Gaza militants agree to truce with Israel
From: AP August 26, 2011 7:02AM
A Palestinian faction says Gaza militants have agreed to truce with Israel to halt more than a week of deadly hostilities.The Islamic Jihad says Egypt mediated the truce.It is to go into effect at 1 p.m. local time Friday (1100 GMT).The factions called a cease-fire late Sunday, but it dissolved almost immediately in a volley of rocket fire from Gaza on Israel and retaliatory Israeli airstrikes. The violence began with a Palestinian attack that killed eight Israelis on the Egyptian border.
Taher Nunu, a government spokesman in Hamas-ruled Gaza, said early Friday, The government has called on the Palestinian factions not to give an opportunity to the (Israeli) occupation government to escalate its aggression further.Another Hamas official said all key factions agreed to the truce.On Thursday an Israeli airstrike killed two Palestinian militants in the northern Gaza Strip after a string of rocket attacks toward Israel.Palestinian officials said the two were members of the Islamic Jihad militant group.The Israeli military confirmed it carried out the attack, saying the two were targeted after they fired mortar shells toward an Israeli border crossing.The military said more than 15 rockets and mortar shells were fired toward Israel Thursday and that the Erez Crossing was severely damaged.Despite announcing a cease-fire earlier in the week, Palestinian militants have continued to fire rockets daily into Israel.Rockets wounded an Israeli baby Wednesday and Israel retaliated with airstrikes that killed four Gaza fighters. The Palestinians found four bodies Thursday from a tunnel in the southern Gaza Strip that was targeted the previous night.The violence began last week when gunmen, apparently from Gaza, crossed the border from Egypt and ambushed cars and buses in southern Israel, killing eight people. That was followed by massive Palestinian rocket attacks and retaliatory Israeli airstrikes.Israel's military said it will not tolerate any attempt to harm Israeli civilians.
Syrian protesters chant Bye Gaddafi, Bashar next
KHALED OWEIS Last updated 08:06 26/08/2011
Syrian protesters chanted Bye, bye Gaddafi, Bashar your turn is coming overnight, but President Bashar al-Assad showed few signs of cracking after months of demonstrations and his forces raided an eastern tribal region again on Thursday.The new chant, inspired by the apparent collapse of Muammar Gaddafi's rule in Libya, was filmed by residents in the Damascus suburb of Duma after prayers on Wednesday.But in eastern Syria, tanks and armoured vehicles entered Shuhail, a town southeast of the provincial capital of Deir al-Zor, where daily protests have taken place against Assad's rule since the start of the fasting month of Ramadan, they said.Initial reports by residents describe tens of tanks firing randomly as they stormed the town at dawn. Shuhail has been very active in protests and the regime is using overwhelming force to frighten the people, a local activist said.Since Ramadan began on August 1, tanks have entered the cities of Hama, scene of a 1982 massacre by the military, Deir al-Zor and Latakia on the Mediterranean coast, trying to crush dissent after months of street protests.The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), an activist group based in Britain, said 11 civilians had been killed across Syria on Wednesday, including seven in the province of Homs.State news agency SANA said armed terrorist groups killed eight soldiers when they ambushed two military vehicles near the towns of Rastan and Telbiseh.Syria has expelled most independent journalists, making it difficult to verify accounts on the ground from authorities and activists.Prominent cartoonist and Assad critic Ali Ferzat was beaten up in Damascus by a group of armed men and then dumped in the street, an opposition activist group said. SOHR said Ferzat was taken to hospital with bruises to his face and hands.Ferzat, whose cartoons often mock repression and injustice in the Arab world, has criticised Assad's repression of protests. He told Al Arabiya television three weeks ago: For the first time there is a genuine and free revolution in Syria.
