Latest developments in Arab world's unrest
By The Associated Press – Tue Apr 12, 4:23 pm ET
LIBYA-Sporadic fighting and shelling took place in the two main areas of conflict in Libya, Misrata and Ajdabiya, while French and British foreign ministers questioned whether NATO was being aggressive enough in its campaign of airstrikes to protect Libyan civilians around the embattled towns.
EGYPT-Former President Hosni Mubarak is admitted to a Sharm el-Sheikh hospital with heart problems the same day he was to be interrogated over allegations of corruption and attacks on the protesters whose 18-day uprising brought about his downfall. Military police also successfully cleared a four-day-old protest out of Cairo's Tahrir Square with minimal difficulty.
SYRIA-Pro-government gunmen attacked two villages in the northeast in a move to crush a popular uprising against President Bashar Assad as the country's leading pro-democracy group urged the Arab League to impose sanctions on the regime. The White House joined a growing chorus of international condemnation, saying the escalating repression by the Syrian government is outrageous.
YEMEN-Tens of thousands of Yemenis, including uniformed officers, demonstrated against President Ali Abdullah Saleh and condemned a mediation proposal by neighboring Gulf countries that called for the long-serving leader to step down, but guaranteed his immunity from prosecution.
BAHRAIN-The daughter of a prominent rights activists beaten up and arrested by police has gone on hunger strike calling for his release and that of her husband and other relatives taken by authorities as part of a widespread crackdown on protests by Shiites calling for more political freedoms.
Forum seeks more US action in Muslim world conflicts
by Karin Zeitvogel – Tue Apr 12, 3:36 pm ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) – The head of a global Islamic group Tuesday called for the United States to be more active in solving conflicts in the Muslim world, in particular the long-running dispute between Israelis and Palestinians.In a speech to open the US-Islamic World Forum, Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, Secretary General of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), said the Middle East peace process should be the cornerstone of US-Muslim world relations and called on Washington to take a more active role in seeking solutions to conflict-ridden situations in the Muslim world.The Muslim world has seen improvements in relations with the United States since President Barack Obama took office, said Ihsanoglu, but tensions between the two sides will persist if the Israel-Palestinian conflict is not resolved.There are certain concerns -- I should say certain grievances -- concerning the Palestinian issue, Ihsanoglu told reporters.This should be addressed in a concrete way. Without addressing these issues properly, we will still find certain problems between the Muslim world and the United States,he said.
US Senator John Kerry called at the three-day forum for anyone here who can intervene and play a role to do so, to help revive the peace talks between Palestinians and Israelis, which broke down last year.Since then, the Palestinians, with backing from Britain, France and Germany, have been pushing for the Middle East diplomatic Quartet, comprised of the three European nations and the United States, to lay down clear parameters for any new negotiations.Those parameters would include a reference to the borders that existed before the 1967 Six Day War, and the establishment of Jerusalem as the capital of both states. The Palestinians also want the Quartet to issue a condemnation of continuing Israeli settlement expansion.On Tuesday, as the US-Islamic World forum opened, diplomats at the United Nations said Washington had blocked a bid to break the deadlock in the Middle East peace process by not agreeing to a meeting in Berlin where Britain, France and Germany wanted to outline a settlement to the Israel-Palestinian conflict.We all know that if one wants to advance peace in the Middle East you don't put the Palestinian question on the back burner, you put it on the front burner. There has to be a peace treaty between Israel and the Palestinians, the Palestinian envoy to the United Nations, Riyad Mansour, told AFP.But despite the moribund state of the peace talks, Kerry said he was optimistic that a resolution on the long-running conflict could be finalized before the UN General Assembly in September.I hope the United States can do things to make a difference and I hope Israel will do things to make a difference, Kerry said at the forum, also urging Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas to be flexible in his demands.US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is expected to address the issue in a speech she will give to the forum later Tuesday.Officials from more than 30 Muslim majority nations, including Jordan, Turkey, Indonesia, Pakistan and Afghanistan are in Washington for the annual meeting, which aims to build greater understanding between the United States and Muslim countries.In its eighth year, the forum is being held at a time of unprecedented change in the Arab world, with uprisings against autocratic leaders across the Middle East and North Africa.Ihsanoglu urged the United States and other Western countries to allow change to come from within in the uprisings, which he called revolutions from the people themselves.These are nations that were kept out of the context of history for so many years and now are joining the rest of the world in the democratic process, he said.The whole world should help them without forcing a solution on them, he added.
Gulf Arabs want Arab summit cancelled: Bahraini minister
– Tue Apr 12, 2:24 pm ET
DUBAI (Reuters) – Gulf Arab states have asked the Arab League to cancel a summit scheduled to be held in Baghdad in May, the Bahraini foreign minister said on Tuesday, after Iraq criticized Bahrain's crackdown on Shi'ite protesters.GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council), in a letter to the Arab League secretary general, asks for cancellation of planned Arab summit in Iraq, Sheikh Khaled bin Ahmed al-Khalifa said in a Twitter posting.He gave no reason for the move.The Arab summit was originally scheduled to be held in Iraq in March, but was delayed until May due to the unrest that has gripped several countries in the Middle East.A heavy-handed security crackdown by Bahrain's Sunni rulers on Sh'ite protesters has sparked criticism from Iraq, Iran and Shi'ite groups such as Hezbollah in Lebanon, adding to tensions between Sunni Gulf countries and their Shi'ite-led neighbors in the world's top oil-exporting region.Bahrain is a close ally of Saudi Arabia that fears the regional influence of Shi'ite powers Iran and Iraq and diplomats say the small island state in the past has launched diplomatic initiatives on behalf of Riyadh.(Reporting by Andrew Hammond; Writing by Frederik Richter; Editing by Alison Williams)
Spanish royal meets Palestinian president
– Tue Apr 12, 1:29 pm ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – Spanish Crown Prince Felipe restated his nation's support for an independent Palestinian state during talks on Tuesday with Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas, a local news agency said.Prince Felipe, accompanied by his wife, Princess Letizia, met Abbas at his presidential headquarters in Ramallah as part of a tour of Israel and the West Bank.The prince reiterated Spain's position in support of the peace process and the right of the Palestinian people to establish an independent state alongside Israel, said a statement carried by official Palestinian news agency WAFA.For his part, Abbas said the Palestinian Authority remained committed to the peace process, based on legitimate international resolutions and international law, the statement said.Peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians have been on hold since late last year after an Israeli moratorium on settlement building expired. The Palestinians have refused to hold talks while Israel builds on land they want for their future state.Abbas said during Tuesday's meeting that any peace process required clear terms of reference, and stressed that settlement activity in all its forms must stop for negotiations to begin.During the meeting, which was attended by Spain's foreign minister, Abbas offered thanks for the great support he said Spain's king, government and people had offered the Palestinians.
Palestinian Authority largely ready to govern state: UN
– Tue Apr 12, 1:24 pm ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – The Palestinian Authority is now largely ready to govern a state, the office of the United Nations special coordinator for the Middle East peace process said in a report on Tuesday.In six areas where the UN is most engaged, governmental functions are now sufficient for a functioning government of a state, said the report, which will be submitted to Palestinian donor nations meeting in Brussels on Wednesday.But the report warned that it would be difficult for the Palestinian Authority to make any additional progress while the Israeli occupation continued and peace talks remained stalled.The key constraints to the existence and successful functioning of the institutions of a potential state of Palestine arise primarily from the persistence of the occupation and the unresolved issues in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the report said.The institutional achievements of the Palestinian state-building agenda are approaching their limits within the political and physical space currently available.The Palestinian Authority (PA) has set itself a September 2011 deadline to be ready for statehood, with the hope of pressuring Israel and the international community to recognise a Palestinian state.
Peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians have been on hold since late 2010 over the issue of Jewish settlement in the West Bank and east Jerusalem.But the Palestinians have said they will seek United Nations recognition for a unilateral declaration of statehood if the talks do not resume, and have touted their state-building efforts as evidence of their readiness for statehood.In a statement accompanying the report, UN special coordinator for the Middle East peace process Robert Serry, praised Palestinian Authority president Mahmud Abbas and prime minister Salam Fayyad.This is a decisive period, he said, warning that progress could be retarded or even unravelled without more Israeli cooperation and a return to negotiations.No-one should underestimate what is at stake now. What we urgently need are further steps on the ground that can enable a broadening of this progress, he said.I believe Israel needs to roll back measures of occupation to match the PA?s achievements. I also stress the urgent need for Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations on a two-state solution to resume.The report also stressed that the continuing divide between the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and the Hamas rulers of the Gaza Strip deprives the PA of the ability to extend its institutional authority.The progress that has been achieved by the PA must be more meaningfully connected to all areas of de jure PA responsibility and to all Palestinian citizens.
Hamas and Abbas's Fatah party, which dominates the Palestinian Authority, are bitter rivals whose antagonism boiled over in 2007, a year after the Islamist group won legislative elections.After fierce street battles, Hamas routed Fatah fighters from Gaza and seized control of the coastal strip, where it remains in charge.It has not participated in the state-building programme championed by Fayyad, and successive rounds of reconciliation talks between Hamas and Fatah have been unsuccessful.
Hamas must prove captured Israeli soldier alive
– Tue Apr 12, 8:52 am ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – Red Cross officials have met with Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal in Syria and asked him to furnish proof that an Israeli soldier captured by militants is alive, according to Israel's Channel 10 TV.Red Cross officials in Jerusalem told AFP on Tuesday they had no comment on their reported efforts for Gilad Shalit, seized in 2006 by Gaza-based militants with ties to Hamas, who is believed still held somewhere in the coastal strip.Channel 10 said that the meeting came after Shalit's family threatened a sit-in outside the organisation's Tel Aviv branch unless it stopped visiting Hamas prisoners in Israel while Hamas denied the Red Cross access to Shalit.Germany's Spiegel news magazine reported on Monday that German efforts to negotiate the release of Shalit... appear to have failed.
Also on Monday, Yaakov Peri, a former head of Israel's Shin Bet security agency, told a news conference that Israel should be prepared to release Palestinian militants who had killed Israelis if that was what was needed to secure Shalit's release.Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu later responded in a statement that past experience had shown that dozens of Israelis were killed in attacks committed by terrorists released in previous prisoner exchanges.Hamas, which took control of the Gaza Strip a year after Shalit's capture, has demanded hundreds of prisoners in exchange for his release, including scores of top militants responsible for deadly attacks.But talks over a prisoner swap broke down in December 2009 and have not resumed since, angering Shalit's family which wants the Israeli government to agree a deal to secure his release.The last sign of life received from Shalit's captors was in October 2009 when a video recording showed him looking gaunt, but apparently in good health.
Diplomats: Quartet meeting on Mideast delayed
By EDITH M. LEDERER, Associated Press – Tue Apr 12, 2:01 am ET
UNITED NATIONS – The United States blocked an initiative by Britain, France and Germany to restart stalled Israeli-Palestinian talks by proposing the outlines of a final settlement to their long conflict, U.N. diplomats and a U.S. official said Monday.The three European countries wanted U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and the European Union to propose a settlement text at a meeting of the Quartet of Mideast mediators — the U.S., U.N., EU and Russia — tentatively scheduled to take place Friday in Berlin on the sidelines of a NATO ministerial meeting, the diplomats said.But a U.S. official said the Obama administration didn't think a Quartet meeting would produce anything useful in terms of getting the talks restarted.It wasn't the right time, the official said.A European diplomat expressed regret that the meeting was postponed, saying it was time for a strong signal from the Quartet to try to get talks moving since U.S. efforts have failed.Both spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.U.N. deputy spokesman Farhan Haq said the secretary-general will be traveling in the coming days but there's no announcement of a Quartet meeting to make at present.The Israelis and Palestinians have agreed to President Barack Obama's target date of September 2011 for an agreement, but negotiations collapsed weeks after they restarted last September following the expiry of an Israeli settlement construction slowdown. The Palestinians insist they will not resume peace talks until Israel halts settlement building in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, lands Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East war, which the Palestinians want for their future state.
Israel maintains that the Palestinians should not be setting conditions for talks and note that in the past, they have negotiated while settlement construction continued.The U.S. veto on Feb. 18 of a Security Council resolution that would have condemned illegal Israeli settlements and demanded an immediate halt to all settlement building spurred Britain, France and Germany, who supported the measure, to issue a joint statement expressing serious concern about the stalemate in the Middle East peace process.Since the U.S. efforts have been unsuccessful, diplomats said, the three European powers decided to try a new approach in pressing for a substantial declaration from the Quartet that would outline a peace solution, including borders, in hopes of breaking the deadlock.But having the EU and U.N. take the lead would sideline the United States, Israel's closest ally which has tried unsuccessfully for months to get face-to-face negotiations going, as well as Russia, an ally of the Palestinians.Britain, France and Germany had been pressing key capitals — including Washington and Jerusalem — to support a new EU and U.N. initiative in the Quartet.The U.S. decision to delay the meeting is certain to irritate the three key U.S. allies.In place of the Quartet meeting, foreign ministers of Britain, Germany, Italy, France and the United States will hold a meeting of the so-called Quint, a five-nation panel that deals with Kosovo and broader Balkans issues, the U.S. official said.Associated Press Writer Matthew Lee in Washington contributed to this report.
Preparations for new Gaza flotilla on track: organisers
– Mon Apr 11, 1:34 pm ET
ATHENS (AFP) – A flotilla of ships is preparing to sail to Gaza to mark the first anniversary on May 31 of a deadly Israeli raid against a similar convoy, organisers said Monday.Preparations are on track, adequate conditions for the departure of the ships will be met by the end of May, Vaggelis Pissias, an organiser of the Ship to Gaza mission, told a news conference in Athens.Dubbed Freedom Flotilla II, the mission will bring together participants from 50 countries in a bid to break Israel's blockade of Gaza.Israeli troops raided a previous flotilla last May 31 in a controversial operation that left nine Turkish activists dead and drew international condemnation.For security reasons, organisers said they would not disclose the number of ships taking part this year or their point of departure, although they have previously said 15 ships could participate, compared with six last year.
Organisers said in a statement that the Israeli government was threatening to attack the new flotilla and they called on their respective governments, the international community and the United Nations to not bend in the face of what they called Israeli terrorism.This year's flotilla will carry construction materials and pharmaceutical products among other goods, Greek activist Dimitris Plionis said.Speaking to European representatives earlier this month, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called plans for a new flotilla a provocation and said it was in the common interest of Israel and Europe for the flotilla to be stopped. Netanyahu has also called on UN chief Ban Ki-moon to help stop the flotilla.Israel imposed its blockade on Gaza in June 2006 and Israeli restrictions on imports and exports were tightened a year later when Hamas seized power in the territory of 1.5 million people, ousting loyalists of Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas.In the face of international condemnation of its raid on the flotilla, Israel eased some of its restrictions on goods entering and leaving Gaza.But it maintains tight restrictions on items it says could be used by Hamas, including some building materials, and continues to control Gaza's airspace and sea access.
Palestinians to tell West they ready for statehood
By Mohammed Assadi – Mon Apr 11, 9:07 am ET
RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) – The Palestinians are ready for statehood, according to a report to be presented to major aid donor countries in Brussels this week by Prime Minister Salam Fayyad.He will present facts and figures to show how his Palestinian Authority has used hundreds of millions of dollars in foreign assistance over the past two years to create justice, education, energy, health, water, security and housing services.I believe that our governing institutions have now reached a high state of readiness to assume all the responsibilities that will come with full sovereignty on the entire Palestinian occupied territory, Fayyad says in the 63-page document.But he underlines that unless Israel's military occupation comes to an end, these accomplishments can only achieve so much.Without a change to the status quo, the positive impact of internal reforms to build a strong and healthy economy will be limited in both scope and sustainability, the report says.
Palestinian leaders aim to ask the United Nations General Assembly in September for recognition of statehood on all of the territory Israel occupied in 1967, including Gaza -- over which Fayyad and President Mahmoud Abbas have no control.Israel has warned that such unilateral moves are not a substitute for a Middle East peace treaty that would establish a Palestinian state by mutual consent.Palestinians seek to go to an international forum and avoid peace negotiations, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told EU diplomats on Monday.It pushes peace further back.
INTERNATIONAL SUPPORT
But the Palestinian leadership is plowing ahead with clear signs of international encouragement. The number of countries that recognize Palestine as a state has risen this year to 110, more than half the membership of the United Nations.The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund last week praised the performance of the PA, saying in separate reports that it was well-positioned to run an independent nation.
Fayyad said his government had connected all Palestinian residential areas, including remote ones, to the electricity grid, and paved and fixed 2,250 km (1,400 miles) of streets.While they make up two parts of the same future state in theory, Gaza and the West Bank have never been more divided, politically and geographically. Abbas and Fayyad want peace with Israel. Hamas, which controls Gaza, rejects any deal that accepts the Jewish state.The Israeli occupation, says the report, remains the most significant challenge to economic development in Palestine.Restrictions on movement and access, as well as lack of control over borders and natural resources continue to be real barriers to the growth of the economy.Palestinians administer their own affairs in islands of land in a West Bank landscape peppered with Jewish settlements. They have no access to some 60 percent of West Bank land.Lack of access to natural resources for example, including land and water, severely constrains any sustainable progress through out the economy, the report says.The document will be presented on April 13 to the Ad Hoc Liaison Committee, a 12-member committee of the European Union and United States which serves as the principal policy-level coordination mechanism for assistance to the Palestinians.(Editing by Douglas Hamilton and Andrew Heavens)
Israel should topple Hamas: Lieberman
– Mon Apr 11, 3:06 am ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – Israel should not settle for a truce with Hamas in Gaza, and should instead seek to topple the Islamist rulers of the coastal strip, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said on Monday.The goal that we have settled on, of seeking a return to calm, is a grave error because it will allow Hamas to reinforce along the lines of Hezbollah, Lieberman told public radio, referring to the Lebanese militia with which Israel fought a 2006 war.The objective must be to force Hamas out of power, said Lieberman, who heads the ultra-nationalist Yisrael Beitenu party.To return to calm accepts a war of attrition in which Hamas can determine when there is a lull and when the front is heating up, he said.A tense truce appeared to be taking hold between Hamas and Israel early Monday, after both sides stepped back from the brink on Sunday.
The calm came after several days of confrontation between Israel and the Islamist group, which have raised tensions to their highest levels since Israel's 2008-2009 war on Gaza.The fighting, which has left at least 18 Palestinians dead, came after an anti-tank missile fired from Gaza hit an Israeli school bus on Thursday, wounding two people, one of them a teenager who was critically injured.Hamas said the attack was in response to an earlier Israeli assassination of three senior members of the Islamist group.Israel responded to the bus attack with air strikes across the Gaza Strip, as Palestinian militant groups fired a barrage of rockets and mortar rounds into southern Israel.But both Israeli and Hamas officials expressed interest in a truce by Sunday, and the rate of rocket fire dropped off significantly as a period of calm took hold.Lieberman's opposition to the truce is at odds with the support expressed for a ceasefire by other Israeli officials including Defence Minister Ehud Barak, but he ruled out a coalition breakup over the issue.I don't want a government crisis, or to quit the coalition. We can influence much more from the inside than from the opposition, he said.Others within Lieberman's Yisrael Beitenu party, including National Infrastructure Minister Uzi Landau, expressed support for a new campaign of assassinations targeting Hamas members.
New Israeli system alters war against Gaza rockets
By MATTI FRIEDMAN, Associated Press – Sun Apr 10, 5:51 pm ET
JERUSALEM – A new Israeli-made missile defense system has gotten off to an encouraging start, shooting down at least eight rockets in a test run that could potentially change the long-running war between Israel and Palestinian rocket squads in Gaza.Israeli officials say the $200 million Iron Dome has performed beyond all expectations, raising hopes the military has finally found a way to rob Hamas militants of their most potent weapon: the short-range rockets that have made life miserable for large swaths of the population over the past decade.The repeated successes have raised spirits in Israel's embattled southern region, prompted a congratulatory visit to an Iron Dome battery on Sunday by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and fueled calls, perhaps unrealistic, that the system be deployed nationwide. Experts say Iron Dome is the first system in the world capable of knocking down rudimentary rockets favored by militants around the globe.Yet officials and analysts warn the excitement may be premature, noting the system is in its infancy and that armed groups in Gaza possess plenty of other formidable weapons.
We will not be able to protect every house, every installation, every site in the state of Israel, Netanyahu acknowledged, even as he hailed the Iron Dome as a most impressive technological achievement.Iron Dome is a key element of what Israel refers to as its multi-layer missile defense shield, a series of systems meant to defend the country from everything from medium-range missiles that could be launched from Iran, hundreds of miles away, down to the short-range projectiles possessed by enemies on its northern and southern borders. These primitive rockets, which fly just a few miles and are in the air for just seconds, have eluded Israel's high-tech military for years.With the system in use for just a few days, it is far too early to declare it an unabashed success. Two decades ago, Israel used the American-made Patriot missiles to shoot down incoming Scuds fired by Iraq during the 1991 Gulf War. Israel and the U.S. touted the Patriot as a great success, only to admit in later years that it had often missed its targets.
