointed to facilitate.Mitchell believed his patience would serve him well in the Arab-Israeli conflict and its constant forward and backward steps.Israeli analyst Yossi Alpher, former director of the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University, said Mitchell's departure could signal a different approach by the Obama administration.His methods just didn't work here, Alpher said.The Northern Ireland method of listen, listen and listen doesn't work here.Nabil Shaath, a leading Palestinian negotiator, suggested the resignation was not so much a blow to the peace effort as a reflection of its failure — and that should conditions change, the identity of the mediator was not key.Mitchell hadn't received enough support from the U.S. administration to make a breakthrough in the peace process. He is a positive man, he is a great man and he is my friend, Shaath said.But Mitchell can be replaced when the U.S. administration is ready. There is no possibility for a mediator to work without the needed support and pressure from the administration on Israel.Associated Press writers Matthew Lee and Erica Werner in Washington, Dan Perry and Ian Deitch in Jerusalem and Dalia Nammari in Ramallah, West Bank, contributed to this report.