EU OIL SANCTIONS POSSIBLE
The defeat of Gaddafi may encourage Western nations to step up moves against Assad. He has pursued parallel policies of strengthening ties with Iran and Shi'ite Lebanese guerrilla group Hezbollah while seeking peace talks with Israel and accepting European and U.S. overtures that were key in rehabilitating him on the international stage.European Union diplomats said on Wednesday the bloc's governments were likely to impose an embargo on imports of Syrian oil by the end of next week, although new sanctions may be less stringent than those imposed by Washington.Syria exports over a third of its 385,000 barrels of daily crude oil output to Europe, mainly the Netherlands, Italy, France and Spain.A disruption would cut off a major source of foreign currency that helps to finance the security apparatus, and restrict funds at Assad's disposal to reward loyalists and continue a crackdown in which the United Nations says 2,200 people have been killed.In a sign the prospect of sanctions was already having an effect, traders said French oil major Total had not lifted a cargo of naphtha from Syria's Banias refinery which it had bought in a tender.Arab League ministers will meet in Cairo on Saturday to discuss Syria. An official said they would discuss imposing a time frame for Assad to enact reforms.But they would also call on all parties to end the conflict, the official said, in an apparent acceptance of Syria's argument it faces armed opponents.In an interview with state television this week, Assad said the unrest has shifted towards armed acts. Authorities blame the violence on armed terrorist groups, who they say have killed an unspecified number of civilians and 500 soldiers and police.
NO THREAT
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said it was up to the Syrian authorities and people to find a way out of the unrest.The hope of the West is to attack Syria they way they intervened in Libya but the people and the government in Syria should sit down together and reach an understanding on reforms, he told al-Manar television channel.The people should have the right to elections, freedom and justice (so) they should set the timeline about it (together).Human Rights Watch said in a new report the vast majority of civilian deaths documented by Syrian human rights groups have occurred in circumstances in which there was no threat to Syrian forces.President al-Assad has said he is pursuing a battle against terrorist groups and armed gangs, and Syrian authorities have claimed that they have exercised maximum restraint while trying to control the situation. Neither claim is true,the report said.It said Syrian forces had killed at least 49 people since Assad told U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on August 17 military and police operations had stopped, adding that on August 22 in Homs, Syrian forces fired on a crowd of peaceful protesters shortly after a U.N. humanitarian assessment team left the area, killing four.The official state news agency quoted Assad as telling clerics during a Ramadan iftar meal on Wednesday the West was pressuring Syria to sell out, which will not happen because the Syrian people have chosen to have an independent will.- Reuters
Gaza and Israel Exchange Retaliatory Fire
By FARES AKRAM Published: August 25, 2011
GAZA — Nine Gazans have been killed in Israeli strikes since Wednesday night, with Israel’s southern communities withstanding 20 rockets from Gaza over the same 24-hour period.Warning sirens repeatedly sent Israelis across the south into bomb shelters, but most of the rockets landed in empty fields near the Israeli cities of Ofakim, Ashkelon and Beersheva. However, a nine-month-old baby was slightly hurt in Ashkelon when a car was hit with shrapnel.The recent round of violence started a week ago, after a terrorist attack on southern Israel in which eight Israelis were killed. Israeli forces pursuing suspects killed five Egyptian security officers in the Egyptian Sinai, creating a furor within Egypt.Israeli officials said the perpetrators and planners of the terrorist attack were originally from Gaza, and Israel has retaliated with strikes that have killed at least 23 Palestinians. Gazan officials say they know nothing about the source of the attack.Israel’s first retaliatory strike killed leaders from the Popular Resistance Committees, a pro-Hamas militant group that Israel said was behind the terrorist attack.On Wednesday, an Israeli airstrike killed an Islamic Jihad leader, Ismail al-Asmar, 34; the group said Thursday that it had fired several of the missiles at Israel in retaliation.
Early Thursday, Israelis struck a smuggling tunnel that crossed under Gaza’s southern border with Egypt, killing four.A third airstrike — on a sports club the Israeli military said held a weapons storage facility — killed two in northern Gaza: a member of Islamic Jihad, and a Palestinian man, 22, who died hours after he was wounded.Adham Abu Selmia, a Palestinian medical spokesman, said 29 Palestinians were wounded in those three assaults.Thursday evening, as Gazans were beginning to break their Ramadan fasts, an Israeli plane fired a missile at a motorbike in northern Gaza, killing two Palestinian militants, witnesses and medical sources said. The Israeli military said that the two had fired a mortar shell at the Erez crossing, damaging it. There were about 10 Palestinians inside the crossing terminal at the time, en route back to Gaza, the Israelis said, but none were hurt.Earlier in the week, Gaza’s Hamas rulers said a ceasefire agreement had been reached through Egyptian efforts, but Israel said it was retaliating for rocket fire and working to stop attacks in preparation.Ethan Bronner contributed reporting from Jerusalem.