But so far, the results have been encouraging.Its computer system detects the launch of a rocket almost instantly and calculates its trajectory. If it is headed toward an open area, its operator can let it land. But if it is traveling toward a population center or other sensitive target, the operator can fire an interceptor missile from a box-like launcher pointed at the sky.The interceptor homes in on the approaching projectile and destroys it in a shower of shrapnel. Israel has deployed two batteries, protecting the major southern cities of Ashkelon and Beersheba.Ilan Bitton, a former commander of Israel's air defenses, said the system had successfully passed its first baptism of fire.Those rockets, had they not been intercepted over the weekend and had they landed, would have caused serious damage, certainly to property and perhaps to human life, he said.Officials caution that no system can hermetically seal Israel's skies. Iron Dome is expensive, costing tens of thousands of dollars for every launch, a sharp contrast to the Palestinian rockets that can cost as little as several hundred dollars to make.The two operational batteries can defend only a small area of the south, and the technology is ineffective against shorter-range projectiles like mortar shells. Since suffering heavy losses in an war against Israel two years ago, Hamas has replenished is arsenal with other weapons, such as guided anti-tank missiles like the one that struck an Israeli school bus last week, wounding two people.Isaac Ben-Israel, a former Israeli air force general and lawmaker, said Iron Dome would be effective if combined with other defense systems and offensive military operations against militants.
It's the beginning of a significant change, he said.The road is long, but it's real. He said it was the first time that any country had developed a defense against short-range rockets like the ones fired from Gaza.A new chapter has opened in the history of conflict between offense and defense in border wars, (reducing) the feeling of helpless vulnerability that civilians and soldiers have felt, wrote the Haaretz daily in an editorial.Israel's media brimmed with calls for wider deployment of the batteries. Israel would need a total of 20 batteries to provide adequate defense for its borders with Gaza and Lebanon, said Meir Elran, a scholar at the Institute of National Security Studies in Tel Aviv. Such a deployment would require financial assistance from the U.S., he said.But even in its currently limited form, officially designated a trial period, the system is important, he said.The Iron Dome is already raising great hopes among the public. It was featured on the front pages of all major Israeli newspapers Sunday, a reflection of how much years of rocket fire have shaped the national psyche.All of Israel is now believed to be in the rocket range of Hamas militants in Gaza, or the Hezbollah militant group in Lebanon. Removing that threat, or even limiting it, is key to easing fears in this jittery country.
Gaza militants began to fire rockets and mortar shells into Israel in 2001. Since then, thousands of projectiles have hit southern Israel, killing 18 people and wounding hundreds.While the number of casualties is far below those sustained on the Palestinian side, the rockets and missiles have caused widespread panic and trauma, in part because they can strike civilian population centers at virtually any time. In 2006, Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon bombarded northern Israel with some 4,000 rockets during a month-long war, punctuating the helplessness of Israel's technologically advanced military.Early the next year, Israel commissioned the development of Iron Dome, choosing an Israeli contractor, Rafael, over the American giant Lockheed Martin. Rafael officials have said foreign armies are now inquiring about purchasing the technology.Iron Dome went from the drawing board to combat readiness within less than four years, a remarkably short period of time for a weapons system designed from scratch, according to military experts.One of the programmers involved in the project was Eyal Ron, a manager at mPrest, a small company based in a high-tech park in a suburb of Tel Aviv. The company was put in charge of programming the core of Iron Dome's operating system.There was no system like this, anywhere in the world, in terms of capabilities, speed, accuracy. We felt like a start-up,he said.
Arab League calls for no-fly zone over Gaza
– Sun Apr 10, 2:57 pm ET
CAIRO (Reuters) – The Arab League called on the United Nations on Sunday to impose a no-fly zone over Gaza and lift an Israeli siege of the territory after a flare-up of violence that is stoking fears of a wider escalation.The death toll since Israel launched retaliation for an attack on a school bus that critically wounded a teenager on Thursday has climbed to 19 Palestinian militants and civilians.
Condemning what it called Israel's brutal aggression in Gaza, a gathering of the Arab League's permanent delegates chaired by Oman called on the U.N. to convene its Security Council.The meeting would consider the Israeli aggression in the Gaza Strip on an urgent basis to stop its siege and impose a no-fly rule on the Israeli military to protect civilians in the Gaza Strip, the Arab League said in a statement.
An Israeli government official in Jerusalem who declined to be named dismissed the call and said the Arab League should first ensure Gaza militants halt attacks on Israel.If the Arab League wants a no-fly zone in Gaza is it also talking about ground-to-ground missiles that are fired from Gaza on Israeli cities? About missiles fired at school buses? About mortar shells fired at farms? the official said.If the Arab League wants Israeli military aircraft to stop flying over the Gaza Strip then it should first ensure there is no reason for them to be there to protect Israeli citizens.The Cairo-based regional body also said Sudan should press a complaint against Israel at the Security Council over what Sudan has called a missile attack that killed two people.Israel has declined to comment on Khartoum's accusation it launched the strike near Port Sudan airport on Tuesday night.The council of Arab League calls on the Sudanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the apparatus of African Union ... to present a complaint against Israel in front of the Security Council and the U.N.'s general assembly, the League said.(Reporting by Ayman Samir and Sarah Mikhail, additional reporting by Ori Lewis in Jerusalem; Editing by Sophie Hares)
Israel warns travellers of Passover attacks
– Sun Apr 10, 12:45 pm ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – Israel on Sunday urged its citizens and foreign Jews to exercise special caution against possible militant attack when travelling over the Passover holiday as tensions in the Gaza Strip rise.The government routinely issues warnings ahead of Jewish holidays, especially the week-long Passover festival that begins next week, but Sunday's advisory warned of an increased threat because of the spiral in cross-border fighting between Israel and Palestinian militants in Gaza.Following events in the Gaza Strip, terrorist elements intend to carry out attacks on Israeli and Jewish individuals abroad ahead of, and during, the Passover holiday in the Mediterranean basin and in the far east, the national anti-terror bureau said in a communique issued by the prime minister's office.On April 2, Israeli aircraft struck a car in the Gaza Strip, killing three militant members of the Islamic Hamas movement, in a strike it said was aimed at foiling the kidnapping of Israelis holidaying in Egypt during Passover.On Thursday, an anti-tank missile fired from Gaza hit an Israeli school bus wounding two people including a minor, who was critically injured. Hamas said the act was in revenge for the hits on its men.A string of retaliatory Israeli air raids has since killed at least 18 Palestinians in Gaza, with militants in the coastal strip firing dozens of rockets and mortar rounds into Israel.
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
Saturday, April 09, 2011
HAMAS TRIES TO KIDNAP ISRAELI SOLDIER
Israel says killed Hamas man involved in soldier kidnap
– Sat Apr 9, 3:44 pm ET
JERUSALEM (Reuters) – The Israeli military said on Saturday a top militant killed in a predawn raid was directly and physically involved in the 2006 capture of Gilad Shalit, a soldier Israel believes is still being held in the Gaza Strip.Tayser Abu Snima, who Palestinian medics said was killed in an air strike on a vehicle along the Gaza-Egyptian border, was a key figure in the Hamas Islamist group that controls the Gaza Strip.The Israeli statement called Abu Snima a senior Hamas operative in Gaza and said he was directly and physically involved in the kidnapping of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit,a soldier who disappeared in a June 2006 cross-border raid.Abu Ubaida, a spokesman for Hamas's armed wing, said Snima's killing will not affect our work and dismissed Israel's claims.He said Israel "does not have the information about Shalit's capture to be able to say who among our leaders had a role in its execution.Ubaida also accused Israel of looking for an achievement as a cover for their crimes,referring to Israel's punishing strikes in Gaza in the past three days since Hamas rocketed an Israeli school bus, badly wounding an Israeli teen.
Israel has killed 19 Palestinian militants and civilians in these strikes since Thursday's attack on the bus.Israeli efforts to secure Shalit's release have been a political hot potato for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and it was not clear whether these would be impacted by Snima's slaying.Netanyahu faces growing public calls to secure the soldier's release, while at the same time he is also under pressure to avoid meeting Hamas's demands to swap Shalit for imprisoned Palestinian militants charged with masterminding lethal bombings inside Israel over the past decade.(Writing by Allyn Fisher-Ilan; Editing by Sophie Hares)
In new protests, Egyptians challenge army rulers
By MAGGIE MICHAEL, Associated Press – Fri Apr 8, 5:25 pm ET
CAIRO – Egypt's protesters stepped up their challenge to the country's ruling military Friday, as tens of thousands massed to demand it prosecute ousted President Hosni Mubarak and his family for alleged corruption — and a smaller group tested out the army's tolerance with a march on Israel's embassy.The mass rally in Cairo's central Tahrir Square was the biggest by protesters in weeks, and hundreds remaining there shortly before midnight said they were planning to camp out overnight. A smaller group of more than 1,000 marched on the Israeli Embassy, angered by strikes on the Gaza Strip earlier in the day, and pushed for Egypt's new rulers to close the mission and stop Egypt's natural gas exports to Israel.The march was the first significant anti-Israeli demonstration since Egypt's upheaval began nearly three months ago — and it was an unusual test of the military, which took power after Mubarak's ouster on Feb. 11. The generals have promised Egyptians greater freedom of expression but at the same time have sought to reassure Israel and its ally the United States that the fall of Mubarak would not mean an anti-Israeli turn in Egypt's foreign policy.In the past, Mubarak's security forces strictly prevented any protests from getting anywhere close to the embassy, located in a residential building overlooking a bridge over the Nile. Soldiers Friday allowed the demonstration to get nearer than others in the past — to a checkpoint yards (meters) away from the building. At the same time, officers at the checkpoint tried to convince the crowd to disperse.Enough, we have your demands! one officer told the protesters.
At the checkpoint, the crowd waved Palestinian flags and banners that called for Egypt to stop selling natural gas to Israel and close the embassy. Some were members of the fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood, who earlier in the day had been leading anti-Israel chants among the crowds in Tahrir and burned an Israeli flag there.
Remove the flag before we remove it! protesters chanted, referring to the Israeli flag on the top floor of the building. Tanks and armored vehicles, along with armed Egyptian military police, were stationed at the building's entrance. After several hours, the demonstration dwindled.The Israel-Arab issue has not featured strongly in the 18 day wave of mass protests that led to Mubarak's ouster or in demonstrations since by activists trying to shape the transition period being led by the military. The focus has been more on uprooting Mubarak's authoritarian regime and ensuring a democratic Egypt emerges. Still, the protests have been interspersed with complaints about Mubarak's close ties with Israel, which remains deeply unpopular among Egyptians.If the demonstration outside the embassy was a test of what the military will tolerate, the mass gathering in Tahrir was a show of Egyptians' increasing impatience with the army, as some protesters accused it of protecting Mubarak and his family from prosecution.More than in previous protests, chants and banners Friday directly criticized the military's Supreme Council, headed by Defense Minister Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi, a former Mubarak loyalist. At one point, a group of protesters walked behind a contingent of military police in Tahrir, shouting, The people want the fall of the field marshal, and haranguing the soldiers until they left the square.After dark, protesters formed a human barricade to block military police trying to detain five army officers in uniform who had joined the demonstration. The officers, addressing the crowd from a stage, accused the military's ruling Supreme Council of corruption.Corruption was widespread under Mubarak's 29-year-rule, and anger over it particularly accelerated in the last years of his rule, as his son Gamal — an investment banker-turned-politician — rose to prominence and brought into power a group of millionaire tycoons who implemented a program of economic liberalization. Several of those businessmen-politicians are now on trial or under investigation for allegedly using their positions to amass personal fortunes.But Egyptians insist the corruption goes right to the top.Trying to assuage the public anger, the military appeared to be trying to accelerate prosecutions. Authorities announced Thursday that Mubarak's former chief of staff, Zakariya Azmi, had been detained for questioning on corruption allegations, the highest-ranking member of his regime to be arrested so far.
The army denies it is protecting the ousted president — a former military man himself. But so far, there has been no move against Mubarak or Gamal, who was widely seen as his choice as successor. Since his ouster, Mubarak and his family have been under house arrest at a presidential palace in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, their assets frozen.Execution, execution, some in the square chanted as others accused the army of protecting Mubarak and giving immunity to his family, a claim the military denies.On a stage, protesters set up a cage with the pictures of Mubarak, his family and top aides inside. An activist read out charges against them, and the crowd responded, We testify that Mubarak, his family and their cronies have corrupted Egypt, politically, economically, impoverished the people and committed crimes of torture and killings.He lives in a palace and our poor still in the shanty towns, one protester chanted in a microphone at the square. We are not leaving here until Mubarak is on trial, another speaker vowed. One protester in the crowd, 51-year-old Ahmed Dessouqi, accused the military council of going after the small fish rather than the bosses.The council is incapable of going against Mubarak. They started with the tail without touching the head. Can that work? he said. Mubarak was the one who appointed the members of this council, and this is why they delay his prosecution.Since Mubarak's fall, the unprecedented youth movement that ousted him has seen some fragmentation, as the military pushed ahead with a quick timetable for new parliament and presidential elections to be held in September and November. That has sent various factions scrambling to get organized to contest the vote. But the corruption issue provides a unifying theme that resonates among most Egyptians. It's not just financial malfeasance — many Egyptians also want to see the leadership punished for years of political repression, including widespread vote fraud during elections and security crackdowns.Protesters said that the announcement of the Azmi prosecution was part of a pattern — on the day before a big protest rally, a decision to prosecute someone is announced, apparently in hopes of defusing public anger.It is clear now that no demands are met except under pressure, said Mohammed Abbas, a member of the coalition of youth activists who organized the 18-day wave of mass demonstrations that forced Mubarak out of power.Mubarak is the one who stole our money. Why is he still in Sharm el-Sheikh?
Prosecutor Assem al-Gawhari told the state-run news agency on Thursday that former chief of staff Azmi was detained for 15 days for questioning on using his position to amass a fortune. Azmi was considered Mubarak's trusted right-hand man. Authorities also said investigators would begin questioning another senior regime insider, former ruling party chief, Safwat el-Sharif. Days earlier, Egypt's former housing minister, Mohammed Ibrahim Suleiman, was arrested on suspicion he was involved in the illegal sale of state lands for cut-rate prices.But protesters said that was not enough without Mubarak.The past 30 years have created a thick layer of corruption. It is still there despite everything and it is still untouched, retired armed forces officer Mahmoud Hanafi said.And slow justice is in itself unjust.Another, a women in her 60s, said she won't accept compromises.Mubarak must be executed along with his son, Ragia Mahmoud said.This is what I want to see happening right now.
Turkey helps Iran avoid sanctions -Israel tells U.S.: cables
– Fri Apr 8, 6:28 am ET
JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel believes Turkey is actively helping Iran to sidestep economic sanctions and has also turned a blind eye to Iranian weapons smuggling into Syria, according to leaked U.S. diplomatic cables published on Friday.Citing documents obtained by WikiLeaks, Haaretz newspaper said senior Israeli officials had told the United States that Turkey was moving ever-closer to Iran because it needed Iranian energy supplies and because it was revising its global strategy.Israel used to enjoy excellent relations with Turkey, NATO's only Muslim member, but these have grown fraught in recent years, with the Jewish state deeply concerned by Ankara's warm ties with its arch-foe Iran.(Israeli secret services) said (the) Turkish government is now assisting Iran in by-passing international financial sanctions and is ignoring Iranian weapons smuggling to Syria ... through Turkey, a U.S. cable dated November 2009 said.The United Nations has imposed four rounds of sanctions on Iran in an effort to get Tehran to curtail its ambitious nuclear program that critics say is aimed at obtaining the atomic bomb. Iran denies this and says it is a civilian energy project.Notes from a meeting with the then-Israeli national security adviser, Uzi Arad, suggested that Israel was gloomy about prospects for improving its once strong relations with Turkey.(Israel) believes there is little it can do to prevent a further decline in relations with Turkey, but it is trying to preserve what it can by minimizing disputes and seeking gradually escalating diplomatic exchanges, the cable said.Six months after this document was written, ties between the two countries deteriorated much further after Israeli marines killed nine Turkish activists aboard a boat that was trying to break Israel's blockade of the Palestinian enclave of Gaza.
Israeli officials said Turkey's ruling AK Party, led by Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, sympathized with the Islamist group Hamas, which governs Gaza and refuses to recognize Israel.The (Israeli spy agency) Mossad thinks the AKP sees historical similarities between Hamas and the early days of their party's struggle against Turkey's secular establishment, the U.S. cable said.The AKP thinks it can help Hamas become more moderate and mainstream, as the AKP has done, it added, quoting a senior Israeli army official, Colonel Shimon Arad.Arad also told U.S. diplomats that Turkey did not actively support the smuggling of Iranian weapons via Syria to the Shi'ite group Hezbollah in Lebanon, but added that Ankara intervened only under specific international pressure.He suggested that the Turks might be more responsive to U.S. pressure on this issue than they have been to Israeli complaints,the cable said.
(Writing by Crispian Balmer; editing by David Stamp)
US condemns attack on southern Israel
– Thu Apr 7, 3:35 pm ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) – The United States Thursday denounced an attack in southern Israel after Hamas claimed responsibility for firing an anti-tank missile at a school bus, critically injuring a teenager.We condemn the attack on innocent civilians in southern Israel in the strongest possible terms as well as ongoing rocket fire from Gaza, State Department spokesman Mark Toner told reporters.We have reiterated many times there is no justification of the targeting of innocent civilians and those responsible for these terrorist acts should be held accountable, Toner said.We are particularly concerned about reports that indicate the use of an advanced anti-tank weapon in an attack against civilians, he said.He added the United States reiterate that all countries have obligations under relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions to prevent illicit trafficking in arms and ammunition,said Toner.After the missile slammed into the bus, the Palestinians lobbed at least 45 mortar rounds into southern Israel, and the Israeli army responded by staging multiple raids across the enclave, reportedly killing three people.The Israeli medical services said a 16-year-old boy was critically wounded in the bus attack, while the driver sustained only light injuries. It was the first time an anti-tank missile had hit a civilian target in Israel.Any attack on innocent civilians is abhorrent but certainly the nature of the attack is particularly so, Toner said when asked to comment on the fact the school bus appeared to have been targeted.
Israel's PM says new defense shield successful
– Thu Apr 7, 3:33 pm ET
PRAGUE – Israel's prime minister has hailed the first successful action of his country's new missile-defense system after it intercepted two missiles fired by militants from the Gaza Strip.Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said after a meeting in Prague Thursday that Israel's new Iron Dome system — activated in the last few days without proper testing — intercepted two projectiles successfully.Netanyahu said the action took place during his meeting with Czech Prime Minister Petr Necas.He added that the new system can't protect his country from every missile, but gives hope that over time we can develop some better defense for our civilians.
Netanyahu said Israel is ready to take any measures — defensive and offensive — to cope with a recent increase in militant action from Gaza, including a missile that struck a school bus in southern Israel Thursday.
Merkel calls for Mideast progess by September
– Thu Apr 7, 1:08 pm ET
BERLIN (AFP) – Chancellor Angela Merkel called Thursday on Israel to make progress in the peace process by September but said that Germany would not unilaterally recognise a Palestinian state.We feel that there should, and there could, be progress made by the autumn, by September 2011, Merkel said after talks in Berlin with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.When it comes to the question of recognising a Palestinian state, I repeat again that Germany is working for there to be a two-state solution, Merkel said.Unilateral recognitions therefore definitely do not contribute to achieving this aim... This is our stance now and it will be our stance in September.She added: There needs to be mutual recognition, otherwise it is not a two-state solution.The Palestinians have pledged to seek UN recognition of their independent state within the 1967 borders and with east Jerusalem as its capital in a move widely expected to take place in September.Germany currently holds a non-permanent seat in the Security Council.Netanyahu, with whom Merkel reportedly had a distinctly frosty phone call in February, asked for patience and said that the only way to achieve lasting peace was by returning to the negotiating table.I will definitely address this soon. I promise it and I ask you to be patient,he said through an interpreter.
Merkel also said that in view of the current turmoil in the Arab world, getting momentum back into the stalled Middle East peace process was more pressing than ever.
The meeting followed media reports that the two leaders had a tense phone call in February, with Netanyahu berating Merkel after Germany supported a UN Security Council resolution criticising Israeli settlement construction.Merkel herself said the reports were unrealistic.She also issued a warning on Iran's nuclear programme and slammed Tehran's brutal repression of pro-democracy protests.Iran's nuclear programme is more than ever a threat. Everything must be done to stop Iran being in possession of nuclear weapons, she said.We should also not forget all the people who are in prison and are suffering there.