Dick Cheney writes in his book that he urged Bush to bomb Syria By Stephanie Condon AUG 25,11
In his new memoir, former Vice President Dick Cheney details urging President George W. Bush to bomb a suspected Syrian nuclear reactor in 2007, the New York Times reports.The rest of Mr. Bush's advisers, however, opposed Cheney's suggestion, and ultimately Mr. Bush listened to them. It's just one instance in the book in which Cheney describes butting heads with others in the administration, according to the Times, which obtained an advanced copy of the memoir, In My Time.I again made the case for U.S. military action against the reactor, Mr. Cheney wrote, describing a meeting regarding the possible Syrian reactor. But I was a lone voice. After I finished, the president asked, Does anyone here agree with the vice president? Not a single hand went up around the room.Mr. Bush decided to instead pressure Syria to drop its suspected nuclear program through diplomacy, and Israel ended up bombing the site some months later, in September 2007.While Cheney reportedly calls Mr. Bush an outstanding leader in the book, he gives critical assessments of other cabinet members, including former CIA director George Tenet, former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and former Secretary of State Colin Powell.
The memoir is slated to be published next week, and in an interview to air next week, Cheney told NBC, There are gonna be heads exploding all over Washington once his book is out.The former vice president revealed to NBC that his book explains why he kept a signed letter of resignation locked in a safe throughout most of his eight years in the White House.
Israel caves to new Middle East order
While it might attempt to spin the new reality of the new Middle East, events as a whole do not serve Israel, writes Khaled Amayreh in the occupied Palestinian territories.Fearing regional and international isolation, and especially worried about a negative aggravating crisis with Egypt, a visibly frustrated Israeli government agreed rather begrudgingly to a ceasefire that came too soon with the Gaza-based Hamas government, following last week's cross-border resistance attack near the southernmost Israeli town of Eilat.Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu reportedly resisted calls by more extremist members of his cabinet for carrying out massive attacks on the Gaza Strip, arguing that Israel won't be dragged into places it doesn't want to be.Citing prospects of a worsening crisis with Egypt, Netanyahu argued that launching more attacks on Gaza, which could leave more gruesome TV images of Palestinian casualties, would be inadvisable.Netanyahu's uncharacteristically restrained behaviour came after he received several messages from the Israeli ambassador in Cairo, stating that the general atmosphere in Egypt was decidedly anti- Israeli and that any escalation of violence with the Palestinians would near certainly further aggravate volatile relations with Egypt.
Moreover, the Egyptian Foreign Ministry made it clear to Israel through diplomatic channels that Israel was now dealing with a new Egypt and that what was possible under the Mubarak regime -- ie tolerating Israeli excesses -- was no longer possible.
The Israeli army did kill as many as 15 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip during more than 27 hours of sustained air strikes. Several civilians, including children, were among the victims who also included a number of resistance commanders. Many others, mostly civilians, were wounded, some seriously.However, the relatively small number of Palestinian victims didn't satisfy the more hawkish members of the Israeli cabinet such as Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, who urged the government to bomb Gaza to the ground. Lieberman criticised Netanyahu's reluctant policy towards the Palestinians.Even if we offer the Palestinians Tel Aviv and a retreat to the 1947 borders, they will find a reason not to sign a peace agreement with us. Earlier, the bellicose Israeli foreign minister personally attacked Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas, saying the PA was an illegitimate government that doesn't conduct elections, and we shouldn't reach agreement with them.Turkish leaders, too, received a share of Lieberman's badmouthing. He called Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu liars, saying Israel wouldn't apologise for murdering nine Turkish citizens during the Israeli assault on a Turkish ship carrying humanitarian aid to Gaza last May.Netanyahu hit back at Lieberman, telling him that only the prime minister decides Israeli policies.