Peace plan from ex-Israeli defense chiefs positive: US
– Wed Apr 6, 4:21 pm ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) – The United States Wednesday welcomed a new peace plan put forward by former Israeli defense chiefs as a positive contribution to try to break a stalemate in Middle East talks.We remain committed to achieving an agreement... we also support the goal of fully normalized relations between Israel and the Arab world, State Department spokesman Mark Toner said.We welcome all ideas to achieve those goals and we look forward to hearing more about the Israel peace initiative. We believe it could possibly make a positive contribution.The plan, an outline of which was seen by AFP, calls for the establishment of a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders with mutually-agreed land swaps, and the division of Jerusalem to become the capital of two states.It is based on a 2002 initiative launched by Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah and endorsed by the Arab League, which offers pan-Arab recognition of Israel in exchange for exactly such an arrangement.The proposal was signed by more than 50 prominent Israelis many of them former leading figures in the defense establishment.
The initiative proposes a solution to the thorny issue of refugees, suggesting that they be financially compensated and allowed to return to the Palestinian state, with a symbolic number even allowed to return to Israel.It also calls for Israel to withdraw from the Golan Heights, occupied from Syria in the 1967 Middle East war in which it also seized the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem.Talks between the Israelis and Palestinians resumed in September in Washington after a long freeze, but then broke down again when Israel lifted a moratorium on new Jewish settlement building in east Jerusalem and the West Bank.
World Bank chief: citizens need voice in Arab world
By Lesley Wroughton – Wed Apr 6, 12:41 pm ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Middle East governments moving away from dictatorship must deliver quick wins through job creation to meet immediate hopes of street protesters but longer-term reforms need to ensure a more inclusive society, the head of the World Bank said on Wednesday.In a speech on the ongoing turbulence in the Middle East and North Africa, World Bank President Robert Zoellick warned that a break from a past where societies were driven by autocrats to one that includes citizens in decision-making will be vital for the region's transition.Our message to our clients, whatever their political system, is that you cannot have successful development without good governance and without the participation of your citizens, Zoellick told a gathering at the Peterson Institute.The unrest in the Arab world will loom large as finance officials from around the globe gather next week for the spring meetings of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund.Zoellick, a former U.S. deputy secretary of state and chief trade negotiator, also set out a new role for the development lender, saying it must become flexible enough to adjust to a rapidly shifting political landscape in client countries.He suggested that might mean having the World Bank become more directly involved in supporting citizen groups and private foundations, rather than working solely through governments.Such sweeping proposals would take the bank into unchartered territory and could stir controversy among World Bank member countries and require authorization from contributors like the United States, Europe and China.
REINVENTION
Unprecedented street protests against Arab autocrats is transforming an oil-rich region that has largely ignored the wishes of the masses. Ordinary people taking to the streets swept away president of Egypt and Tunisia, while leaders of Libya and Yemen are fighting for survival.The region faces enormous unemployment among youths. The World Bank estimates that 40 million new jobs will need to be created over the next decade.Zoellick said there was an immediate need to create jobs, but it was important any job program not lead because to greater economic distortions and a more bloated civil service.Governments should also entice investors by signaling early on that the private sector is welcome through measures such as cutting governmental red tape, reforming bankruptcy laws and easing regulations that restrict business.Zoellick cautioned that a successful transition must give ordinary citizens a voice in running their own affairs.Inaction poses risks. So will the wrong actions, he said. Over the short term, the priority may be quick wins to build confidence and political buy in.Reforms must be transparent and must be fast, he added.Zoellick said the World Bank would work with governments to make them more effective and accountable. Among other things, that would mean the World Bank would not directly finance budgets unless governments published them.
He said just as the institution moved over the last six decades to support the private sector from originally financing just governments, it should now consider helping citizen groups as a way of making governments more accountable to people.We could back this work with seed capital, and with knowledge exchange and research aimed at improving the enabling environment for social accountability, Zoellick said. He said the bank would encourage governments to publish information, enact Freedom of Information Acts, open up their budget and procurement processes, build independent audit functions, and sponsor reforms of justice systems.But the World Bank chief acknowledged that his proposals may be too political for an institution that is meant to be seen as a neutral broker in the fight against global poverty.
Some of that may be what we think of as politics, but most of it is also what we know is good economics; most of it is what we know is good for fighting corruption; most of it is what we know is good for inclusive and sustainable development, Zoellick said.(Editing by Neil Stempleman)
Poll: 32% of Palestinians support settler attack
– Wed Apr 6, 12:32 pm ET
JERUSALEM – A team of Israeli and Palestinian pollsters says a third of Palestinians surveyed said they supported an attack last month that saw five members of an Israeli family stabbed to death in their home in a West Bank settlement.A young couple and three of their children, ages 11, 4 and 3, were killed in the March 11 attack. It is assumed to have been a Palestinian attack.Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas called the attack despicable, immoral and inhuman. The poll found 63 percent opposed the attack and 32 percent backed it.Pollsters from Hebrew University and the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research surveyed 1,270 Palestinians in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and Jerusalem. The margin of error was 3 percentage points.The poll was published Wednesday.THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.
JERUSALEM (AP) — A team of Israeli and Palestinian pollsters says a third of Palestinians surveyed said they supported an attack last month that saw five members of an Israeli family stabbed to death in their home in a West Bank settlement.A young couple and three of their children, ages 11, 4 and 3, were killed in the March 11 attack. It is assumed to have been a Palestinian attack.Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas called the attack "despicable, immoral and inhuman. The poll found 63 percent opposed the attack and 32 percent backed it.Pollsters from Hebrew University and the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research surveyed 1,270 Palestinians in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and Jerusalem. The margin of error was 3 percentage points.The poll was published Wednesday.
– Sat Apr 9, 3:44 pm ET
JERUSALEM (Reuters) – The Israeli military said on Saturday a top militant killed in a predawn raid was directly and physically involved in the 2006 capture of Gilad Shalit, a soldier Israel believes is still being held in the Gaza Strip.Tayser Abu Snima, who Palestinian medics said was killed in an air strike on a vehicle along the Gaza-Egyptian border, was a key figure in the Hamas Islamist group that controls the Gaza Strip.The Israeli statement called Abu Snima a senior Hamas operative in Gaza and said he was directly and physically involved in the kidnapping of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit,a soldier who disappeared in a June 2006 cross-border raid.Abu Ubaida, a spokesman for Hamas's armed wing, said Snima's killing will not affect our work and dismissed Israel's claims.He said Israel "does not have the information about Shalit's capture to be able to say who among our leaders had a role in its execution.Ubaida also accused Israel of looking for an achievement as a cover for their crimes,referring to Israel's punishing strikes in Gaza in the past three days since Hamas rocketed an Israeli school bus, badly wounding an Israeli teen.
Israel has killed 19 Palestinian militants and civilians in these strikes since Thursday's attack on the bus.Israeli efforts to secure Shalit's release have been a political hot potato for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and it was not clear whether these would be impacted by Snima's slaying.Netanyahu faces growing public calls to secure the soldier's release, while at the same time he is also under pressure to avoid meeting Hamas's demands to swap Shalit for imprisoned Palestinian militants charged with masterminding lethal bombings inside Israel over the past decade.(Writing by Allyn Fisher-Ilan; Editing by Sophie Hares)
In new protests, Egyptians challenge army rulers
By MAGGIE MICHAEL, Associated Press – Fri Apr 8, 5:25 pm ET
CAIRO – Egypt's protesters stepped up their challenge to the country's ruling military Friday, as tens of thousands massed to demand it prosecute ousted President Hosni Mubarak and his family for alleged corruption — and a smaller group tested out the army's tolerance with a march on Israel's embassy.The mass rally in Cairo's central Tahrir Square was the biggest by protesters in weeks, and hundreds remaining there shortly before midnight said they were planning to camp out overnight. A smaller group of more than 1,000 marched on the Israeli Embassy, angered by strikes on the Gaza Strip earlier in the day, and pushed for Egypt's new rulers to close the mission and stop Egypt's natural gas exports to Israel.The march was the first significant anti-Israeli demonstration since Egypt's upheaval began nearly three months ago — and it was an unusual test of the military, which took power after Mubarak's ouster on Feb. 11. The generals have promised Egyptians greater freedom of expression but at the same time have sought to reassure Israel and its ally the United States that the fall of Mubarak would not mean an anti-Israeli turn in Egypt's foreign policy.In the past, Mubarak's security forces strictly prevented any protests from getting anywhere close to the embassy, located in a residential building overlooking a bridge over the Nile. Soldiers Friday allowed the demonstration to get nearer than others in the past — to a checkpoint yards (meters) away from the building. At the same time, officers at the checkpoint tried to convince the crowd to disperse.Enough, we have your demands! one officer told the protesters.
At the checkpoint, the crowd waved Palestinian flags and banners that called for Egypt to stop selling natural gas to Israel and close the embassy. Some were members of the fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood, who earlier in the day had been leading anti-Israel chants among the crowds in Tahrir and burned an Israeli flag there.
Remove the flag before we remove it! protesters chanted, referring to the Israeli flag on the top floor of the building. Tanks and armored vehicles, along with armed Egyptian military police, were stationed at the building's entrance. After several hours, the demonstration dwindled.The Israel-Arab issue has not featured strongly in the 18 day wave of mass protests that led to Mubarak's ouster or in demonstrations since by activists trying to shape the transition period being led by the military. The focus has been more on uprooting Mubarak's authoritarian regime and ensuring a democratic Egypt emerges. Still, the protests have been interspersed with complaints about Mubarak's close ties with Israel, which remains deeply unpopular among Egyptians.If the demonstration outside the embassy was a test of what the military will tolerate, the mass gathering in Tahrir was a show of Egyptians' increasing impatience with the army, as some protesters accused it of protecting Mubarak and his family from prosecution.More than in previous protests, chants and banners Friday directly criticized the military's Supreme Council, headed by Defense Minister Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi, a former Mubarak loyalist. At one point, a group of protesters walked behind a contingent of military police in Tahrir, shouting, The people want the fall of the field marshal, and haranguing the soldiers until they left the square.After dark, protesters formed a human barricade to block military police trying to detain five army officers in uniform who had joined the demonstration. The officers, addressing the crowd from a stage, accused the military's ruling Supreme Council of corruption.Corruption was widespread under Mubarak's 29-year-rule, and anger over it particularly accelerated in the last years of his rule, as his son Gamal — an investment banker-turned-politician — rose to prominence and brought into power a group of millionaire tycoons who implemented a program of economic liberalization. Several of those businessmen-politicians are now on trial or under investigation for allegedly using their positions to amass personal fortunes.But Egyptians insist the corruption goes right to the top.Trying to assuage the public anger, the military appeared to be trying to accelerate prosecutions. Authorities announced Thursday that Mubarak's former chief of staff, Zakariya Azmi, had been detained for questioning on corruption allegations, the highest-ranking member of his regime to be arrested so far.
The army denies it is protecting the ousted president — a former military man himself. But so far, there has been no move against Mubarak or Gamal, who was widely seen as his choice as successor. Since his ouster, Mubarak and his family have been under house arrest at a presidential palace in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, their assets frozen.Execution, execution, some in the square chanted as others accused the army of protecting Mubarak and giving immunity to his family, a claim the military denies.On a stage, protesters set up a cage with the pictures of Mubarak, his family and top aides inside. An activist read out charges against them, and the crowd responded, We testify that Mubarak, his family and their cronies have corrupted Egypt, politically, economically, impoverished the people and committed crimes of torture and killings.He lives in a palace and our poor still in the shanty towns, one protester chanted in a microphone at the square. We are not leaving here until Mubarak is on trial, another speaker vowed. One protester in the crowd, 51-year-old Ahmed Dessouqi, accused the military council of going after the small fish rather than the bosses.The council is incapable of going against Mubarak. They started with the tail without touching the head. Can that work? he said. Mubarak was the one who appointed the members of this council, and this is why they delay his prosecution.Since Mubarak's fall, the unprecedented youth movement that ousted him has seen some fragmentation, as the military pushed ahead with a quick timetable for new parliament and presidential elections to be held in September and November. That has sent various factions scrambling to get organized to contest the vote. But the corruption issue provides a unifying theme that resonates among most Egyptians. It's not just financial malfeasance — many Egyptians also want to see the leadership punished for years of political repression, including widespread vote fraud during elections and security crackdowns.Protesters said that the announcement of the Azmi prosecution was part of a pattern — on the day before a big protest rally, a decision to prosecute someone is announced, apparently in hopes of defusing public anger.It is clear now that no demands are met except under pressure, said Mohammed Abbas, a member of the coalition of youth activists who organized the 18-day wave of mass demonstrations that forced Mubarak out of power.Mubarak is the one who stole our money. Why is he still in Sharm el-Sheikh?
Prosecutor Assem al-Gawhari told the state-run news agency on Thursday that former chief of staff Azmi was detained for 15 days for questioning on using his position to amass a fortune. Azmi was considered Mubarak's trusted right-hand man. Authorities also said investigators would begin questioning another senior regime insider, former ruling party chief, Safwat el-Sharif. Days earlier, Egypt's former housing minister, Mohammed Ibrahim Suleiman, was arrested on suspicion he was involved in the illegal sale of state lands for cut-rate prices.But protesters said that was not enough without Mubarak.The past 30 years have created a thick layer of corruption. It is still there despite everything and it is still untouched, retired armed forces officer Mahmoud Hanafi said.And slow justice is in itself unjust.Another, a women in her 60s, said she won't accept compromises.Mubarak must be executed along with his son, Ragia Mahmoud said.This is what I want to see happening right now.
Turkey helps Iran avoid sanctions -Israel tells U.S.: cables
– Fri Apr 8, 6:28 am ET
JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel believes Turkey is actively helping Iran to sidestep economic sanctions and has also turned a blind eye to Iranian weapons smuggling into Syria, according to leaked U.S. diplomatic cables published on Friday.Citing documents obtained by WikiLeaks, Haaretz newspaper said senior Israeli officials had told the United States that Turkey was moving ever-closer to Iran because it needed Iranian energy supplies and because it was revising its global strategy.Israel used to enjoy excellent relations with Turkey, NATO's only Muslim member, but these have grown fraught in recent years, with the Jewish state deeply concerned by Ankara's warm ties with its arch-foe Iran.(Israeli secret services) said (the) Turkish government is now assisting Iran in by-passing international financial sanctions and is ignoring Iranian weapons smuggling to Syria ... through Turkey, a U.S. cable dated November 2009 said.The United Nations has imposed four rounds of sanctions on Iran in an effort to get Tehran to curtail its ambitious nuclear program that critics say is aimed at obtaining the atomic bomb. Iran denies this and says it is a civilian energy project.Notes from a meeting with the then-Israeli national security adviser, Uzi Arad, suggested that Israel was gloomy about prospects for improving its once strong relations with Turkey.(Israel) believes there is little it can do to prevent a further decline in relations with Turkey, but it is trying to preserve what it can by minimizing disputes and seeking gradually escalating diplomatic exchanges, the cable said.Six months after this document was written, ties between the two countries deteriorated much further after Israeli marines killed nine Turkish activists aboard a boat that was trying to break Israel's blockade of the Palestinian enclave of Gaza.
Israeli officials said Turkey's ruling AK Party, led by Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, sympathized with the Islamist group Hamas, which governs Gaza and refuses to recognize Israel.The (Israeli spy agency) Mossad thinks the AKP sees historical similarities between Hamas and the early days of their party's struggle against Turkey's secular establishment, the U.S. cable said.The AKP thinks it can help Hamas become more moderate and mainstream, as the AKP has done, it added, quoting a senior Israeli army official, Colonel Shimon Arad.Arad also told U.S. diplomats that Turkey did not actively support the smuggling of Iranian weapons via Syria to the Shi'ite group Hezbollah in Lebanon, but added that Ankara intervened only under specific international pressure.He suggested that the Turks might be more responsive to U.S. pressure on this issue than they have been to Israeli complaints,the cable said.
(Writing by Crispian Balmer; editing by David Stamp)
US condemns attack on southern Israel
– Thu Apr 7, 3:35 pm ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) – The United States Thursday denounced an attack in southern Israel after Hamas claimed responsibility for firing an anti-tank missile at a school bus, critically injuring a teenager.We condemn the attack on innocent civilians in southern Israel in the strongest possible terms as well as ongoing rocket fire from Gaza, State Department spokesman Mark Toner told reporters.We have reiterated many times there is no justification of the targeting of innocent civilians and those responsible for these terrorist acts should be held accountable, Toner said.We are particularly concerned about reports that indicate the use of an advanced anti-tank weapon in an attack against civilians, he said.He added the United States reiterate that all countries have obligations under relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions to prevent illicit trafficking in arms and ammunition,said Toner.After the missile slammed into the bus, the Palestinians lobbed at least 45 mortar rounds into southern Israel, and the Israeli army responded by staging multiple raids across the enclave, reportedly killing three people.The Israeli medical services said a 16-year-old boy was critically wounded in the bus attack, while the driver sustained only light injuries. It was the first time an anti-tank missile had hit a civilian target in Israel.Any attack on innocent civilians is abhorrent but certainly the nature of the attack is particularly so, Toner said when asked to comment on the fact the school bus appeared to have been targeted.
Israel's PM says new defense shield successful
– Thu Apr 7, 3:33 pm ET
PRAGUE – Israel's prime minister has hailed the first successful action of his country's new missile-defense system after it intercepted two missiles fired by militants from the Gaza Strip.Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said after a meeting in Prague Thursday that Israel's new Iron Dome system — activated in the last few days without proper testing — intercepted two projectiles successfully.Netanyahu said the action took place during his meeting with Czech Prime Minister Petr Necas.He added that the new system can't protect his country from every missile, but gives hope that over time we can develop some better defense for our civilians.
Netanyahu said Israel is ready to take any measures — defensive and offensive — to cope with a recent increase in militant action from Gaza, including a missile that struck a school bus in southern Israel Thursday.
Merkel calls for Mideast progess by September
– Thu Apr 7, 1:08 pm ET
BERLIN (AFP) – Chancellor Angela Merkel called Thursday on Israel to make progress in the peace process by September but said that Germany would not unilaterally recognise a Palestinian state.We feel that there should, and there could, be progress made by the autumn, by September 2011, Merkel said after talks in Berlin with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.When it comes to the question of recognising a Palestinian state, I repeat again that Germany is working for there to be a two-state solution, Merkel said.Unilateral recognitions therefore definitely do not contribute to achieving this aim... This is our stance now and it will be our stance in September.She added: There needs to be mutual recognition, otherwise it is not a two-state solution.The Palestinians have pledged to seek UN recognition of their independent state within the 1967 borders and with east Jerusalem as its capital in a move widely expected to take place in September.Germany currently holds a non-permanent seat in the Security Council.Netanyahu, with whom Merkel reportedly had a distinctly frosty phone call in February, asked for patience and said that the only way to achieve lasting peace was by returning to the negotiating table.I will definitely address this soon. I promise it and I ask you to be patient,he said through an interpreter.
Merkel also said that in view of the current turmoil in the Arab world, getting momentum back into the stalled Middle East peace process was more pressing than ever.
The meeting followed media reports that the two leaders had a tense phone call in February, with Netanyahu berating Merkel after Germany supported a UN Security Council resolution criticising Israeli settlement construction.Merkel herself said the reports were unrealistic.She also issued a warning on Iran's nuclear programme and slammed Tehran's brutal repression of pro-democracy protests.Iran's nuclear programme is more than ever a threat. Everything must be done to stop Iran being in possession of nuclear weapons, she said.We should also not forget all the people who are in prison and are suffering there.
Peace plan from ex-Israeli defense chiefs positive: US
– Wed Apr 6, 4:21 pm ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) – The United States Wednesday welcomed a new peace plan put forward by former Israeli defense chiefs as a positive contribution to try to break a stalemate in Middle East talks.We remain committed to achieving an agreement... we also support the goal of fully normalized relations between Israel and the Arab world, State Department spokesman Mark Toner said.We welcome all ideas to achieve those goals and we look forward to hearing more about the Israel peace initiative. We believe it could possibly make a positive contribution.The plan, an outline of which was seen by AFP, calls for the establishment of a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders with mutually-agreed land swaps, and the division of Jerusalem to become the capital of two states.It is based on a 2002 initiative launched by Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah and endorsed by the Arab League, which offers pan-Arab recognition of Israel in exchange for exactly such an arrangement.The proposal was signed by more than 50 prominent Israelis many of them former leading figures in the defense establishment.