A Netanyahu aide, quoted by the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, argued that the situation facing Israel now was drastically different from that which prevailed in 2008-09 when Israel launched its all- out devastating campaign against the Gaza Strip, killing and maiming thousands of Palestinians and destroying much of the civilian infrastructure in the coastal enclave.There is a sensitive situation in the Middle East, which is one big boiling pot; there is the international arena, there is the Palestinian move in the United Nations in September, we have to pick our way very carefully, the aide said.There is little doubt that the new reality in Egypt in particular is having a clear restraining impact on Israeli behaviour towards the Palestinians. One Israeli newspaper quoted former Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa as saying that Israel must be aware that the days when it kills our children without getting a strong, appropriate response are gone forever.Moussa's remarks are likely to reflect public opinion throughout Egypt, as thousands of Egyptians have been demonstrating against Israel, demanding stringent action against the Zionist entity for murdering five Egyptian border guards near Eilat last week.More to the point, Israel is especially worried that this is only the beginning and that the upcoming Egyptian elections will bring to the fore in Cairo a decidedly anti-Israeli leadership that would hold Israel to account every time it behaves characteristically.Israel is not only worried about the new Middle East where it faces mounting isolation. Israel is also worried about its eroding deterrence vis-à-vis the Palestinians, especially in the Gaza Strip.The measured Israeli response to the Eilat incident was by no means the kind of response Israelis had been used to seeing. This reduced deterrence is likely to embolden the PA leadership in Ramallah to ignore Israeli and American warnings against seeking UN recognition of a prospective Palestinian state in September.
Interestingly, the PA didn't explicitly condemn the Eilat incident as it would have done in different circumstances. The Eilat incident and the uncomfortable position facing Israel, especially at the regional level, prompted some Israeli writers to draw comparisons dating back to the 1973 wars, when then-Israeli prime minister Golda Meir shut her ears to the late Egyptian president Anwar Al-Sadat.Writing in Haaretz under the title When Israeli arrogance meets Arab honour, Israeli commentator Akiva Eldar reminded everyone that the thousands of victims of the October war of 1973 did not succeed in weaning Israelis off the curse of arrogance. It sticks its nose up so high that it blocks the view around the corner -- until the next violent clash.Eldar pointed out that millions of Arabs throughout the Middle East, including Egypt, were no longer willing to stomach Israeli arrogance. This time, the Israeli arrogance is encountering the honour of an Arab street that is undermining the old order. When they see on television Israeli soldiers fighting Arab children on the day after the declaration of a Palestinian state in the UN, the dissidents in Egypt, Tunisia, Jordan, Syria and Libya will not be cracking sunflower seeds in front of the television. I hope I will be proven wrong.
Israeli warplanes strike Gaza By the CNN Wire Staff
August 24, 2011 11:21 p.m. EDT
Gaza City (CNN) -- Israeli warplanes struck several times Wednesday and early Thursday along the country's border with Gaza, killing three people and wounding several others, medical sources told CNN.Early Thursday, an Israeli warplane shot missiles at a social club in northern Gaza, killing two people and wounding 20, including women and children, medical sources said.On Wednesday, an air strike on a tunnel between Rafa and Egypt left three people seriously wounded, the sources said.
The Israel Defense Forces said that an Israeli warplane hit an Islamic Jihad militant from the city of Rafa who was involved in smuggling weapons and sought the execution of terrorist activity in Sinai.The victim had operated with Gaza elements who had recently tried to carry out an attack in Sinai, on Israel's border with Egypt, it added.Hamas security and medical sources reported a strike in Rafa in which one man was killed and three others were wounded, two of them critically, when their Jeep was struck.The four men were members of Islamic Jihad, sources with the Palestinian militant group said.In response, Islamic Jihad said Wednesday night that its members had fired about 10 rockets from Gaza into southern Israel. There was no immediate report of casualties.The IDF said in a news release that it fired Wednesday night at a terrorist squad that had fired rockets into southern Israel.A hit was confirmed, it said.On Wednesday morning, the IDF reported that two people who had fired rockets at Israel from separate locations in northern Gaza were hit moments afterward by an Israeli aircraft.The flare-up between Israel and Palestinians in Gaza came following an attack carried out by Palestinian militants last Thursday near the southern city of Eilat, which killed eight Israelis. Another Israeli was killed by a rocket attack near the city of Beer Sheva in southern Israel.
The IDF will not tolerate any attempt to harm Israeli civilians and IDF soldiers, and will respond with determination to any attempt to use terror against the State of Israel, the IDF news release said.The U.N. special coordinator for the Middle East peace process, Richard Serry, issued a statement Sunday saying he remains worried about the continuing tensions in particular the escalation of violence in Gaza and Southern Israel.He called for a return to calm and said the United Nations is actively engaged and supporting Egypt's important efforts in this regard, a reference to Egypt's attempt to better control the Sinai.CNN's Talal Abu Rahma contributed to this story.
Profile: Fatah Palestinian movement Founded by Yasser Arafat in the 1950s, Fatah was once the cornerstone of the Palestinian national cause, but its power has since faded.
Under Arafat's leadership, the group originally promoted an armed struggle against Israel to create a Palestinian state. But it later recognised Israel's right to exist, and its leaders have led Palestinian peace talks aimed at reaching a two-state solution.Arafat signed the first interim peace deal with Israel in 1993 in Oslo, but a full accord has proved elusive, despite decades of on-off negotiations - the latest round launched by President Barack Obama at the White House last September.Oslo Accords signing at White House in Sept 1993 Yasser Arafat shakes hands with Israeli PM Yitzhak Rabin in 1993, as US President Bill Clinton looks on
Since Arafat's death in 2004, Fatah has fallen from its position of dominance and, in 2006, lost parliamentary elections to rival Palestinian movement Hamas. In June 2007 it was effectively driven out of the Gaza Strip after violent clashes between the two factions.Now led by another of its founders, Mahmoud Abbas, Fatah has also seen its power steadily eroded by internal divisions.The party has been dogged by claims of nepotism and corruption in government and critics say it is in desperate need of reform.
Armed resistance
Fatah is the reverse acronym of Harakat al-Tahrir al-Filistiniya (Palestinian Liberation Movement). The name means conquest in Arabic.Founded by Arafat and a handful of close comrades in the late 1950s, its leaders wanted to rally Palestinians in the diaspora in neighbouring Arab states to launch commando raids on the young Israeli state.In 1969, Arafat took over as chairman of the PLO, the umbrella group created by Arab states to represent the Palestinians on the international stage.
Fatah: Key facts
Secular, nationalist movement with the aim of establishing a Palestinian state
Dogged by claims of nepotism and corruption; Lacking a cohesive vision and values
Major force within the PLO umbrella group and its interim governing body, the Palestinian Authority
Holds 45 of 132 seats in parliament (PLC), after 2006 Hamas election victory with 74 seats
But various Palestinian groups within the PLO gradually split off as Fatah proved to them either too ineffective, too corrupt, or too moderate.By the time of the first intifada - or uprising - in 1988, Fatah's power had been significantly diluted. The party became the chief proponent of a negotiated solution with Israel, and by 1993 accepted Israel's right to exist.The second intifada saw a number of armed groups associated with Fatah emerge, most notably the al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades. The Brigades are neither officially recognised nor openly backed by Fatah, though members often belong to the political faction.During the intifada, the Brigades carried out numerous operations against Israeli soldiers and settlers in the West Bank and Gaza, and suicide attacks on civilians inside Israel.Israel's responses to the intense campaign of attacks in 2002 further weakened Arafat and Fatah's authority, and left the Arafat-led Palestinian Authority in disarray.Much of the authority's infrastructure was destroyed, Arafat's compound in Ramallah was besieged for five weeks, and Israel captured Marwan Barghouti - the Fatah leader in the West Bank who Israel alleges is the head of al-Aqsa Brigades. He was later convicted of murder.