The initiative proposes a solution to the thorny issue of refugees, suggesting that they be financially compensated and allowed to return to the Palestinian state, with a symbolic number even allowed to return to Israel.It also calls for Israel to withdraw from the Golan Heights, occupied from Syria in the 1967 Middle East war in which it also seized the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem.Talks between the Israelis and Palestinians resumed in September in Washington after a long freeze, but then broke down again when Israel lifted a moratorium on new Jewish settlement building in east Jerusalem and the West Bank.
World Bank chief: citizens need voice in Arab world
By Lesley Wroughton – Wed Apr 6, 12:41 pm ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Middle East governments moving away from dictatorship must deliver quick wins through job creation to meet immediate hopes of street protesters but longer-term reforms need to ensure a more inclusive society, the head of the World Bank said on Wednesday.In a speech on the ongoing turbulence in the Middle East and North Africa, World Bank President Robert Zoellick warned that a break from a past where societies were driven by autocrats to one that includes citizens in decision-making will be vital for the region's transition.Our message to our clients, whatever their political system, is that you cannot have successful development without good governance and without the participation of your citizens, Zoellick told a gathering at the Peterson Institute.The unrest in the Arab world will loom large as finance officials from around the globe gather next week for the spring meetings of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund.Zoellick, a former U.S. deputy secretary of state and chief trade negotiator, also set out a new role for the development lender, saying it must become flexible enough to adjust to a rapidly shifting political landscape in client countries.He suggested that might mean having the World Bank become more directly involved in supporting citizen groups and private foundations, rather than working solely through governments.Such sweeping proposals would take the bank into unchartered territory and could stir controversy among World Bank member countries and require authorization from contributors like the United States, Europe and China.
REINVENTION
Unprecedented street protests against Arab autocrats is transforming an oil-rich region that has largely ignored the wishes of the masses. Ordinary people taking to the streets swept away president of Egypt and Tunisia, while leaders of Libya and Yemen are fighting for survival.The region faces enormous unemployment among youths. The World Bank estimates that 40 million new jobs will need to be created over the next decade.Zoellick said there was an immediate need to create jobs, but it was important any job program not lead because to greater economic distortions and a more bloated civil service.Governments should also entice investors by signaling early on that the private sector is welcome through measures such as cutting governmental red tape, reforming bankruptcy laws and easing regulations that restrict business.Zoellick cautioned that a successful transition must give ordinary citizens a voice in running their own affairs.Inaction poses risks. So will the wrong actions, he said. Over the short term, the priority may be quick wins to build confidence and political buy in.Reforms must be transparent and must be fast, he added.Zoellick said the World Bank would work with governments to make them more effective and accountable. Among other things, that would mean the World Bank would not directly finance budgets unless governments published them.
He said just as the institution moved over the last six decades to support the private sector from originally financing just governments, it should now consider helping citizen groups as a way of making governments more accountable to people.We could back this work with seed capital, and with knowledge exchange and research aimed at improving the enabling environment for social accountability, Zoellick said. He said the bank would encourage governments to publish information, enact Freedom of Information Acts, open up their budget and procurement processes, build independent audit functions, and sponsor reforms of justice systems.But the World Bank chief acknowledged that his proposals may be too political for an institution that is meant to be seen as a neutral broker in the fight against global poverty.
Some of that may be what we think of as politics, but most of it is also what we know is good economics; most of it is what we know is good for fighting corruption; most of it is what we know is good for inclusive and sustainable development, Zoellick said.(Editing by Neil Stempleman)
Poll: 32% of Palestinians support settler attack
– Wed Apr 6, 12:32 pm ET
JERUSALEM – A team of Israeli and Palestinian pollsters says a third of Palestinians surveyed said they supported an attack last month that saw five members of an Israeli family stabbed to death in their home in a West Bank settlement.A young couple and three of their children, ages 11, 4 and 3, were killed in the March 11 attack. It is assumed to have been a Palestinian attack.Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas called the attack despicable, immoral and inhuman. The poll found 63 percent opposed the attack and 32 percent backed it.Pollsters from Hebrew University and the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research surveyed 1,270 Palestinians in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and Jerusalem. The margin of error was 3 percentage points.The poll was published Wednesday.THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.
JERUSALEM (AP) — A team of Israeli and Palestinian pollsters says a third of Palestinians surveyed said they supported an attack last month that saw five members of an Israeli family stabbed to death in their home in a West Bank settlement.A young couple and three of their children, ages 11, 4 and 3, were killed in the March 11 attack. It is assumed to have been a Palestinian attack.Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas called the attack "despicable, immoral and inhuman. The poll found 63 percent opposed the attack and 32 percent backed it.Pollsters from Hebrew University and the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research surveyed 1,270 Palestinians in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and Jerusalem. The margin of error was 3 percentage points.The poll was published Wednesday.
Wednesday, April 06, 2011
ISRAEL TO LOBBY GERMANY AGAINST PA STATE
JOHN LOEFFLER-HOW ISRAEL GETS DESTROYED-SOUNDS LIKE WHAT I SAID MARCH 29TH-MUST LISTEN TO-DR STEVE CAROL.
http://britanniaradio.blogspot.com/2011/04/john-loeffler-steel-on-steel-toward.html#links
READ WHAT I WROTE HERE AND WHAT STEVE CAROL SAYS ABOUT THE MIDEAST AND ISRAEL ON JOHN LOEFFLER-WOW MY SUM UP SOUNDS HAND IN GLOVE TO HIS RESULTS.THE CONVERSATION STARTS AT 33 MINUTES OF THE SHOW TO 1 HR 08 MINUTES.I GO BY THE BIBLE,HE GOES BY WHAT IS ABOUT TO HAPPEN IN THE MIDEAST.MY TAKE MAR 29,11 BELOW.
THE ONLY DIFFERENCE THIS TIME THE NWO NOW HAVE THE EU ARMY TO ATTACK WHICH EVER COUNTRY DOES NOT AGREE WITH THE ONE WORLD GOVERNMENT IDEAS.THEY CAN SANCTION THAT COUNTRY,THEN ATTACK WITH THE NATO RAPID REACTION FORCE LEAD BY THE EU.THIS WILL EVENTUALLY LEAD TO THE EU AND ARAB COUNTRIES COMPLAINING ABOUT ISRAEL USING FORCE ON THE PALESTINIANS AND TELLING THE USELESS U.N. TO MAKE A RESOLUTION AGAINST ISRAEL IF THEY DO NOT DIVIDE JERUSALEM WITH THE PALESTINIANS,GIVING THEM THEIR OWN STATE,WE THE WORLD GOVERNMENT LEADER EU WILL SANCTION ISRAEL AND USE OUR NATO WORLD GOVERNMENT RAPID REACTION TROOPS AGAINST YOU.OR WE WILL GIVE YOU A 2ND CHOICE:WE THE EU WILL GUARENTEE YOUR SECURITY BY PUTTING OUR NEW WORLD ORDER TROOPS IN ISRAEL AND GAZA TO PROTECT YOU FROM TERRORIST ATTACKS FROM THE PALESTINIANS.LET YOU REBUILD THE 3RD TEMPLE ON THE TEMPLE MOUNT BUT NOT AT THE DOME OF THE ROCK BUT BY THE DOME OF THE SPIRITS.WE WILL PLACE OUR NATO TROOPS ON THE MOUNT TO GUARENTEE YOUR SECURITY SO USE CAN SACRIFICE TO GOD.BUT YOU MUST GIVE THE PALESTINIANS THE EASTERN HALF OF JERUSALEM AND THE LAND FROM THE 1967 TAKIN.WE WILL GUARENTEE YOUR SECURITY FOR A 7 YEAR PERIOD SO WE CAN FINALISE THE JERUSALEM HASSLE AND DIVIDE THE LAND BETWEEN YOU AND THE PALESTINIANS PROPERLY.
I BELIEVE WHEN NATO AND THE NWO TRY TO TAKE OVER SYRIA LIKE LIBYA.IT BACKFIRES AND NATO ENDS UP TOTALLY DESTROYING DAMASCUS BEFORE THEY FINALLY PUT THEIR PUPPET IN.OBAMA AND NATO WILL PROBABLY DO THIS WITH A FEW MIDEAST COUNTRIES TO GET THE BUGS OUT.MAYBE GO AFTER IRAN.BUT THE ULTIMATE GOAL IS TO TRAP(FORCE) ISRAEL INTO DIVIDING ISRAEL AND JERUSALEM UNDER THE NEW WORLD ORDER-EU'S CONTROL.AND THE MUSLIMS, RUSSIA, CHINA WILL ALL BE WORKING TO THIS END ALSO.
WELL NOW WE HAVE AND IDEA WHY THE ONE WORLD GOVERNMENT CREW WANTS THIS CHAOS IN THE MIDEAST UNDER THEIR NATO TROOPS TO RAPIDLY ATTACK COUNTRIES,END UP WITH THE OIL,PAY FOR THE ATTACKS WITH THE MONEY CONFISCATED FROM THE LEADER OF THE COUNTRY.GET RID OF THE COUNTRIES LEADER BY FORCE(FALSE FLAG)AL-QUIDA ARMIES AND INSTALL THEIR PUPPET LEADER.TTHE ULTIMATE GOAL IS CONTROL OR DESTROY ISRAEL LIKE GLENN BECK MENTIONED.
LAND FOR PEACE (THE FUTURE 7 YEARS OF HELL ON EARTH)
JOEL 3:2
2 I will also gather all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat, and will plead with them there for my people and for my heritage Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations, and parted my land.
THE WEEK OF DANIEL 9:27 WE KNOW ITS 7 YRS
Heres the scripture 1 week = 7 yrs Genesis 29:27-29
27 Fulfil her week, and we will give thee this also for the service which thou shalt serve with me yet seven other years.
28 And Jacob did so, and fulfilled her week: and he gave him Rachel his daughter to wife also.
29 And Laban gave to Rachel his daughter Bilhah his handmaid to be her maid.
DANIEL 11:21-23
21 And in his estate shall stand up a vile person, to whom they shall not give the honour of the kingdom: but he shall come in peaceably, and obtain the kingdom by flatteries.
23 And after the league made with him he shall work deceitfully: for he shall come up, and shall become strong with a small people.
24 He shall enter peaceably even upon the fattest places of the province; and he shall do that which his fathers have not done, nor his fathers' fathers; he shall scatter among them the prey, and spoil, and riches: yea, and he shall forecast his devices against the strong holds, even for a time.
DANIEL 9:26-27
26 And after threescore and two weeks(62X7=434 YEARS+7X7=49 YEARS=TOTAL OF 69 WEEKS OR 483 YRS) shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself: and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary;(ROMAN LEADERS DESTROYED THE 2ND TEMPLE) and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined.(THERE HAS TO BE 70 WEEKS OR 490 YRS TO FUFILL THE VISION AND PROPHECY OF DAN 9:24).(THE NEXT VERSE IS THAT 7 YR WEEK OR (70TH FINAL WEEK).
27 And he( THE ROMAN,EU PRESIDENT) shall confirm the covenant with many for one week:(1X7=7 YEARS) and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease,(3 1/2 yrs in TEMPLE SACRIFICES STOPPED) and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate.
JEREMIAH 6:14
14 They have healed also the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly, saying, Peace, peace; when there is no peace.
JEREMIAH 8:11
11 For they have healed the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly, saying, Peace, peace; when there is no peace.
1 THESSALONIANS 5:3
3 For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape.
ISAIAH 28:14-19 (THIS IS THE 7 YR TREATY COVENANT OF DANIEL 9:27)
14 Wherefore hear the word of the LORD, ye scornful men, that rule this people which is in Jerusalem.
15 Because ye have said, We have made a covenant with death, and with hell are we at agreement; when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, it shall not come unto us: for we have made lies our refuge, and under falsehood have we hid ourselves:
16 Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD, Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner stone, a sure foundation: he that believeth shall not make haste.
17 Judgment also will I lay to the line, and righteousness to the plummet: and the hail shall sweep away the refuge of lies, and the waters shall overflow the hiding place.
18 And your covenant with death shall be disannulled, and your agreement with hell shall not stand; when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, then ye shall be trodden down by it.
19 From the time that it goeth forth it shall take you: for morning by morning shall it pass over, by day and by night: and it shall be a vexation only to understand the report.
ISRAELS INHERITED LAND IN THE FUTURE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytWmPqY8TE0&feature=player_embedded
DEUTERONOMY 7:7-8
7 The LORD did not set his love upon you, nor choose you, because ye were more in number than any people;(ISRAEL) for ye were the fewest of all people:
8 But because the LORD loved you,(ISRAEL) and because he would keep the oath which he had sworn unto your fathers, hath the LORD brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you out of the house of bondmen, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.
ZECHARIAH 2:8
8 For thus saith the LORD of hosts; After the glory hath he sent me unto the nations which spoiled you: for he that toucheth you toucheth the apple of his eye.
JEREMIAH 3:14
14 Turn, O backsliding children, saith the LORD; for I am married unto you:(ISRAEL) and I will take you one of a city, and two of a family, and I will bring you to Zion:
ISAIAH 42:1
1 Behold my servant, whom I uphold; mine elect,(ISRAEL) in whom my soul delighteth; I have put my spirit upon him: he shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles.
ISAIAH 45:4
4 For Jacob my servant’s sake, and Israel mine elect, I have even called thee by thy name: I have surnamed thee, though thou hast not known me.
ISAIAH 65:9,22
9 And I will bring forth a seed out of Jacob, and out of Judah an inheritor of my mountains: and mine elect (ISRAEL) shall inherit it, and my servants shall dwell there.
22 They shall not build, and another inhabit; they shall not plant, and another eat: for as the days of a tree are the days of my people, and mine elect (ISRAEL) shall long enjoy the work of their hands.
ISAIAH 56:5
5 Even unto them (ISRAELIS) will I give in mine house and within my walls a place and a name better than of sons and of daughters: I will give them an everlasting name,(ISRAEL) that shall not be cut off.
And here are the bounderies of the land that Israel will inherit either through war or peace or God in the future. God says its Israels land and only Israels land. They will have every inch God promised them of this land in the future.
Egypt east of the Nile River, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, The southern part of Turkey and the Western Half of Iraq west of the Euphrates. Gen 13:14-15, Psm 105:9,11, Gen 15:18, Exe 23:31, Num 34:1-12, Josh 1:4.ALL THIS LAND ISRAEL WILL DEFINATELY OWN IN THE FUTURE, ITS ISRAELS NOT ISHMAELS LAND.
EU Challenges Israel's Claim to Jerusalem
Reported: 13:54 PM - Apr/06/11
European Union Foreign Policy Chief Catherine Ashton said Wednesday that she is disappointed by Israel's plans to build new Jewish homes in the southern Jerusalem neighborhood of Gilo.I am deeply disappointed by the approval of 942 new housing units in the Israeli settlement of Gilo, Ashton said. The EU is also closely following upcoming plans for settlements on the Mount Scopus Slopes, in Har Homa C and in Pisgat Z'ev.Ashton specifically named Jerusalem neighborhoods liberated from Jordan during the 1967 Six Day War that nearly the entire Israeli public views as rightfully Jewish but the international community hopes to tear away from Israel.
Israel to lobby Germany against Palestinian plan By JOSEF FEDERMAN, Associated Press - APR 6,11
JERUSALEM – Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will ask Germany's leader to drop her support for a proposal endorsing a Palestinian state in virtually all of the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem when he meets with her this week, Israeli officials said Wednesday.Germany, along with Britain and France, is leading the proposal, which would call for an Israeli withdrawal from nearly all territories captured in the 1967 Mideast war. Netanyahu objects to such a widespread pullout, and says endorsing the Palestinian position on borders would take away a key incentive for them to restart long-stalled negotiations.Officials close to Netanyahu said h would raise the matter with Chancellor Angela Merkel at a meeting scheduled Thursday in Berlin. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were discussing a sensitive diplomatic matter.Israel fears the Quartet of Mideast peacemakers — the European Union, United Nations, Russia and United States — will endorse the European initiative when it meets in Germany later this month.Britain's foreign secretary, William Hague, confirmed this week that the U.K. and its European allies would push for negotiations to proceed based on the 1967 borders, with small adjustments based on mutually agreed-upon land swaps.
What the U.K., France and Germany are putting to the Quartet is that the basis of negotiations set out by the Quartet, including the United States, should include 1967 borders, with land swaps, a just settlement for refugees and Jerusalem as the shared capital of both states, Hague told lawmakers.We are advocating that as an established basis for negotiations.It remains unclear whether the full Quartet — especially the U.S. — supports the proposal.The Palestinians claim all of the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem for their future state. Although Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005, Netanyahu says Israel must retain areas of the West Bank to ensure his country's security. Parts of the West Bank are just minutes from major Israeli population centers.Netanyahu also rejects a pullout from east Jerusalem — which is home to sensitive Jewish, Christian and Muslim holy sites.Although the international community, and even previous Israeli governments, have previously endorsed the 1967 borders as the basis of a broader peace agreement, Israel believes that doing so at the current time would be harmful to peace efforts.The Palestinians cut off negotiations in September, demanding that Israel halt settlement construction in the West Bank and east Jerusalem. They are now proceeding with plans to get the United Nations to endorse a Palestinian state, with or without a peace agreement, in September.Israeli officials say borders are a matter for negotiation, and that a Quartet vote in favor the 1967 lines would inadvertently encourage the Palestinians to proceed with what Israel says is a rejectionist path.They also say the international community should not take a stand on a key issue while remaining vague on matters of concern to Israel, such as future security arrangements and the fate of millions of Palestinian refugees, to negotiations.
Former Israel defence chiefs tout new peace plan
APR 6,11
JERUSALEM (AFP) – A group of prominent Israelis, many of them former defence chiefs, launched a new peace plan on Wednesday calling for the establishment of a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital.The plan, an outline of which was seen by AFP, calls for the establishment of a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders with mutually-agreed land swaps, and the division of Jerusalem to become the capital of two states.It is based on a 2002 initiative launched by Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah and endorsed by the Arab League which offers pan-Arab recognition of Israel in exchange for exactly such an arrangement.Israel at the time described the Arab proposal as positive while containing some problematic aspects but it never made a formal public response.Nine years later, former Shin Bet security agency chief Yaakov Peri told journalists, a reply was long overdue.Israel cannot continue to avoid answering that it is ready to go and discuss a comprehensive peace, he told a press conference launching the new proposal, called the Israel Peace Inititative.
In remarks broadcast by state radio he conceded that there was no instant solution.
None of us is deceiving himself that we are headed for a treaty and tomorrow morning we shall get up and peace will break out, he said.But we think that all the peoples of this region want peace, want a treaty, want security and want economic growth.The initiative, like other past private proposals, proposes a solution to the thorny issue of refugees, suggesting that they be finacially compensated and allowed to return to the Palestinian state, with a symbolic number even allowed to return to Israel.It also calls for Israel to withdraw from the Golan Heights, which it occupied from Syria in the 1967 Middle East war in which it also seized the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem.The proposal was signed by more than 50 prominent Israelis, many of them former leading figures in the defence establishment such as Peri, former armed forces chief of staff Amnon Lipkin-Shahak, former Shin Bet chief Ami Ayalon and ex-Mossad head Danny Yatom.Moshe Shahal, a former Labour party cabinet minister, said Israel's position on the world stage was steadily eroding due to its policies toward the Palestinians.Time is running out, our status in the world is worsening, he said.We are seen not only as rejecting peace but as those who are determined not to make an agreement.Other intitiators of the initiative are academics and business leaders, such as Idan Ofer, a clean-energy entrepreneur and director of Israel's largest holding company.The occupation must end and the moment it ends the entire Arab world will stand open before us, to the Israeli economy, ready to do business, he told the Tel Aviv press conference.The bottom line of this initiative is that we have to move quickly because if we don't, others will step in instead of us.One of the backers of the new plan is Yuval Rabin, son of the late Israeli premier Yitzhak Rabin who was assassinated by an Israeli extremist in 1995.
Israel has no political direction, he said in an interview published on Wednesday in the top-selling Yediot Aharonot daily.The prime minister will not initiate anything and he is not coming up with any alternative to the scenarios which I don't even want to think about,he told the paper. He said they had begun working on the proposal after the 2006 war with Lebanon, and that it had been sent to the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu some 10 days ago.Yatom, the former Mossad boss and an ex-general, said the group had asked for a meeting with Netanyahu to discuss its ideas but had been told that he was too busy.