Peace track
With international pressure mounting, Fatah - though notably not the al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades - signed a declaration rejecting attacks on civilians in Israel and committing themselves to peace and co-existence.In late October 2004, Arafat was taken ill and flown to France for emergency treatment. He died of a mysterious blood disorder on 11 November.Mahmoud Abbas was confirmed as Arafat's successor as chairman of the PLO shortly afterwards and, as Fatah's candidate, won a landslide victory in the January 2005 presidential elections.But Mr Abbas inherited a party that was divided, in need of reform, and losing its popular support.The loss of Yasser Arafat allowed a rift to develop between the party's old guard of former exiles and its new guard, led by the jailed Marwan Barghouti.Fatah has also suffered from being associated with the perceived corruption and incompetence of the Palestinian Authority.
Hamas rift
Hamas' overwhelming victory in the 2006 parliamentary election dealt another huge blow to the group, and caused further disarray in the Palestinian Authority (PA) led by Mr Abbas.The PA authority now extends to Palestinian-controlled areas of the West Bank, but since June 2007, it has had little sway in Gaza.Marwan Barghouti appears in Tel Aviv District Court, 2002 Marwan Barghouti still influences Fatah from inside an Israeli prison
Mr Abbas has overrun his term as president of the PA - it should have ended in January 2008 - drawing the legitimacy of his leadership into question.Despite that, Mr Abbas went to Washington in September 2010, aiming to re-launch peace talks with the Israelis on behalf of all Palestinians. The talks collapsed within a matter of weeks over Israel's refusal to stop building settlements.Apparently disillusioned with the peace process, Mr Abbas turned his attention to achieving a reconciliation deal at home.In May, he and Hamas leader, Khaled Meshaal, signed a deal in Egypt's capital Cairo aimed at ending their four-year rift.Although Palestinians have welcomed the deal, they remain sceptical about whether the two sides can iron out their differences on a number of key issues and work together for the common cause - establishing an independent Palestinian state.
Q&A: Palestinian statehood bid at the UN
Palestinians wave their national flag at a demonstration in Gaza Recent rally against Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory on the anniversary of the 1967 war.Palestinian officials plan to ask the United Nations to recognise an independent Palestinian state within 1967 borders if there is no progress in the peace process by September.The idea is strongly opposed by Israel and its close ally, the United States.Here is a guide to what is likely to happen and its significance.
Q. What are the Palestinians asking for?
The Palestinians, as represented by the Palestinian Authority, have long sought to establish an independent, sovereign state in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem - occupied by Israel since the 1967 Six Day War. Although the Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas has said he would prefer to achieve this through negotiations, two decades of on-and-off peace talks have failed to produce a deal.Late last year, Palestinian officials began pursuing a new diplomatic strategy: asking individual countries to recognise a Palestinian state within 1967 borders. Now they want the UN to do the same. This would entitle them to full member state representation at the UN, where the Palestine Liberation Organisation currently has only observer status. It could also have political implications allowing Palestinians greater access to international courts where they could possibly launch legal action to challenge the occupation of territory by Israel.
Q. What is the process?
The 15-member UN Security Council needs to recommend statehood to the General Assembly. If it does, then a vote on membership by its 193 members could take place on 20 September. Approval requires a two-thirds majority - or 128 votes. Currently 122 countries are said to recognise Palestine but the Palestinians hope they would gain the support of up to 150.United Nations General Assembly Palestinians believe over two-thirds of the General Assembly would recognise their statehood.The US is the main obstacle to a General Assembly vote because it has veto power as a permanent Security Council member. In February, the US vetoed a resolution, which was co-sponsored by 130 countries, condemning Israeli settlements in the Palestinian territories as an obstacle to peace. This time around, the Palestinians are hoping to persuade the US to at least abstain.As a back-up, they are exploring other possible legal options. These include a loophole created by a 1950 resolution, which may allow the Security Council to be bypassed on issues of world peace. The Palestinians and their supporters are also looking at ways to press for UN General Assembly resolution 181 of 1947 to be enforced. The resolution calls for the partition of British Mandate Palestine into a Jewish state and an Arab one. At the very least, the Palestinians say they want the General Assembly to accept Palestine as an observer state.
Q. Is this symbolic or would it change facts on the ground?
Getting UN recognition of Palestinian statehood on 1967 borders would largely have symbolic value, building on previous UN decisions. Already Security Council resolution 242, which followed the Six Day War, demanded the withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict. Although Israel disputes the precise meaning of this, there is wide international acceptance that the pre-1967 frontiers should form the basis of a peace settlement.The problem for the Palestinians is that Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu does not agree with the premise. In May, when President Barack Obama called for border talks based broadly on 1967 lines, Mr Netanyahu described the idea as unrealistic and indefensible.It is unlikely that UN recognition of a Palestinian state would persuade Israel to concede possession of occupied land. New facts on the ground have been created since 1967, Israelis have insisted over the years. Almost half a million Israelis live in more than 200 settlements and outposts in the West Bank. Mutually agreed land swaps have been suggested as a way to overcome this and could only be agreed by negotiations.The Palestinians argue that recognition of a Palestinian state would strengthen their hands in peace talks with Israel. They say these would have to resume, in order to resolve other issues such as security, water, refugees and arrangements for sharing Jerusalem, which both sides claim as their capital. However Israeli officials object to recognition of a Palestinian state in advance of such agreements as putting the carriage before the horse.
Q. Why is this happening now?
The main reason is the impasse in peace talks. However, the Palestinians also argue that their UN plan fits with an agreed deadline. The Middle East Peace Quartet - the European Union, United States, Russia and UN - committed itself to the target of achieving a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict by September 2011. The Palestinian Authority Prime Minister, Salam Fayyad, says that Palestinians have succeeded in building up state institutions and are ready for statehood.Recent Arab uprisings also appear to have energised Palestinian public opinion. Civil society groups may hold street demonstrations to show their backing for the UN option.
Q. How is this different from previous declarations?
In 1988, the late Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat, unilaterally declared the establishment of a state. This won recognition from about 100 countries, mainly Arab, Communist and non-aligned states - several of them in Latin America. Recognition of Palestine as a sovereign state by the UN would have greater impact as it is the overarching international body and a source of authority on international law.
Q. Who supports and opposes the UN option?
This course of action enjoys wide support among Palestinians. After the recent reconciliation deal between rival political factions, even leaders of the Islamic militant organisation, Hamas, acknowledged there was a broad consensus on the establishment of a Palestinian state within 1967 borders, though they formally still refuse to recognise Israel and their Charter is committed to its destruction. The appeal to the UN is also backed by the 22-member Arab League.President Obama greeting Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last September The latest US push to bring the Israelis and Palestinians back to negotiations quickly stalled.The main opposition comes from Israel. Peace can only be achieved around the negotiating table. The Palestinian attempt to impose a settlement will not bring peace, Mr Netanyahu told a joint session of the US Congress in May. Mr Obama has criticised the Palestinian push. In his major speech on the Middle East he dismissed it as symbolic actions to isolate Israel at the United Nations.Some major European Union states are looking increasingly favourably on the idea of recognising a Palestinian state. This is mainly because of their disappointment with Mr Netanyahu's government in Israel-Palestinian peace talks and what they see as its recalcitrance over settlements.In the coming weeks, both Palestinian and Israeli delegations will be on a diplomatic drive to win countries around to their point of view.
Israel blames Gaza-based Palestinian terrorist group for coordinated attacks By Laura Rozen | The Envoy – Fri, Aug 19, 2011
Israel is still reeling from Thursday's series of terrorist attacks that killed eight Israeli citizens and wounded 30 more near the Jewish state's southern border with Egypt. And beyond the immediate shock of the attacks, analysts are also concerned about the potential for violence to escalate.Israel blamed the attacks on a shadowy Palestinian terrorist group called the Popular Resistance Committees (PRC), based in the Gaza strip. The group reportedly has ties to both Hamas' military wing and the Iranian- and Syrian-backed Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.