Rights group: Palestinian forces abuse journalists
By DANIEL ESTRIN, Associated Press - APR 6,11
JERUSALEM – A leading human rights group on Wednesday criticized Palestinian security forces in the West Bank and Gaza Strip for what it said was an increase in attacks on local journalists, including arbitrary detentions and abuse.A report by the New York-based Human Rights Watch said that over the past two years, the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank has stepped up harassment of journalists investigating corruption or seen to be supporters of the rival Hamas militant group. The pressure tactics by the Western-backed government have led to more self-censorship among local reporters, the group also said.The report focused on the West Bank, documenting seven cases of abuse there. But it also included two cases in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip — where reported abuses against journalists by Hamas have been less frequent but nevertheless harsh, according to HRW. It said abuse by Hamas, as well as by Israeli security forces, would be the focus of future reporting.
Palestinian security forces are becoming notorious for assaulting and intimidating journalists who are just trying to do their jobs, said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. Both the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and Hamas in Gaza need to end these blatant attacks on free expression.Speaking to reporters in the West Bank town of Ramallah, Stork said the abuses stretched beyond journalists. Many other citizens in the West Bank, in Gaza, who are critics or who are perceived to be critics of the government or of the authorities are coming to face the same treatment, he said.The group urged international donors to demand the Palestinian Authority — which receives hundreds of millions of dollars in Western support each year — stop the practice as a condition for receiving aid.Adnan Dameiri, a spokesman for the security forces in the West Bank, said the cases were aberrations, individual behavior from certain members in the security forces and that they do not reflect a systematic policy of the Palestinian Authority against journalists.A Hamas official in Gaza said instances of abuse were mistakes, and those responsible have been punished. The government absolutely rejects any harassment committed against the media, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject.HRW cited a 2010 report by the Palestinian Center for Development and Media Freedoms, which found a 45 percent increase over the previous year in physical attacks, arrests, confiscation of equipment and other violations against journalists. The independent, nonprofit group recorded 79 cases of journalist abuse by the Palestinian Authority and Hamas.
In one case documented by Human Rights Watch, freelance journalist and filmmaker Muhannad Salahat was arrested by Palestinian Authority and held without charge on two occasions in early 2010.During 24 days in custody, he was interrogated about his documentaries and asked to sign a document saying he belonged to a Facebook group that included discussions of governmental corruption. He was then told that was the basis of the case to be brought against him. He was later released.Another freelance journalist, Khalid Amayreh, said he has been repeatedly detained by Palestinian Authority security since reporting about torture in West Bank prisons and criticizing the suppression of protests against Israel's 2009 military offensive in Gaza. In one instance, HRW said, he was put in solitary confinement and forced to sleep next to a toilet.The abuse takes place in the context of virtual impunity for security officials, the report said. And while it is not necessarily ordered by Palestinian leaders, the utter failure of the PA leadership to address the prevailing culture of impunity for such abuses suggests that they reflect government policy, HRW said.Hamas' security services in the Gaza Strip have also intimidated journalists, calling in reporters to warn them their coverage was slanted and threatening punishment, the report said.It also noted a recent wave of crackdowns on journalists who cover protests in Gaza that urge the rival Palestinian governments to reconcile. In one instance, Hamas agents threatened to throw a journalist out of a window, HRW said.Dalia Nammari in Ramallah, West Bank, contributed to this report.
Iran clerics denounce Saudi role in Bahrain
– Wed Apr 6, 4:35 am ET
TEHRAN, Iran – Iranian clerics have denounced Iran's regional rival Saudi Arabia for putting down anti-government protests in the Gulf kingdom of Bahrain.In recent weeks, Saudi troops have been helping the Sunni monarchy in Bahrain suppress a Shiite-led protest movement that seeks equal rights and a political voice.
Iran is predominantly Shiite.
On Wednesday, Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami told clerics in the holy city of Qom that Bahraini protesters should keep resisting the monarchy. Others denounced Bahrain's King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa as a degraded ruler without legitimacy and called Saudi Arabia an occupier.Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad earlier this week demanded that Saudi Arabia pull its troops out of Bahrain.
UN condemns plans for east Jerusalem settler homes
by Steve Weizman - Tue Apr 5, 9:39 pm ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – The UN's Mideast envoy condemned plans by Jerusalem city council to build over 900 new homes for Israelis in the annexed eastern sector of the city and the United States voiced deep concern.Israeli settlement activity anywhere in occupied territory, including in east Jerusalem, is illegal and contrary to the roadmap, said Richard Miron, spokesman for United Nations peace envoy Robert Serry, in reference to the peace roadmap adopted by the Middle East diplomatic Quartet.We call on the Israeli government to halt further planning for new settlement units, which undermines efforts to bring about resumed Israeli-Palestinian negotiations and prejudices final status discussions.He was responding to the approval by the Jerusalem city council on Monday of plans for 942 new homes in the Gilo settlement neighbourhood on the outskirts of the city's eastern sector.We are deeply concerned about the announcement of the approval for these units, Mark Toner, a State Department spokesman, said as US President Barack Obama met his Israeli counterpart Shimon Peres at the White House on Tuesday.Toner could not say if the issue came up in the talks between the two leaders.Israel considers all of Jerusalem as its eternal, indivisible capital, and does not view construction in the eastern sector to be settlement activity.The Palestinians, however, want east Jerusalem as the capital of their future state and fiercely contest any move to extend Israeli control over the sector.We believe that through good-faith, direct negotiations the parties should mutually agree on an outcome that realises the aspirations of both parties, Toner said.
An Israeli lobby group on Tuesday attacked a reported government plan for a national park in east Jerusalem, saying it would take land from already-cramped Palestinian neighbourhoods and block their future growth.A statement from Ir Amin, which advocates equitable division of the city between Israelis and Palestinians, said the project was part of a political manoeuvre to reinforce Israeli hold of this sensitive area.Israeli media reported Tuesday that an interior ministry planning committee had earlier in the day approved plans for the park, which would adjoin an area of the neighbouring West Bank designated by Israel as E1.Plans for construction of thousands of homes for settlers in that zone, which is in the desert between east Jerusalem and the West Bank settlement of Maale Adumim were frozen in 2005 in the face of stiff criticism from the United States.Ir Amim said the new national park proposal played into a broader Israeli strategy for the area.On its eastern edge, the plan links up to E1 -- a controversial plan in and of itself -- creating contiguous Israeli territory between Jerusalem and Maale Adumim, and thus cutting east Jerusalem off from the West Bank, the statement said.This split prevents east Jerusalem from ever becoming the capital of a Palestinian state, and thus deems the two-state solution irrelevant.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.
Obama, Shimon Peres discuss Middle East peace
By ERICA WERNER, Associated Press – Tue Apr 5, 5:08 pm ET
WASHINGTON – As unrest sweeps the Middle East, it's more urgent than ever to make peace between Israel and the Palestinians, President Barack Obama said Tuesday after meeting with Israeli President Shimon Peres.The meeting occurred even as the U.S. condemned the announcement that new Israeli apartment buildings have been approved for a contested part of Jerusalem, underscoring the grim outlook for peace talks. Palestinians refuse to restart negotiations unless Israel stops building housing in occupied territory that the Palestinians claim for their future state.Obama didn't speak about the housing announcement when he addressed reporters after his Oval Office meeting with Peres, Israel's ceremonial president and longtime advocate for peace. Obama said the two discussed developments in the Middle East, where uprisings have toppled longtime rulers, including key U.S. and Israeli ally Hosni Mubarak of Egypt.He and I both share a belief that this is both a challenge and an opportunity, Obama said, that with the winds of change blowing through the Arab world, it's more urgent than ever that we try to seize the opportunity to create a peaceful solution between the Palestinians and the Israelis.Peres, too, said that it was necessary to return to peace talks.We don't want to be in controversy with the Muslim world. We want to make friends with them. We want to have peace, Peres told reporters outside the White House.Neither leader had any announcement to make about the prospect for a resumption of talks, which collapsed in 2008, revived briefly in September 2010 under pressure from the Obama administration, and fell apart again when Israel ended a moratorium on settlement construction.
The Palestinian Authority, the Western-backed government in the West Bank, has largely resisted speaking to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's hard-line government, which has rejected a freeze of settlement construction. Netanyahu is expected to be in Washington next month.Israel, under increasing international pressure, is bracing for an expected Palestinian effort in September to gain recognition for full statehood on all the lands it seeks.Obama left it to the State Department to condemn Monday's announcement that Jerusalem officials were giving preliminary approval for 942 apartments in a Jewish development in the city's contested eastern sector. Several times,Israelis have announced new housing developments at awkward times for the U.S., most notably last year when a building project in east Jerusalem was announced during a visit to Israel by Vice President Joe Biden.We're deeply concerned about the announcement of the approval for these units,said State Department spokesman Mark Toner.We believe that through good-faith direct negotiations the parties should mutually agree on an outcome that realizes the aspirations of both parties. Ultimately, a lack of resolution to this conflict harms Israel, harms the Palestinians and harms the interests of the United States and the international community.
Latest developments in Arab world's unrest
By The Associated Press – Tue Apr 5, 3:50 pm ET
A look at the latest developments in political unrest across the Middle East on Tuesday:LIBYA-A rebel military leader complains that NATO is not doing enough to batter Moammar Gadhafi's forces and break the siege of Misrata, the last rebel outpost near Tripoli. NATO says nearly a third of Gadhafi's heavy weapons have been destroyed in airstrikes, but Gadhafi's army drives rebels out of the vital oil port of Brega again. In a new tactic, Gadhafi forces move heavy weapons into the city in an attempt to protect them from NATO airstrikes.
YEMEN-An exchange of fire develops as leaders of President Ali Abdullah Saleh's tribe meet with a senior army officer who defected to the rebels. Three tribesmen are killed as Saleh hangs on to power despite loss of support among his people and even his own tribe. More than 120 people have been killed and 5,000 injured since Yemen's protests started in Feb. 11.
BAHRAIN-The government deports two Iraqi journalists working for the main Shiite opposition newspaper, the same one that was closed down for a day until its editor resigned. The strategic island kingdom has been rocked by demonstrations by majority Shiite Muslims protesting against a Sunni dynasty that has ruled for two centuries.
SYRIA-A Facebook campaign is launched to promote demonstrations the rest of the week in honor of more than 80 people killed during protests against the government of President Bashar Assad. In a town near Damascus, two police officers are shot dead, a rare occurrence in tightly ruled Syria. It is not clear if the killings are directly related to the protests.
OMAN-Authorities say they have arrested a number of people gathering weapons, ammunition and firebombs for a demonstration planned for Friday in the northern industrial city of Sohar. No numbers of people arrested are given.
Lawmakers: UK misjudged Middle East arms sales
By DAVID STRINGER, Associated Press – Tue Apr 5, 11:17 am ET
LONDON – British lawmakers issued a critical report Tuesday showing that Britain approved sales of shotguns and tear gas to Libya, machine guns and sniper rifles to Bahrain and military technology to Yemen over the last three years.Parliament's foreign affairs, defense, international development and business committees said in a joint report that ministers failed to consider the implications of weapons sales to the Middle East and elsewhere.Both the present government and its predecessor misjudged the risk that arms approved for export to certain authoritarian countries in North Africa and the Middle East might be used for internal repression, the report said.Following protests that have swept the Middle East and the violent suppression of demonstrations in some countries, Britain has revoked dozens of licenses approving weapons sales to Libya, Bahrain, Tunisia and Egypt.Ministers also have ordered a review of all arms exports to Bahrain and Yemen, and the U.K. has supported a U.N. arms embargo on Libya.John Stanley, a governing Conservative Party lawmaker responsible for overseeing the report, said Britain has since been backpedalling on previously approved arms exports.He said there had been 156 export approvals when the committee was reviewing the material.He said the report had published for the first time a country-by-country breakdown of the type of weapons approved for export from Britain in 2009 and 2010.In 2009, licenses were approved to sell combat shotguns, military cargo vehicles and communications equipment to Libya. A year later, ministers sanctioned the sale of infrared and thermal imaging cameras, tear gas and crowd control ammunition.Licenses to sell assault rifles and aircraft cannons to Bahrain were approved in 2009, and clearance for the sale of smoke grenades, submachine guns and sniper rifles granted the following year.Defense firms also were given the go-ahead to sell electronic warfare equipment and machine guns to Egypt, ammunition to Tunisia and body armor, night-vision goggles and military camera components to Yemen.The report disclosed that Britain also approved the sale of cryptography equipment to Syria, helicopter components to Algeria and shotguns to Morocco.
Kaye Stearman, of the lobby group Campaign Against Arms Trade, said the uprisings in the Middle East had acted as a wake-up call to Britain over its arms sales.She said ministers must decide whether exporting weapons or promoting human rights was its priority.We have long argued that they can't be reconciled, Stearman said.Britain's business ministry said it would consider the report's recommendations and report its response to Parliament.The foreign ministry said work was under way to review its approach to arms sales — not only in the Middle East and North Africa, but across the world.In light of grave concerns about the use of crowd control equipment in recent weeks, we will review how our export controls work for the sale of goods that could be used for internal repression, a Foreign Office spokesman said on customary condition of anonymity in line with policy.
Palestinian efforts to isolate Israel like war
– Tue Apr 5, 11:00 am ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – A senior Israeli defence official has warned that Palestinian efforts to isolate Israel and secure recognition of a state were as serious for the Jewish state as a war, media reports said.The comments, made by Amos Gilad during a private meeting but recorded and broadcast by Israel's Channel 10 television on Monday, highlight Israeli fears about the Palestinians' growing diplomatic successes.
Israel's isolation in September, the beginning of the isolation, will be no less severe than war, Gilad could be heard saying.Palestinians, who are pursuing a diplomatic campaign to secure global recognition for their independence, have pledged to seek UN backing for their state within the 1967 borders in a move expected to take place in September.The Palestinian campaign was described by Gilad as an international assault against Israel.Israel is fiercely opposed to such a move, arguing that negotiations are the only way to end the conflict and establish a Palestinian state.So far, eight Latin American nations have recognised a Palestinian state, and a growing number of European countries have upgraded the Palestinians' diplomatic representation.The campaign to secure international recognition began after peace talks collapsed late last year over the thorny issue of Jewish settlement.Direct talks ground to a halt three weeks after they were started in September 2010 when Israel baulked at extending a 10-month partial freeze on new settlement construction in the West Bank.Since then, the Palestinians have refused all direct contact, saying they will not talk while Israel builds on land they want for a future state.
Abbas urges Mideast Quartet to make a stand
– Tue Apr 5, 10:43 am ET
RAMALLAH, Palestinian Territories (AFP) – Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas has urged the Quartet to issue a clear statement over Israeli settlements when it meets this month, a senior aide told AFP.Speaking by telephone from Amman, Nabil Abu Rudeina said Abbas had urged the Middle East diplomatic Quartet to publish a statement which calls for an end to settlement activity in the occupied territories and which clearly outlines the terms of reference for peace talks with Israel.President Abbas asked the US administration and the Quartet to make a clear statement about ending settlement activity and determining the terms of reference for negotiations on the basis of the 1967 borders with east Jerusalem as the capital, he said on Tuesday.Abbas's demands were laid out at a meeting with David Hale, senior assistant to US Middle East envoy George Mitchell, in the Jordanian capital Amman.Following the collapse of direct peace talks with Israel late last year, the Palestinians, with backing from Britain, France and Germany, are pushing for the Quartet to lay down clearer parameters for any new peace negotiations.
The parameters would include a reference to the borders that existed before the 1967 Six Day War, and the establishment of Jerusalem as the capital of both states.The Palestinians also want the Quartet to issue a condemnation of continuing Israeli settlement expansion.Shortly after Abbas's meeting, Palestinian negotiators Saeb Erakat and Mohammed Shtayeh also held talks with Hale and Middle East Quartet envoy Tony Blair, Abu Rudeina said.On April 15, key representatives of the Quartet -- which groups the European Union, Russia, the United Nations and the United States -- are to meet in Berlin for top-level talks on the deadlock in the peace negotiations.
Goldstone's war-crimes reversal: Vindication for Israel?
– Tue Apr 5, 6:34 am ET
New York – The author of a hard-hitting U.N. report on Israel's incursion into Gaza revisits the issue in a Washington Post op-ed. Is he clearing Israeli forces of war crimes?If I had known then what I know now, begins South African jurist Richard Goldstone in a Washington Post op-ed, then my scathing 2009 U.N. Human Rights Council report on Israel's deadly three-week incursion into Gaza would have been a different document. Goldstone goes on to distance himself from one of the report's most explosive claims: That Israel deliberately targeted Palestinian civilians, a potential war crime. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has now called on the U.N. to retract the Goldstone Report, saying the op-ed vindicates Israel. Does it?
Yes, Israel deserves an apology: Goldstone's op-ed can be summarized in two words: Never mind, says the Chicago Tribune in an editorial. He doesn't just undermine his disastrously wrong report and its most incendiary findings. He also charges that the U.N. Human Rights Council is embarrassingly anti-Israel. The U.N. needs to formally scrap the Goldstone Report, then admit it isn't an honest broker in the Middle East.
Israel and the UN
No, this is hardly exonerating: This is a qualification, not a retraction, says Ben White in Mondoweiss. Goldstone doesn't dispute the report's central finding, that Israel used deliberately disproportionate violence to punish, humiliate, and terrorize Gazans. Besides, the Goldstone Report was written by "four respected international jurists and its findings were independently corraborated by outside groups.
Goldstone:Retractions vs facts
This is a fiasco of politicization on both sides: The Goldstone Report has, from day one, been distorted by political spin from all sides, says Mitchell Plitnick in The Third Way.The left interpreted it as an indictment of Israel, and the so-called pro-Israel pundits spouted claims of trumped-up charges of hatred of Israel and even of Jews. No one was right. The report raised important questions, but didn't reach firm conclusions. Goldstone's op-ed largely asks the questions again, because most have yet to be answered.Goldstone op-ed shows need for deeper look at Gaza and international law.
http://britanniaradio.blogspot.com/2011/04/john-loeffler-steel-on-steel-toward.html#links
READ WHAT I WROTE HERE AND WHAT STEVE CAROL SAYS ABOUT THE MIDEAST AND ISRAEL ON JOHN LOEFFLER-WOW MY SUM UP SOUNDS HAND IN GLOVE TO HIS RESULTS.THE CONVERSATION STARTS AT 33 MINUTES OF THE SHOW TO 1 HR 08 MINUTES.I GO BY THE BIBLE,HE GOES BY WHAT IS ABOUT TO HAPPEN IN THE MIDEAST.MY TAKE MAR 29,11 BELOW.
THE ONLY DIFFERENCE THIS TIME THE NWO NOW HAVE THE EU ARMY TO ATTACK WHICH EVER COUNTRY DOES NOT AGREE WITH THE ONE WORLD GOVERNMENT IDEAS.THEY CAN SANCTION THAT COUNTRY,THEN ATTACK WITH THE NATO RAPID REACTION FORCE LEAD BY THE EU.THIS WILL EVENTUALLY LEAD TO THE EU AND ARAB COUNTRIES COMPLAINING ABOUT ISRAEL USING FORCE ON THE PALESTINIANS AND TELLING THE USELESS U.N. TO MAKE A RESOLUTION AGAINST ISRAEL IF THEY DO NOT DIVIDE JERUSALEM WITH THE PALESTINIANS,GIVING THEM THEIR OWN STATE,WE THE WORLD GOVERNMENT LEADER EU WILL SANCTION ISRAEL AND USE OUR NATO WORLD GOVERNMENT RAPID REACTION TROOPS AGAINST YOU.OR WE WILL GIVE YOU A 2ND CHOICE:WE THE EU WILL GUARENTEE YOUR SECURITY BY PUTTING OUR NEW WORLD ORDER TROOPS IN ISRAEL AND GAZA TO PROTECT YOU FROM TERRORIST ATTACKS FROM THE PALESTINIANS.LET YOU REBUILD THE 3RD TEMPLE ON THE TEMPLE MOUNT BUT NOT AT THE DOME OF THE ROCK BUT BY THE DOME OF THE SPIRITS.WE WILL PLACE OUR NATO TROOPS ON THE MOUNT TO GUARENTEE YOUR SECURITY SO USE CAN SACRIFICE TO GOD.BUT YOU MUST GIVE THE PALESTINIANS THE EASTERN HALF OF JERUSALEM AND THE LAND FROM THE 1967 TAKIN.WE WILL GUARENTEE YOUR SECURITY FOR A 7 YEAR PERIOD SO WE CAN FINALISE THE JERUSALEM HASSLE AND DIVIDE THE LAND BETWEEN YOU AND THE PALESTINIANS PROPERLY.
I BELIEVE WHEN NATO AND THE NWO TRY TO TAKE OVER SYRIA LIKE LIBYA.IT BACKFIRES AND NATO ENDS UP TOTALLY DESTROYING DAMASCUS BEFORE THEY FINALLY PUT THEIR PUPPET IN.OBAMA AND NATO WILL PROBABLY DO THIS WITH A FEW MIDEAST COUNTRIES TO GET THE BUGS OUT.MAYBE GO AFTER IRAN.BUT THE ULTIMATE GOAL IS TO TRAP(FORCE) ISRAEL INTO DIVIDING ISRAEL AND JERUSALEM UNDER THE NEW WORLD ORDER-EU'S CONTROL.AND THE MUSLIMS, RUSSIA, CHINA WILL ALL BE WORKING TO THIS END ALSO.
WELL NOW WE HAVE AND IDEA WHY THE ONE WORLD GOVERNMENT CREW WANTS THIS CHAOS IN THE MIDEAST UNDER THEIR NATO TROOPS TO RAPIDLY ATTACK COUNTRIES,END UP WITH THE OIL,PAY FOR THE ATTACKS WITH THE MONEY CONFISCATED FROM THE LEADER OF THE COUNTRY.GET RID OF THE COUNTRIES LEADER BY FORCE(FALSE FLAG)AL-QUIDA ARMIES AND INSTALL THEIR PUPPET LEADER.TTHE ULTIMATE GOAL IS CONTROL OR DESTROY ISRAEL LIKE GLENN BECK MENTIONED.
LAND FOR PEACE (THE FUTURE 7 YEARS OF HELL ON EARTH)
JOEL 3:2
2 I will also gather all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat, and will plead with them there for my people and for my heritage Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations, and parted my land.
THE WEEK OF DANIEL 9:27 WE KNOW ITS 7 YRS
Heres the scripture 1 week = 7 yrs Genesis 29:27-29
27 Fulfil her week, and we will give thee this also for the service which thou shalt serve with me yet seven other years.
28 And Jacob did so, and fulfilled her week: and he gave him Rachel his daughter to wife also.
29 And Laban gave to Rachel his daughter Bilhah his handmaid to be her maid.
DANIEL 11:21-23
21 And in his estate shall stand up a vile person, to whom they shall not give the honour of the kingdom: but he shall come in peaceably, and obtain the kingdom by flatteries.
23 And after the league made with him he shall work deceitfully: for he shall come up, and shall become strong with a small people.
24 He shall enter peaceably even upon the fattest places of the province; and he shall do that which his fathers have not done, nor his fathers' fathers; he shall scatter among them the prey, and spoil, and riches: yea, and he shall forecast his devices against the strong holds, even for a time.
DANIEL 9:26-27
26 And after threescore and two weeks(62X7=434 YEARS+7X7=49 YEARS=TOTAL OF 69 WEEKS OR 483 YRS) shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself: and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary;(ROMAN LEADERS DESTROYED THE 2ND TEMPLE) and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined.(THERE HAS TO BE 70 WEEKS OR 490 YRS TO FUFILL THE VISION AND PROPHECY OF DAN 9:24).(THE NEXT VERSE IS THAT 7 YR WEEK OR (70TH FINAL WEEK).
27 And he( THE ROMAN,EU PRESIDENT) shall confirm the covenant with many for one week:(1X7=7 YEARS) and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease,(3 1/2 yrs in TEMPLE SACRIFICES STOPPED) and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate.
JEREMIAH 6:14
14 They have healed also the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly, saying, Peace, peace; when there is no peace.
JEREMIAH 8:11
11 For they have healed the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly, saying, Peace, peace; when there is no peace.
1 THESSALONIANS 5:3
3 For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape.
ISAIAH 28:14-19 (THIS IS THE 7 YR TREATY COVENANT OF DANIEL 9:27)
14 Wherefore hear the word of the LORD, ye scornful men, that rule this people which is in Jerusalem.
15 Because ye have said, We have made a covenant with death, and with hell are we at agreement; when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, it shall not come unto us: for we have made lies our refuge, and under falsehood have we hid ourselves:
16 Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD, Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner stone, a sure foundation: he that believeth shall not make haste.
17 Judgment also will I lay to the line, and righteousness to the plummet: and the hail shall sweep away the refuge of lies, and the waters shall overflow the hiding place.
18 And your covenant with death shall be disannulled, and your agreement with hell shall not stand; when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, then ye shall be trodden down by it.
19 From the time that it goeth forth it shall take you: for morning by morning shall it pass over, by day and by night: and it shall be a vexation only to understand the report.
ISRAELS INHERITED LAND IN THE FUTURE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytWmPqY8TE0&feature=player_embedded
DEUTERONOMY 7:7-8
7 The LORD did not set his love upon you, nor choose you, because ye were more in number than any people;(ISRAEL) for ye were the fewest of all people:
8 But because the LORD loved you,(ISRAEL) and because he would keep the oath which he had sworn unto your fathers, hath the LORD brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you out of the house of bondmen, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.
ZECHARIAH 2:8
8 For thus saith the LORD of hosts; After the glory hath he sent me unto the nations which spoiled you: for he that toucheth you toucheth the apple of his eye.
JEREMIAH 3:14
14 Turn, O backsliding children, saith the LORD; for I am married unto you:(ISRAEL) and I will take you one of a city, and two of a family, and I will bring you to Zion:
ISAIAH 42:1
1 Behold my servant, whom I uphold; mine elect,(ISRAEL) in whom my soul delighteth; I have put my spirit upon him: he shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles.
ISAIAH 45:4
4 For Jacob my servant’s sake, and Israel mine elect, I have even called thee by thy name: I have surnamed thee, though thou hast not known me.
ISAIAH 65:9,22
9 And I will bring forth a seed out of Jacob, and out of Judah an inheritor of my mountains: and mine elect (ISRAEL) shall inherit it, and my servants shall dwell there.
22 They shall not build, and another inhabit; they shall not plant, and another eat: for as the days of a tree are the days of my people, and mine elect (ISRAEL) shall long enjoy the work of their hands.
ISAIAH 56:5
5 Even unto them (ISRAELIS) will I give in mine house and within my walls a place and a name better than of sons and of daughters: I will give them an everlasting name,(ISRAEL) that shall not be cut off.
And here are the bounderies of the land that Israel will inherit either through war or peace or God in the future. God says its Israels land and only Israels land. They will have every inch God promised them of this land in the future.
Egypt east of the Nile River, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, The southern part of Turkey and the Western Half of Iraq west of the Euphrates. Gen 13:14-15, Psm 105:9,11, Gen 15:18, Exe 23:31, Num 34:1-12, Josh 1:4.ALL THIS LAND ISRAEL WILL DEFINATELY OWN IN THE FUTURE, ITS ISRAELS NOT ISHMAELS LAND.
EU Challenges Israel's Claim to Jerusalem
Reported: 13:54 PM - Apr/06/11
European Union Foreign Policy Chief Catherine Ashton said Wednesday that she is disappointed by Israel's plans to build new Jewish homes in the southern Jerusalem neighborhood of Gilo.I am deeply disappointed by the approval of 942 new housing units in the Israeli settlement of Gilo, Ashton said. The EU is also closely following upcoming plans for settlements on the Mount Scopus Slopes, in Har Homa C and in Pisgat Z'ev.Ashton specifically named Jerusalem neighborhoods liberated from Jordan during the 1967 Six Day War that nearly the entire Israeli public views as rightfully Jewish but the international community hopes to tear away from Israel.
Israel to lobby Germany against Palestinian plan By JOSEF FEDERMAN, Associated Press - APR 6,11
JERUSALEM – Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will ask Germany's leader to drop her support for a proposal endorsing a Palestinian state in virtually all of the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem when he meets with her this week, Israeli officials said Wednesday.Germany, along with Britain and France, is leading the proposal, which would call for an Israeli withdrawal from nearly all territories captured in the 1967 Mideast war. Netanyahu objects to such a widespread pullout, and says endorsing the Palestinian position on borders would take away a key incentive for them to restart long-stalled negotiations.Officials close to Netanyahu said h would raise the matter with Chancellor Angela Merkel at a meeting scheduled Thursday in Berlin. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were discussing a sensitive diplomatic matter.Israel fears the Quartet of Mideast peacemakers — the European Union, United Nations, Russia and United States — will endorse the European initiative when it meets in Germany later this month.Britain's foreign secretary, William Hague, confirmed this week that the U.K. and its European allies would push for negotiations to proceed based on the 1967 borders, with small adjustments based on mutually agreed-upon land swaps.
What the U.K., France and Germany are putting to the Quartet is that the basis of negotiations set out by the Quartet, including the United States, should include 1967 borders, with land swaps, a just settlement for refugees and Jerusalem as the shared capital of both states, Hague told lawmakers.We are advocating that as an established basis for negotiations.It remains unclear whether the full Quartet — especially the U.S. — supports the proposal.The Palestinians claim all of the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem for their future state. Although Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005, Netanyahu says Israel must retain areas of the West Bank to ensure his country's security. Parts of the West Bank are just minutes from major Israeli population centers.Netanyahu also rejects a pullout from east Jerusalem — which is home to sensitive Jewish, Christian and Muslim holy sites.Although the international community, and even previous Israeli governments, have previously endorsed the 1967 borders as the basis of a broader peace agreement, Israel believes that doing so at the current time would be harmful to peace efforts.The Palestinians cut off negotiations in September, demanding that Israel halt settlement construction in the West Bank and east Jerusalem. They are now proceeding with plans to get the United Nations to endorse a Palestinian state, with or without a peace agreement, in September.Israeli officials say borders are a matter for negotiation, and that a Quartet vote in favor the 1967 lines would inadvertently encourage the Palestinians to proceed with what Israel says is a rejectionist path.They also say the international community should not take a stand on a key issue while remaining vague on matters of concern to Israel, such as future security arrangements and the fate of millions of Palestinian refugees, to negotiations.
Former Israel defence chiefs tout new peace plan
APR 6,11
JERUSALEM (AFP) – A group of prominent Israelis, many of them former defence chiefs, launched a new peace plan on Wednesday calling for the establishment of a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital.The plan, an outline of which was seen by AFP, calls for the establishment of a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders with mutually-agreed land swaps, and the division of Jerusalem to become the capital of two states.It is based on a 2002 initiative launched by Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah and endorsed by the Arab League which offers pan-Arab recognition of Israel in exchange for exactly such an arrangement.Israel at the time described the Arab proposal as positive while containing some problematic aspects but it never made a formal public response.Nine years later, former Shin Bet security agency chief Yaakov Peri told journalists, a reply was long overdue.Israel cannot continue to avoid answering that it is ready to go and discuss a comprehensive peace, he told a press conference launching the new proposal, called the Israel Peace Inititative.
In remarks broadcast by state radio he conceded that there was no instant solution.
None of us is deceiving himself that we are headed for a treaty and tomorrow morning we shall get up and peace will break out, he said.But we think that all the peoples of this region want peace, want a treaty, want security and want economic growth.The initiative, like other past private proposals, proposes a solution to the thorny issue of refugees, suggesting that they be finacially compensated and allowed to return to the Palestinian state, with a symbolic number even allowed to return to Israel.It also calls for Israel to withdraw from the Golan Heights, which it occupied from Syria in the 1967 Middle East war in which it also seized the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem.The proposal was signed by more than 50 prominent Israelis, many of them former leading figures in the defence establishment such as Peri, former armed forces chief of staff Amnon Lipkin-Shahak, former Shin Bet chief Ami Ayalon and ex-Mossad head Danny Yatom.Moshe Shahal, a former Labour party cabinet minister, said Israel's position on the world stage was steadily eroding due to its policies toward the Palestinians.Time is running out, our status in the world is worsening, he said.We are seen not only as rejecting peace but as those who are determined not to make an agreement.Other intitiators of the initiative are academics and business leaders, such as Idan Ofer, a clean-energy entrepreneur and director of Israel's largest holding company.The occupation must end and the moment it ends the entire Arab world will stand open before us, to the Israeli economy, ready to do business, he told the Tel Aviv press conference.The bottom line of this initiative is that we have to move quickly because if we don't, others will step in instead of us.One of the backers of the new plan is Yuval Rabin, son of the late Israeli premier Yitzhak Rabin who was assassinated by an Israeli extremist in 1995.
Israel has no political direction, he said in an interview published on Wednesday in the top-selling Yediot Aharonot daily.The prime minister will not initiate anything and he is not coming up with any alternative to the scenarios which I don't even want to think about,he told the paper. He said they had begun working on the proposal after the 2006 war with Lebanon, and that it had been sent to the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu some 10 days ago.Yatom, the former Mossad boss and an ex-general, said the group had asked for a meeting with Netanyahu to discuss its ideas but had been told that he was too busy.
Rights group: Palestinian forces abuse journalists
By DANIEL ESTRIN, Associated Press - APR 6,11
JERUSALEM – A leading human rights group on Wednesday criticized Palestinian security forces in the West Bank and Gaza Strip for what it said was an increase in attacks on local journalists, including arbitrary detentions and abuse.A report by the New York-based Human Rights Watch said that over the past two years, the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank has stepped up harassment of journalists investigating corruption or seen to be supporters of the rival Hamas militant group. The pressure tactics by the Western-backed government have led to more self-censorship among local reporters, the group also said.The report focused on the West Bank, documenting seven cases of abuse there. But it also included two cases in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip — where reported abuses against journalists by Hamas have been less frequent but nevertheless harsh, according to HRW. It said abuse by Hamas, as well as by Israeli security forces, would be the focus of future reporting.
Palestinian security forces are becoming notorious for assaulting and intimidating journalists who are just trying to do their jobs, said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. Both the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and Hamas in Gaza need to end these blatant attacks on free expression.Speaking to reporters in the West Bank town of Ramallah, Stork said the abuses stretched beyond journalists. Many other citizens in the West Bank, in Gaza, who are critics or who are perceived to be critics of the government or of the authorities are coming to face the same treatment, he said.The group urged international donors to demand the Palestinian Authority — which receives hundreds of millions of dollars in Western support each year — stop the practice as a condition for receiving aid.Adnan Dameiri, a spokesman for the security forces in the West Bank, said the cases were aberrations, individual behavior from certain members in the security forces and that they do not reflect a systematic policy of the Palestinian Authority against journalists.A Hamas official in Gaza said instances of abuse were mistakes, and those responsible have been punished. The government absolutely rejects any harassment committed against the media, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject.HRW cited a 2010 report by the Palestinian Center for Development and Media Freedoms, which found a 45 percent increase over the previous year in physical attacks, arrests, confiscation of equipment and other violations against journalists. The independent, nonprofit group recorded 79 cases of journalist abuse by the Palestinian Authority and Hamas.
In one case documented by Human Rights Watch, freelance journalist and filmmaker Muhannad Salahat was arrested by Palestinian Authority and held without charge on two occasions in early 2010.During 24 days in custody, he was interrogated about his documentaries and asked to sign a document saying he belonged to a Facebook group that included discussions of governmental corruption. He was then told that was the basis of the case to be brought against him. He was later released.Another freelance journalist, Khalid Amayreh, said he has been repeatedly detained by Palestinian Authority security since reporting about torture in West Bank prisons and criticizing the suppression of protests against Israel's 2009 military offensive in Gaza. In one instance, HRW said, he was put in solitary confinement and forced to sleep next to a toilet.The abuse takes place in the context of virtual impunity for security officials, the report said. And while it is not necessarily ordered by Palestinian leaders, the utter failure of the PA leadership to address the prevailing culture of impunity for such abuses suggests that they reflect government policy, HRW said.Hamas' security services in the Gaza Strip have also intimidated journalists, calling in reporters to warn them their coverage was slanted and threatening punishment, the report said.It also noted a recent wave of crackdowns on journalists who cover protests in Gaza that urge the rival Palestinian governments to reconcile. In one instance, Hamas agents threatened to throw a journalist out of a window, HRW said.Dalia Nammari in Ramallah, West Bank, contributed to this report.
Iran clerics denounce Saudi role in Bahrain
– Wed Apr 6, 4:35 am ET
TEHRAN, Iran – Iranian clerics have denounced Iran's regional rival Saudi Arabia for putting down anti-government protests in the Gulf kingdom of Bahrain.In recent weeks, Saudi troops have been helping the Sunni monarchy in Bahrain suppress a Shiite-led protest movement that seeks equal rights and a political voice.
Iran is predominantly Shiite.
On Wednesday, Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami told clerics in the holy city of Qom that Bahraini protesters should keep resisting the monarchy. Others denounced Bahrain's King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa as a degraded ruler without legitimacy and called Saudi Arabia an occupier.Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad earlier this week demanded that Saudi Arabia pull its troops out of Bahrain.
UN condemns plans for east Jerusalem settler homes
by Steve Weizman - Tue Apr 5, 9:39 pm ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – The UN's Mideast envoy condemned plans by Jerusalem city council to build over 900 new homes for Israelis in the annexed eastern sector of the city and the United States voiced deep concern.Israeli settlement activity anywhere in occupied territory, including in east Jerusalem, is illegal and contrary to the roadmap, said Richard Miron, spokesman for United Nations peace envoy Robert Serry, in reference to the peace roadmap adopted by the Middle East diplomatic Quartet.We call on the Israeli government to halt further planning for new settlement units, which undermines efforts to bring about resumed Israeli-Palestinian negotiations and prejudices final status discussions.He was responding to the approval by the Jerusalem city council on Monday of plans for 942 new homes in the Gilo settlement neighbourhood on the outskirts of the city's eastern sector.We are deeply concerned about the announcement of the approval for these units, Mark Toner, a State Department spokesman, said as US President Barack Obama met his Israeli counterpart Shimon Peres at the White House on Tuesday.Toner could not say if the issue came up in the talks between the two leaders.Israel considers all of Jerusalem as its eternal, indivisible capital, and does not view construction in the eastern sector to be settlement activity.The Palestinians, however, want east Jerusalem as the capital of their future state and fiercely contest any move to extend Israeli control over the sector.We believe that through good-faith, direct negotiations the parties should mutually agree on an outcome that realises the aspirations of both parties, Toner said.
An Israeli lobby group on Tuesday attacked a reported government plan for a national park in east Jerusalem, saying it would take land from already-cramped Palestinian neighbourhoods and block their future growth.A statement from Ir Amin, which advocates equitable division of the city between Israelis and Palestinians, said the project was part of a political manoeuvre to reinforce Israeli hold of this sensitive area.Israeli media reported Tuesday that an interior ministry planning committee had earlier in the day approved plans for the park, which would adjoin an area of the neighbouring West Bank designated by Israel as E1.Plans for construction of thousands of homes for settlers in that zone, which is in the desert between east Jerusalem and the West Bank settlement of Maale Adumim were frozen in 2005 in the face of stiff criticism from the United States.Ir Amim said the new national park proposal played into a broader Israeli strategy for the area.On its eastern edge, the plan links up to E1 -- a controversial plan in and of itself -- creating contiguous Israeli territory between Jerusalem and Maale Adumim, and thus cutting east Jerusalem off from the West Bank, the statement said.This split prevents east Jerusalem from ever becoming the capital of a Palestinian state, and thus deems the two-state solution irrelevant.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.
Obama, Shimon Peres discuss Middle East peace
By ERICA WERNER, Associated Press – Tue Apr 5, 5:08 pm ET
WASHINGTON – As unrest sweeps the Middle East, it's more urgent than ever to make peace between Israel and the Palestinians, President Barack Obama said Tuesday after meeting with Israeli President Shimon Peres.The meeting occurred even as the U.S. condemned the announcement that new Israeli apartment buildings have been approved for a contested part of Jerusalem, underscoring the grim outlook for peace talks. Palestinians refuse to restart negotiations unless Israel stops building housing in occupied territory that the Palestinians claim for their future state.Obama didn't speak about the housing announcement when he addressed reporters after his Oval Office meeting with Peres, Israel's ceremonial president and longtime advocate for peace. Obama said the two discussed developments in the Middle East, where uprisings have toppled longtime rulers, including key U.S. and Israeli ally Hosni Mubarak of Egypt.He and I both share a belief that this is both a challenge and an opportunity, Obama said, that with the winds of change blowing through the Arab world, it's more urgent than ever that we try to seize the opportunity to create a peaceful solution between the Palestinians and the Israelis.Peres, too, said that it was necessary to return to peace talks.We don't want to be in controversy with the Muslim world. We want to make friends with them. We want to have peace, Peres told reporters outside the White House.Neither leader had any announcement to make about the prospect for a resumption of talks, which collapsed in 2008, revived briefly in September 2010 under pressure from the Obama administration, and fell apart again when Israel ended a moratorium on settlement construction.