The attacks began at noon on Thursday. Gunmen reportedly crossed from the Gaza strip into Egypt and then into southern Israel and opened fire on an Egged bus traveling from the southern city of Beersheva to the resort town of Eilat. That assault wounded seven people, according to a timeline of the attacks published by the Israeli newspaper Haaretz. Half an hour later, an Israeli Defense Forces unit responding to that attack was wounded by an explosive device. At 12:35 p.m., mortars were fired from Egypt into Israel, but no one was hurt; by 1:10, an Israeli anti-tank vehicle fielded shots near the Egyptian-Israeli border, wounding seven more people. At nearly the same moment, at 1:11 p.m., another anti-tank missile was fired at a private vehicle, killing six people. In all, eight people were killed, including six civilians, and two Israeli security forces.Israel began retaliating Thursday evening by bombing the Popular Resistance Committee's headquarters in Rafah, on the Gaza Strip's border with Egypt. The Israeli counterattack killed the head of the PRC, and several of his aides, as well as a Palestinian boy. The Israeli air force has continued to strike targets in Gaza, killing two more PRC members on Friday in a Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza, Al Jazeera's Safwat Al Kahlout reported. It has also retaliated against rocket attacks coming from Egypt.Israel will exact a heavy price, a very heavy price from those who attempt to escalate terrorist war against Israel [and] believe that they can attack our citizens and get away with it,Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed in a press conference Thursday, Al Jazeera reported. Netanyahu thanked Israeli security forces for wiping out the leaders of the PRC.Israeli officials asserted that the PRC had set out to kidnap Israelis, although they did not provide evidence for the claim. The group reportedly was one of three that took credit for kidnapping Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in June 2006. That incident preceded a Hezbollah provocation on Israel's northern border and Israel's subsequent 2006 war in Lebanon.
Israeli officials were more cautious about assigning culpability to Egypt for the fact that the assailants reportedly crossed through Egyptian territory to perpetrate the attacks. Instead, they focused blame on Gaza, which is controlled by the Palestinian militant group Hamas.This is a serious terror attack that took place in several locations, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said Thursday, Haaretz reported. The incident shows the weakening Egyptian grip on Sinai and the widening operation of terrorists there. The source of these terror acts is in Gaza and we will act against them with full force.But analysts cautioned that many questions remain unresolved about the incident--from its ultimate aims to its specific source. A spokesman for the PRC denied Friday that the group carried out the attacks, though he went on to praise them, Agence France Press reported Friday.There are lots of questions regarding this incident,said Jeffrey White, a former Defense analyst with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, in an email to The Envoy Thursday. Asserting close ties between the PRC and Hamas, a real question, White wrote,is Hamas knowledge/involvement.And with that specter on the horizon, he added, there is plenty of potential here for escalation.Furthermore, the incident is seriously aggravating Israeli-Egyptian relations, White continued, in an analysis prepared with Ehud Yaari for the Institute, citing Cairo's complaints that Israel killed and wounded several Egyptian soldiers in responding to rocket fire coming from Sinai.The scenarios range from it was this group [the PRC], with or without the knowledge of the military wing from Hamas, said Hussein Ibish, an Arab-American analyst with the American Task Force for Palestine, in a telephone interview with The Envoy Friday. Or that could be a convenient scapegoat. I have absolutely no way of knowing.But Ibish suggested it was worth considering the regional context, and the potentially useful distraction such an attack might pose for Syria's embattled leader Bashar al-Assad and his key regional ally Iran. The West and the Arab world alike have condemned Assad's brutal crackdown against domestic anti-government unrest; President Obama indeed announced this week that the United States supports Assad's ouster.
There's no evidence of a Syrian or Iranian role; but one could posit scenarios where people in the region might like to have flare ups, Ibish said. These things often do have a regional context. Even small groups [such as the PRC] can be a proxy for various regional actors, he noted.A Reuters analysis of the PRC also notes that the group uses an emblem that bears a strong resemblance to the Iranian and Syrian-backed Lebanese militant group Hezbollah. Reuters also reported that Israel believes the group gets backing from Hezbollah.The United States sharply condemned the attacks, in statements from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the White House.