The Palestinian Authority, the Western-backed government in the West Bank, has largely resisted speaking to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's hard-line government, which has rejected a freeze of settlement construction. Netanyahu is expected to be in Washington next month.Israel, under increasing international pressure, is bracing for an expected Palestinian effort in September to gain recognition for full statehood on all the lands it seeks.Obama left it to the State Department to condemn Monday's announcement that Jerusalem officials were giving preliminary approval for 942 apartments in a Jewish development in the city's contested eastern sector. Several times,Israelis have announced new housing developments at awkward times for the U.S., most notably last year when a building project in east Jerusalem was announced during a visit to Israel by Vice President Joe Biden.We're deeply concerned about the announcement of the approval for these units,said State Department spokesman Mark Toner.We believe that through good-faith direct negotiations the parties should mutually agree on an outcome that realizes the aspirations of both parties. Ultimately, a lack of resolution to this conflict harms Israel, harms the Palestinians and harms the interests of the United States and the international community.
Latest developments in Arab world's unrest
By The Associated Press – Tue Apr 5, 3:50 pm ET
A look at the latest developments in political unrest across the Middle East on Tuesday:LIBYA-A rebel military leader complains that NATO is not doing enough to batter Moammar Gadhafi's forces and break the siege of Misrata, the last rebel outpost near Tripoli. NATO says nearly a third of Gadhafi's heavy weapons have been destroyed in airstrikes, but Gadhafi's army drives rebels out of the vital oil port of Brega again. In a new tactic, Gadhafi forces move heavy weapons into the city in an attempt to protect them from NATO airstrikes.
YEMEN-An exchange of fire develops as leaders of President Ali Abdullah Saleh's tribe meet with a senior army officer who defected to the rebels. Three tribesmen are killed as Saleh hangs on to power despite loss of support among his people and even his own tribe. More than 120 people have been killed and 5,000 injured since Yemen's protests started in Feb. 11.
BAHRAIN-The government deports two Iraqi journalists working for the main Shiite opposition newspaper, the same one that was closed down for a day until its editor resigned. The strategic island kingdom has been rocked by demonstrations by majority Shiite Muslims protesting against a Sunni dynasty that has ruled for two centuries.
SYRIA-A Facebook campaign is launched to promote demonstrations the rest of the week in honor of more than 80 people killed during protests against the government of President Bashar Assad. In a town near Damascus, two police officers are shot dead, a rare occurrence in tightly ruled Syria. It is not clear if the killings are directly related to the protests.
OMAN-Authorities say they have arrested a number of people gathering weapons, ammunition and firebombs for a demonstration planned for Friday in the northern industrial city of Sohar. No numbers of people arrested are given.
Lawmakers: UK misjudged Middle East arms sales
By DAVID STRINGER, Associated Press – Tue Apr 5, 11:17 am ET
LONDON – British lawmakers issued a critical report Tuesday showing that Britain approved sales of shotguns and tear gas to Libya, machine guns and sniper rifles to Bahrain and military technology to Yemen over the last three years.Parliament's foreign affairs, defense, international development and business committees said in a joint report that ministers failed to consider the implications of weapons sales to the Middle East and elsewhere.Both the present government and its predecessor misjudged the risk that arms approved for export to certain authoritarian countries in North Africa and the Middle East might be used for internal repression, the report said.Following protests that have swept the Middle East and the violent suppression of demonstrations in some countries, Britain has revoked dozens of licenses approving weapons sales to Libya, Bahrain, Tunisia and Egypt.Ministers also have ordered a review of all arms exports to Bahrain and Yemen, and the U.K. has supported a U.N. arms embargo on Libya.John Stanley, a governing Conservative Party lawmaker responsible for overseeing the report, said Britain has since been backpedalling on previously approved arms exports.He said there had been 156 export approvals when the committee was reviewing the material.He said the report had published for the first time a country-by-country breakdown of the type of weapons approved for export from Britain in 2009 and 2010.In 2009, licenses were approved to sell combat shotguns, military cargo vehicles and communications equipment to Libya. A year later, ministers sanctioned the sale of infrared and thermal imaging cameras, tear gas and crowd control ammunition.Licenses to sell assault rifles and aircraft cannons to Bahrain were approved in 2009, and clearance for the sale of smoke grenades, submachine guns and sniper rifles granted the following year.Defense firms also were given the go-ahead to sell electronic warfare equipment and machine guns to Egypt, ammunition to Tunisia and body armor, night-vision goggles and military camera components to Yemen.The report disclosed that Britain also approved the sale of cryptography equipment to Syria, helicopter components to Algeria and shotguns to Morocco.
Kaye Stearman, of the lobby group Campaign Against Arms Trade, said the uprisings in the Middle East had acted as a wake-up call to Britain over its arms sales.She said ministers must decide whether exporting weapons or promoting human rights was its priority.We have long argued that they can't be reconciled, Stearman said.Britain's business ministry said it would consider the report's recommendations and report its response to Parliament.The foreign ministry said work was under way to review its approach to arms sales — not only in the Middle East and North Africa, but across the world.In light of grave concerns about the use of crowd control equipment in recent weeks, we will review how our export controls work for the sale of goods that could be used for internal repression, a Foreign Office spokesman said on customary condition of anonymity in line with policy.
Palestinian efforts to isolate Israel like war
– Tue Apr 5, 11:00 am ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – A senior Israeli defence official has warned that Palestinian efforts to isolate Israel and secure recognition of a state were as serious for the Jewish state as a war, media reports said.The comments, made by Amos Gilad during a private meeting but recorded and broadcast by Israel's Channel 10 television on Monday, highlight Israeli fears about the Palestinians' growing diplomatic successes.
Israel's isolation in September, the beginning of the isolation, will be no less severe than war, Gilad could be heard saying.Palestinians, who are pursuing a diplomatic campaign to secure global recognition for their independence, have pledged to seek UN backing for their state within the 1967 borders in a move expected to take place in September.The Palestinian campaign was described by Gilad as an international assault against Israel.Israel is fiercely opposed to such a move, arguing that negotiations are the only way to end the conflict and establish a Palestinian state.So far, eight Latin American nations have recognised a Palestinian state, and a growing number of European countries have upgraded the Palestinians' diplomatic representation.The campaign to secure international recognition began after peace talks collapsed late last year over the thorny issue of Jewish settlement.Direct talks ground to a halt three weeks after they were started in September 2010 when Israel baulked at extending a 10-month partial freeze on new settlement construction in the West Bank.Since then, the Palestinians have refused all direct contact, saying they will not talk while Israel builds on land they want for a future state.
Abbas urges Mideast Quartet to make a stand
– Tue Apr 5, 10:43 am ET
RAMALLAH, Palestinian Territories (AFP) – Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas has urged the Quartet to issue a clear statement over Israeli settlements when it meets this month, a senior aide told AFP.Speaking by telephone from Amman, Nabil Abu Rudeina said Abbas had urged the Middle East diplomatic Quartet to publish a statement which calls for an end to settlement activity in the occupied territories and which clearly outlines the terms of reference for peace talks with Israel.President Abbas asked the US administration and the Quartet to make a clear statement about ending settlement activity and determining the terms of reference for negotiations on the basis of the 1967 borders with east Jerusalem as the capital, he said on Tuesday.Abbas's demands were laid out at a meeting with David Hale, senior assistant to US Middle East envoy George Mitchell, in the Jordanian capital Amman.Following the collapse of direct peace talks with Israel late last year, the Palestinians, with backing from Britain, France and Germany, are pushing for the Quartet to lay down clearer parameters for any new peace negotiations.
The parameters would include a reference to the borders that existed before the 1967 Six Day War, and the establishment of Jerusalem as the capital of both states.The Palestinians also want the Quartet to issue a condemnation of continuing Israeli settlement expansion.Shortly after Abbas's meeting, Palestinian negotiators Saeb Erakat and Mohammed Shtayeh also held talks with Hale and Middle East Quartet envoy Tony Blair, Abu Rudeina said.On April 15, key representatives of the Quartet -- which groups the European Union, Russia, the United Nations and the United States -- are to meet in Berlin for top-level talks on the deadlock in the peace negotiations.
Goldstone's war-crimes reversal: Vindication for Israel?
– Tue Apr 5, 6:34 am ET
New York – The author of a hard-hitting U.N. report on Israel's incursion into Gaza revisits the issue in a Washington Post op-ed. Is he clearing Israeli forces of war crimes?If I had known then what I know now, begins South African jurist Richard Goldstone in a Washington Post op-ed, then my scathing 2009 U.N. Human Rights Council report on Israel's deadly three-week incursion into Gaza would have been a different document. Goldstone goes on to distance himself from one of the report's most explosive claims: That Israel deliberately targeted Palestinian civilians, a potential war crime. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has now called on the U.N. to retract the Goldstone Report, saying the op-ed vindicates Israel. Does it?
Yes, Israel deserves an apology: Goldstone's op-ed can be summarized in two words: Never mind, says the Chicago Tribune in an editorial. He doesn't just undermine his disastrously wrong report and its most incendiary findings. He also charges that the U.N. Human Rights Council is embarrassingly anti-Israel. The U.N. needs to formally scrap the Goldstone Report, then admit it isn't an honest broker in the Middle East.
Israel and the UN
No, this is hardly exonerating: This is a qualification, not a retraction, says Ben White in Mondoweiss. Goldstone doesn't dispute the report's central finding, that Israel used deliberately disproportionate violence to punish, humiliate, and terrorize Gazans. Besides, the Goldstone Report was written by "four respected international jurists and its findings were independently corraborated by outside groups.
Goldstone:Retractions vs facts
This is a fiasco of politicization on both sides: The Goldstone Report has, from day one, been distorted by political spin from all sides, says Mitchell Plitnick in The Third Way.The left interpreted it as an indictment of Israel, and the so-called pro-Israel pundits spouted claims of trumped-up charges of hatred of Israel and even of Jews. No one was right. The report raised important questions, but didn't reach firm conclusions. Goldstone's op-ed largely asks the questions again, because most have yet to be answered.Goldstone op-ed shows need for deeper look at Gaza and international law.
Monday, April 04, 2011
ISRAEL TO BUILD 942 HOLMES ON THEIR LAND
Israel in new settler move before Peres, Obama meet
by Marius Schattner – Mon Apr 4, 3:38 pm ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – Jerusalem city council on Monday approved the construction of 942 new homes in Gilo, a settlement neighbourhood in the city's mostly Arab eastern sector, officials said.The move comes on the eve of a meeting between Israeli President Shimon Peres and US President Barack Obama. Similar moves in the past have infuriated the United States and strained relations between Israel and its main ally.
Elisha Peleg, from the right-wing Likud party, confirmed that the new construction in Gilo, close to the West Bank city of Bethlehem, had been approved during an afternoon session of the district planning council.Of course we approved it, it is only the first step, he told AFP, saying that it was approved by five in favour and one against.The municipality said this project was in addition to an earlier tranche of more than 900 new homes in Gilo approved in November 2009, which brought sharp condemnation from Washington which expressed dismay.The latest decision came just one day ahead of a top-level meeting in Washington between Peres and Obama.In March 2010, during a visit to Israel by Vice President Joe Biden, the interior ministry announced a plan to build 1,600 settler homes in Ramat Shlomo, an Orthodox Jewish neighbourhood in east Jerusalem.Washington saw this as a slap in the face as it sought to revive long-stalled peace talks and brought relations between Israel and the United States to their lowest level in years.Gilo lies in mostly Arab east Jerusalem, which Israel captured along with the West Bank from Jordan in the 1967 Six Day War and later annexed in a move not recognised by the international community.Israel considers both halves of the Holy City its eternal, indivisible capital, and does not view construction in the east to be settlement activity.The Palestinians, however, want east Jerusalem as the capital of their future state and fiercely contest any actions to extend Israel's control over the sector.The Palestinians condemned Monday's move, and said they would appeal to the international community to pressure Israel to respect international law.
We strongly condemn the decision of the Jerusalem municipality to build 942 new homes in Gilo, said chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat.This decision proves once again that Israel has chosen settlements over peace.Some 180,000 Israelis live in east Jerusalem alongside nearly 270,000 Palestinians.The international community has repeatedly called on Israel to avoid new building projects in east Jerusalem.US-brokered peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians are deadlocked over the issue of Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank and east Jerusalem.The Palestinians walked out of direct peace talks three weeks after they started last September when Israel baulked at extending a 10-month partial freeze on West Bank settlement construction.They refuse to negotiate with Israel while it builds on land they want for a future Palestinian state.
US pressured Gulf states over Iran: Ahmadinejad
by Mohammad Davari – Mon Apr 4, 1:54 pm ET
TEHRAN (AFP) – The United States and its allies pressured Gulf Arab states to accuse Iran of interfering in the region, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Monday and also demanded Saudi forces leave Bahrain.Gulf Arab states on Sunday expressed concern at Iranian meddling in Bahrain and Kuwait, but Ahmadinejad told reporters in Tehran: This statement was issued under pressure from America and its allies. It does not bear any legal value.The hardline Iranian president also said that Saudi-led forces brought into Bahrain amid protests by the Shiite majority in the kingdom should leave.It is hideous that troops have been brought in, Ahmadinejad said. Take them out. The people have demands so listen to them.Foreign ministers of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), in a statement issued after a Sunday meeting in Riyadh, said they were deeply worried about continuing Iranian meddling.Ahmadinejad said the Gulf Arab monarchies must not fall into the trap of the Americans, and should boost their ties with Tehran instead.We have extended the hand of friendship... do not fall into the American trap, all should be alert, Ahmadinejad said at a news conference broadcast live on state television.Pointing the finger at Tehran's regional arch-foe Israel, he said: Their (the West's) intention in interfering in the region is to save the Zionist regime.He reiterated: Rest assured, there will soon be a new Middle East without the Zionist regime, without the US presence and their lackeys.The GCC -- Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates -- accused Shiite Iran of plotting against the security of its Sunni monarchies and of fanning confessional discord.
Tehran was violating the sovereignty of members of the regional grouping, it said on Sunday.Reacting earlier on Monday, Kazem Jalali, spokesman for the Iranian parliament's national security and foreign policy commission, said the Gulf states would be better advised to address the grievances of their own peoples as anti-regime protests sweep the Arab world.Iran will never interfere in the internal affairs of its neighbours, he was quoted as saying by the official news agency IRNA.
The GCC countries had better reconsider their own actions rather than issuing emotional statements.The Arab monarchies are aware that their dependency on America and their cowardly behaviour towards the Zionist regime is a form of humiliation that they are imposing on their own people, Jalali said.Iran's foreign ministry on Sunday said the tension between Tehran and its Arab neighbours was the result of a Western and Zionist conspiracy aimed at sowing discord between Islamic countries.
Acrimony between Iran and the Gulf Arab states was exacerbated by a Kuwait announcement on Thursday that it was expelling an unspecified number of Iranian diplomats for alleged links to a spy ring working for Tehran.Ahmadinejad denied that Iran had any link to the cell.It is clear that (this allegation) has no meaning. What is this spying in Kuwait all about? What does Kuwait have that we spy on it? Ahmadinejad asked at the news conference.If it is (about) its people, well its people are our friends and we are the friend of its people. If it is (about) its government, then we are friends with its government and it is our friend,he said.
Ahmadinejad also said that Iran was not interfering in Syria, as pro-democracy protests sweep the country.The government of Syria is our very good friend and it is the resistance's forefront. So are the people of Syria... the Zionists cannot see the Syrian people and government in peace... the government and the people of Syria can solve their issue through dialogue,he added.
Israel demands retraction of UN Gaza war report
by Charly Wegman – Sun Apr 3, 11:32 am ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – Israel demanded on Sunday that the United Nations bin a report critical of its deadly 2008-2009 offensive on Gaza after the author said he had been wrong to say it had targeted civilians.South African judge Richard Goldstone had faced down enormous criticism in Israel at the time over the report which accused both Israel and the Hamas rulers of Gaza of potential war crimes during the 22-day conflict.But in a surprise about-turn on Saturday, he said information he had received since indicated Israel had not deliberately targeted civilians during the campaign, a key charge of the report.While Israel was quick to latch on to his remarks in a commentary piece in the Washington Post, calling them a vindication, the Palestinians said they were surprised, accusing him of folding under Israeli pressure.The report's findings had set the tone for widespread international condemnation of the Israeli assault on Hamas-ruled Gaza in which more than 1,400 people lost their lives, the vast majority of them Palestinians.Israeli officials said the United Nations now needed to set the record straight.This is an extremely important development and right now we are multiplying our efforts to get this report rescinded, Defence Minister Ehud Barak told army radio on Sunday, adding he deeply regretted the harm already done.Speaking at the weekly cabinet meeting on Sunday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel would set up a team of legal experts and diplomats to find concrete ways "to turn the clock back and try to lessen the enormous damage of this train of vilification against the state of Israel.
Goldstone himself has just confirmed what we all knew all along... I think our soldiers and army behaved according to the highest international standards, the premier said during a brief televised address on Saturday.
In his opinion piece in the Post, Goldstone said he now concurred with Netanyahu that the council had a history of bias against Israel.A UN committee of independent experts that followed up on the Goldstone Report's recommendations found Israel has dedicated significant resources to investigate over 400 allegations of operational misconduct in Gaza.In contrast, Hamas leaders have not conducted any investigations into the rocket and mortar attacks against Israel that were its grounds for going to war.If I had known then what I know now, the Goldstone Report would have been a different document, he wrote.In Gaza, Hamas said it was surprised by Goldstone's comments and said he did not now have the right to change the findings.It is not Goldstone's private property, as a team of international judges as well as Goldstone participated in developing it -- apart from the fact that it relies on a number of documents and eyewitness testimony which increases the report's strength and credibility.The statement from spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri did not respond to Goldstone's assertion that Hamas had not investigated charges levelled against it in the report of deliberately targeting civilians with rocket fire.Meanwhile, veteran Palestinian lawmaker Hanan Ashrawi said she was disappointed and accused Goldstone of buckling under Israeli pressure.While he has come under relentless attack within Israel ever since the publication of the Goldstone report, Judge Goldstone is the last person we expected to succumb to that pressure, she said in a statement.
Goldstone said allegations of Israeli intent were based on the death and wounding of civilians in situations where his fact-finding mission could not reach any other reasonable conclusion.He said while some incidents were validated in cases involving individual soldiers, Israeli investigations found civilians were not intentionally targeted as a matter of policy.Goldstone recalled one of the most serious incidents his team investigated -- without Israel's cooperation due to its allegations that the investigators were biased -- when Israeli shelling of a Gaza home killed 29 members of the Al-Samouni family.He noted Israel's investigation into the attack found it was apparently due to a commander's misinterpretation of a drone image and that an officer was under investigation for having ordered the shelling.I regret that our fact-finding mission did not have such evidence explaining the circumstances in which we said civilians in Gaza were targeted, because it probably would have influenced our findings about intentionality and war crimes,Goldstone wrote.
Hamas warns of consequences after Israel air strike
– Fri Apr 1, 10:15 pm ET
GAZA CITY, Palestinian Territories (AFP) – Hamas on Saturday warned Israel of consequences after its latest air strike on Gaza killed three members of the radical Islamist group's armed wing.The three were members of Hamas' Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, who were killed overnight Friday near the southern Gaza town of Khan Yunis, a statement said.Hamas identified the three as Ismael Lubbad, Abdallah Lubbad and Mohammed Eldayah.The strike is a serious escalation and Israel will bear all the consequences, the Brigades warned.Medical staff and witnesses earlier said that one person was also wounded in the air strike.They said the target was a car driving between Khan Yunis and the Deir al-Balah refugee camp.An Israeli military spokesman said the raid, planned jointly with the Shin Bet domestic security agency, was a preemptive strike against militants planning to kidnap Israelis during the coming Jewish festival of Passover.
Netanyahu seeks UN help to stop flotilla
– Fri Apr 1, 6:13 pm ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday called on UN chief Ban Ki-moon to stop an international flotilla of ships seeking to break Israel's Gaza blockade, Netanyahu's office said.The flotilla of about 15 ships with activists from 25 countries is to leave next month to mark the first anniversary of an Israeli commando raid on an aid convoy trying to get to Gaza that left nine Turkish activists dead.Netanyahu told Ban in a telephone call that among the organisers of the new flotilla are extremist Islamic elements whose aim is to create a provocation and bring about a conflagration, his office said in a statement.A UN statement also said Netanyahu raised concerns about the flotilla but that Ban stressed as well that Israel should take meaningful steps to end the closure of Gaza.
The secretary general stressed his concern at the current difficulties in the peace process. They discussed the recent violence affecting Israel, the West Bank and Gaza. The secretary general said he hoped the prime minister would act with wisdom and restraint.The Israeli statement said Netanyahu added that all kinds of goods could now enter Gaza by land, while the territory's Hamas rulers sought to smuggle in arms by sea.
Hamas is a terror organisation controlled by Iran and only recently part of the huge effort to arm it and smuggle arms by sea was exposed with the capture of the Victoria,the statement quoted him as saying.The Liberian-flagged Victoria was intercepted by Israeli commandos in mid-March about 200 nautical miles west of Israel's coast.The army said about 50 tonnes of weapons were concealed in containers holding lentils and cotton. The haul included tens of thousands of rounds of small-arms ammunition, more than 2,200 mortar bombs and six Chinese-made C704 anti-ship missiles.The shipment also included two missile launchers and an advanced radar system to track targets and guide the missiles.Israel said the missiles represented an escalation in attempts to arm militant groups in Gaza and accused arch-foe Iran of being behind the shipment. Tehran denied any connection.
Syrian protesters clash with security forces
By ELIZABETH A. KENNEDY, Associated Press – Fri Apr 1, 4:08 pm ET
CAIRO – The protest movement against Syrian President Bashar Assad's authoritarian rule proved its resilience Friday as thousands of people took to the streets in cities across the country, brushing off Assad's limited gestures of reform and defying security forces who beat them back with tear gas, batons and bullets.At least three people were killed, bringing the death toll from two weeks of demonstrations to at least 75. The government blamed Friday's bloodshed on armed gangs. However, the state-run news agency acknowledged for the first time that Syria was seeing gatherings of people calling for reform.The extraordinary wave of protests has proved the most serious challenge yet to the four-decade ruling dynasty of the Assad family, one of the most rigid regimes in the Middle East.There's this incredible momentum that has built up across the Middle East that has galvanized people in Syria, said Joshua Landis, an American professor and Syria expert. But the regime will likely crush any attempts to keep up the resistance — unless the opposition movement can rally enough people to overwhelm the army, he said.The long-term strength of the burgeoning protest movement is difficult to gauge because Syria has restricted media access and expelled journalists, making it difficult to determine the extent of the protests and how many people are turning out. Two Associated Press journalists were ordered to leave the country Friday with less than an hour's notice.
But the regime had appeared fairly confident in recent days that it could appease the protesters.Assad made his first public appearance Wednesday since the demonstrations began, blaming a foreign conspiracy for the unrest. He then announced he was forming committees to look into civilian deaths and the possibility of replacing Syria's despised emergency laws, which have been in place for decades and allow security forces to arrest people without charge.His reaction enraged many Syrians who hoped to see more serious concessions after the wave of protests in a country where any rumblings of dissent are crushed.The unrest comes against the backdrop of revolutionary change across the wider Middle East, including Egypt, Tunisia and Libya.In Yemen on Friday, hundreds of thousands packed a square in the capital and marched in villages and cities across the nation, demanding that longtime ruler Ali Abdullah Saleh step down. The demonstrations appeared to be the largest in more than a month of protests.Analysts say that by blaming outsiders and offering only minor concessions, Assad is following a strategy that failed leaders in Egypt and Tunisia, who were swept out of power by popular uprisings.That speech was a disappointment to everyone, said Andrew Tabler at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.So I think (Friday's protests) are definitely a reaction.Friday was billed by activists as a Day of Martyrs, with mass demonstrations in honor of those killed in the protests.Several eyewitnesses told The Associated Press by telephone that up to 5,000 people were marching in Daraa — an impoverished southern city that has become the epicenter for the movement — shouting We want freedom! and The blood of martyrs is not cheap! The account could not be independently confirmed.
An activist in Douma, just outside Damascus, the capital, said that he and hundreds of others came under attack by security forces as they left the town's Grand Mosque, chanting slogans for freedom. The troops hit people with clubs and threw stones before firing tear gas and finally live ammunition.I saw three people dead and six wounded, said the activist, who, like the other witnesses requested anonymity for fear of reprisals.Douma's streets are now totally empty except for security forces.
Protests also were reported in the northeastern city of Qamishli and the central city of Homs.Scores of plainclothes security agents deployed Friday in Damascus near the historic Umayyad mosque. A crowd of at least 300 Assad supporters, carrying Syrian flags and pictures of the president, broke out into clapping and chants of Allah, Syria, Bashar! Security forces made no attempt to stop them. State Department spokesman Mark Toner condemned the violence and called on Syrian authorities to allow peaceful demonstrations.We've been very clear all along in our support for their essential rights to express their views, he told reporters in Washington. The unrest in Syria could have implications well beyond the country's borders, given its role as Iran's top Arab ally and as a front line state against Israel.The protests also have brought the country's internal, sectarian tensions into the open for the first time in decades. Syria has a Sunni majority ruled by minority Alawites, a branch of Shiite Islam.Assad has placed his fellow Alawites into most positions of power in Syria. But he also has increased economic freedom and prosperity to win the allegiance of the prosperous Sunni Muslim merchant classes. Dissenters have been punished with arrest, imprisonment and physical abuse.Assad inherited power 11 years ago at the age of 34 after the death of his father, Hafez, who ruled Syria with an iron fist for three decades. While Assad came to power promising reforms, internal challengers and regional upheaval have slowed down the reform process, including an old guard that fears an end to its privileges.Syrians have seemed generally sympathetic to Assad facing an old guard clinging to power — but now, it seems, many are starting to tire of the excuse.AP writers Bassem Mroue Beirut, Lebanon, and Ahmed Al Haj in Sanaa, Yemen, contributed to this report.
Islamic Jihad militant killed in tunnel collapse
– Thu Mar 31, 3:32 pm ET
GAZA CITY, Palestinian Territories (AFP) – An Islamic Jihad militant was killed Thursday when a tunnel he was digging to attack Israeli troops collapsed in the northern Gaza Strip, the group said.An Al-Quds Brigade member was martyred when a resistance tunnel collapsed, Islamic Jihad said in a statement, referring to its military wing.It said the collapse was accidental and occurred near Jabaliya in the northern Gaza Strip.Militants use resistance tunnels to try and infiltrate into Israel or attack Israeli soldiers, like the one used to capture Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit.More than 100 Palestinians have also been killed in accidents in smuggling tunnels linking southern Gaza to Egypt.Also Thursday militants fired a rocket from Gaza toward the Israeli city of Ashkelon, but it fell in an open are without causing damage, Palestinian witnesses and Israeli media said.
The Israeli military said it could not confirm the rocket attack.Last week militants had agreed to observe a period of calm, effectively calling a halt to 10 days of rocket attacks and Israeli counter strikes.Despite the tension in and around Gaza, both Israel and Hamas appear reluctant to be dragged into another bloody confrontation along the lines of the deadly 2008-2009 war, which killed more than 1,400 people, the vast majority Palestinians.That 22-day offensive was launched by Israel in order to stamp out persistent rocket fire from Gaza.
by Marius Schattner – Mon Apr 4, 3:38 pm ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – Jerusalem city council on Monday approved the construction of 942 new homes in Gilo, a settlement neighbourhood in the city's mostly Arab eastern sector, officials said.The move comes on the eve of a meeting between Israeli President Shimon Peres and US President Barack Obama. Similar moves in the past have infuriated the United States and strained relations between Israel and its main ally.
Elisha Peleg, from the right-wing Likud party, confirmed that the new construction in Gilo, close to the West Bank city of Bethlehem, had been approved during an afternoon session of the district planning council.Of course we approved it, it is only the first step, he told AFP, saying that it was approved by five in favour and one against.The municipality said this project was in addition to an earlier tranche of more than 900 new homes in Gilo approved in November 2009, which brought sharp condemnation from Washington which expressed dismay.The latest decision came just one day ahead of a top-level meeting in Washington between Peres and Obama.In March 2010, during a visit to Israel by Vice President Joe Biden, the interior ministry announced a plan to build 1,600 settler homes in Ramat Shlomo, an Orthodox Jewish neighbourhood in east Jerusalem.Washington saw this as a slap in the face as it sought to revive long-stalled peace talks and brought relations between Israel and the United States to their lowest level in years.Gilo lies in mostly Arab east Jerusalem, which Israel captured along with the West Bank from Jordan in the 1967 Six Day War and later annexed in a move not recognised by the international community.Israel considers both halves of the Holy City its eternal, indivisible capital, and does not view construction in the east to be settlement activity.The Palestinians, however, want east Jerusalem as the capital of their future state and fiercely contest any actions to extend Israel's control over the sector.The Palestinians condemned Monday's move, and said they would appeal to the international community to pressure Israel to respect international law.
We strongly condemn the decision of the Jerusalem municipality to build 942 new homes in Gilo, said chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat.This decision proves once again that Israel has chosen settlements over peace.Some 180,000 Israelis live in east Jerusalem alongside nearly 270,000 Palestinians.The international community has repeatedly called on Israel to avoid new building projects in east Jerusalem.US-brokered peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians are deadlocked over the issue of Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank and east Jerusalem.The Palestinians walked out of direct peace talks three weeks after they started last September when Israel baulked at extending a 10-month partial freeze on West Bank settlement construction.They refuse to negotiate with Israel while it builds on land they want for a future Palestinian state.
US pressured Gulf states over Iran: Ahmadinejad
by Mohammad Davari – Mon Apr 4, 1:54 pm ET
TEHRAN (AFP) – The United States and its allies pressured Gulf Arab states to accuse Iran of interfering in the region, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Monday and also demanded Saudi forces leave Bahrain.Gulf Arab states on Sunday expressed concern at Iranian meddling in Bahrain and Kuwait, but Ahmadinejad told reporters in Tehran: This statement was issued under pressure from America and its allies. It does not bear any legal value.The hardline Iranian president also said that Saudi-led forces brought into Bahrain amid protests by the Shiite majority in the kingdom should leave.It is hideous that troops have been brought in, Ahmadinejad said. Take them out. The people have demands so listen to them.Foreign ministers of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), in a statement issued after a Sunday meeting in Riyadh, said they were deeply worried about continuing Iranian meddling.Ahmadinejad said the Gulf Arab monarchies must not fall into the trap of the Americans, and should boost their ties with Tehran instead.We have extended the hand of friendship... do not fall into the American trap, all should be alert, Ahmadinejad said at a news conference broadcast live on state television.Pointing the finger at Tehran's regional arch-foe Israel, he said: Their (the West's) intention in interfering in the region is to save the Zionist regime.He reiterated: Rest assured, there will soon be a new Middle East without the Zionist regime, without the US presence and their lackeys.The GCC -- Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates -- accused Shiite Iran of plotting against the security of its Sunni monarchies and of fanning confessional discord.
Tehran was violating the sovereignty of members of the regional grouping, it said on Sunday.Reacting earlier on Monday, Kazem Jalali, spokesman for the Iranian parliament's national security and foreign policy commission, said the Gulf states would be better advised to address the grievances of their own peoples as anti-regime protests sweep the Arab world.Iran will never interfere in the internal affairs of its neighbours, he was quoted as saying by the official news agency IRNA.
The GCC countries had better reconsider their own actions rather than issuing emotional statements.The Arab monarchies are aware that their dependency on America and their cowardly behaviour towards the Zionist regime is a form of humiliation that they are imposing on their own people, Jalali said.Iran's foreign ministry on Sunday said the tension between Tehran and its Arab neighbours was the result of a Western and Zionist conspiracy aimed at sowing discord between Islamic countries.
Acrimony between Iran and the Gulf Arab states was exacerbated by a Kuwait announcement on Thursday that it was expelling an unspecified number of Iranian diplomats for alleged links to a spy ring working for Tehran.Ahmadinejad denied that Iran had any link to the cell.It is clear that (this allegation) has no meaning. What is this spying in Kuwait all about? What does Kuwait have that we spy on it? Ahmadinejad asked at the news conference.If it is (about) its people, well its people are our friends and we are the friend of its people. If it is (about) its government, then we are friends with its government and it is our friend,he said.
Ahmadinejad also said that Iran was not interfering in Syria, as pro-democracy protests sweep the country.The government of Syria is our very good friend and it is the resistance's forefront. So are the people of Syria... the Zionists cannot see the Syrian people and government in peace... the government and the people of Syria can solve their issue through dialogue,he added.
Israel demands retraction of UN Gaza war report
by Charly Wegman – Sun Apr 3, 11:32 am ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – Israel demanded on Sunday that the United Nations bin a report critical of its deadly 2008-2009 offensive on Gaza after the author said he had been wrong to say it had targeted civilians.South African judge Richard Goldstone had faced down enormous criticism in Israel at the time over the report which accused both Israel and the Hamas rulers of Gaza of potential war crimes during the 22-day conflict.But in a surprise about-turn on Saturday, he said information he had received since indicated Israel had not deliberately targeted civilians during the campaign, a key charge of the report.While Israel was quick to latch on to his remarks in a commentary piece in the Washington Post, calling them a vindication, the Palestinians said they were surprised, accusing him of folding under Israeli pressure.The report's findings had set the tone for widespread international condemnation of the Israeli assault on Hamas-ruled Gaza in which more than 1,400 people lost their lives, the vast majority of them Palestinians.Israeli officials said the United Nations now needed to set the record straight.This is an extremely important development and right now we are multiplying our efforts to get this report rescinded, Defence Minister Ehud Barak told army radio on Sunday, adding he deeply regretted the harm already done.Speaking at the weekly cabinet meeting on Sunday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel would set up a team of legal experts and diplomats to find concrete ways "to turn the clock back and try to lessen the enormous damage of this train of vilification against the state of Israel.
Goldstone himself has just confirmed what we all knew all along... I think our soldiers and army behaved according to the highest international standards, the premier said during a brief televised address on Saturday.
In his opinion piece in the Post, Goldstone said he now concurred with Netanyahu that the council had a history of bias against Israel.A UN committee of independent experts that followed up on the Goldstone Report's recommendations found Israel has dedicated significant resources to investigate over 400 allegations of operational misconduct in Gaza.In contrast, Hamas leaders have not conducted any investigations into the rocket and mortar attacks against Israel that were its grounds for going to war.If I had known then what I know now, the Goldstone Report would have been a different document, he wrote.In Gaza, Hamas said it was surprised by Goldstone's comments and said he did not now have the right to change the findings.It is not Goldstone's private property, as a team of international judges as well as Goldstone participated in developing it -- apart from the fact that it relies on a number of documents and eyewitness testimony which increases the report's strength and credibility.The statement from spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri did not respond to Goldstone's assertion that Hamas had not investigated charges levelled against it in the report of deliberately targeting civilians with rocket fire.Meanwhile, veteran Palestinian lawmaker Hanan Ashrawi said she was disappointed and accused Goldstone of buckling under Israeli pressure.While he has come under relentless attack within Israel ever since the publication of the Goldstone report, Judge Goldstone is the last person we expected to succumb to that pressure, she said in a statement.
Goldstone said allegations of Israeli intent were based on the death and wounding of civilians in situations where his fact-finding mission could not reach any other reasonable conclusion.He said while some incidents were validated in cases involving individual soldiers, Israeli investigations found civilians were not intentionally targeted as a matter of policy.Goldstone recalled one of the most serious incidents his team investigated -- without Israel's cooperation due to its allegations that the investigators were biased -- when Israeli shelling of a Gaza home killed 29 members of the Al-Samouni family.He noted Israel's investigation into the attack found it was apparently due to a commander's misinterpretation of a drone image and that an officer was under investigation for having ordered the shelling.I regret that our fact-finding mission did not have such evidence explaining the circumstances in which we said civilians in Gaza were targeted, because it probably would have influenced our findings about intentionality and war crimes,Goldstone wrote.
Hamas warns of consequences after Israel air strike
– Fri Apr 1, 10:15 pm ET
GAZA CITY, Palestinian Territories (AFP) – Hamas on Saturday warned Israel of consequences after its latest air strike on Gaza killed three members of the radical Islamist group's armed wing.The three were members of Hamas' Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, who were killed overnight Friday near the southern Gaza town of Khan Yunis, a statement said.Hamas identified the three as Ismael Lubbad, Abdallah Lubbad and Mohammed Eldayah.The strike is a serious escalation and Israel will bear all the consequences, the Brigades warned.Medical staff and witnesses earlier said that one person was also wounded in the air strike.They said the target was a car driving between Khan Yunis and the Deir al-Balah refugee camp.An Israeli military spokesman said the raid, planned jointly with the Shin Bet domestic security agency, was a preemptive strike against militants planning to kidnap Israelis during the coming Jewish festival of Passover.
Netanyahu seeks UN help to stop flotilla
– Fri Apr 1, 6:13 pm ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday called on UN chief Ban Ki-moon to stop an international flotilla of ships seeking to break Israel's Gaza blockade, Netanyahu's office said.The flotilla of about 15 ships with activists from 25 countries is to leave next month to mark the first anniversary of an Israeli commando raid on an aid convoy trying to get to Gaza that left nine Turkish activists dead.Netanyahu told Ban in a telephone call that among the organisers of the new flotilla are extremist Islamic elements whose aim is to create a provocation and bring about a conflagration, his office said in a statement.A UN statement also said Netanyahu raised concerns about the flotilla but that Ban stressed as well that Israel should take meaningful steps to end the closure of Gaza.
The secretary general stressed his concern at the current difficulties in the peace process. They discussed the recent violence affecting Israel, the West Bank and Gaza. The secretary general said he hoped the prime minister would act with wisdom and restraint.The Israeli statement said Netanyahu added that all kinds of goods could now enter Gaza by land, while the territory's Hamas rulers sought to smuggle in arms by sea.
Hamas is a terror organisation controlled by Iran and only recently part of the huge effort to arm it and smuggle arms by sea was exposed with the capture of the Victoria,the statement quoted him as saying.The Liberian-flagged Victoria was intercepted by Israeli commandos in mid-March about 200 nautical miles west of Israel's coast.The army said about 50 tonnes of weapons were concealed in containers holding lentils and cotton. The haul included tens of thousands of rounds of small-arms ammunition, more than 2,200 mortar bombs and six Chinese-made C704 anti-ship missiles.The shipment also included two missile launchers and an advanced radar system to track targets and guide the missiles.Israel said the missiles represented an escalation in attempts to arm militant groups in Gaza and accused arch-foe Iran of being behind the shipment. Tehran denied any connection.
Syrian protesters clash with security forces
By ELIZABETH A. KENNEDY, Associated Press – Fri Apr 1, 4:08 pm ET
CAIRO – The protest movement against Syrian President Bashar Assad's authoritarian rule proved its resilience Friday as thousands of people took to the streets in cities across the country, brushing off Assad's limited gestures of reform and defying security forces who beat them back with tear gas, batons and bullets.At least three people were killed, bringing the death toll from two weeks of demonstrations to at least 75. The government blamed Friday's bloodshed on armed gangs. However, the state-run news agency acknowledged for the first time that Syria was seeing gatherings of people calling for reform.The extraordinary wave of protests has proved the most serious challenge yet to the four-decade ruling dynasty of the Assad family, one of the most rigid regimes in the Middle East.There's this incredible momentum that has built up across the Middle East that has galvanized people in Syria, said Joshua Landis, an American professor and Syria expert. But the regime will likely crush any attempts to keep up the resistance — unless the opposition movement can rally enough people to overwhelm the army, he said.The long-term strength of the burgeoning protest movement is difficult to gauge because Syria has restricted media access and expelled journalists, making it difficult to determine the extent of the protests and how many people are turning out. Two Associated Press journalists were ordered to leave the country Friday with less than an hour's notice.
But the regime had appeared fairly confident in recent days that it could appease the protesters.Assad made his first public appearance Wednesday since the demonstrations began, blaming a foreign conspiracy for the unrest. He then announced he was forming committees to look into civilian deaths and the possibility of replacing Syria's despised emergency laws, which have been in place for decades and allow security forces to arrest people without charge.His reaction enraged many Syrians who hoped to see more serious concessions after the wave of protests in a country where any rumblings of dissent are crushed.The unrest comes against the backdrop of revolutionary change across the wider Middle East, including Egypt, Tunisia and Libya.In Yemen on Friday, hundreds of thousands packed a square in the capital and marched in villages and cities across the nation, demanding that longtime ruler Ali Abdullah Saleh step down. The demonstrations appeared to be the largest in more than a month of protests.Analysts say that by blaming outsiders and offering only minor concessions, Assad is following a strategy that failed leaders in Egypt and Tunisia, who were swept out of power by popular uprisings.That speech was a disappointment to everyone, said Andrew Tabler at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.So I think (Friday's protests) are definitely a reaction.Friday was billed by activists as a Day of Martyrs, with mass demonstrations in honor of those killed in the protests.Several eyewitnesses told The Associated Press by telephone that up to 5,000 people were marching in Daraa — an impoverished southern city that has become the epicenter for the movement — shouting We want freedom! and The blood of martyrs is not cheap! The account could not be independently confirmed.
An activist in Douma, just outside Damascus, the capital, said that he and hundreds of others came under attack by security forces as they left the town's Grand Mosque, chanting slogans for freedom. The troops hit people with clubs and threw stones before firing tear gas and finally live ammunition.I saw three people dead and six wounded, said the activist, who, like the other witnesses requested anonymity for fear of reprisals.Douma's streets are now totally empty except for security forces.
Protests also were reported in the northeastern city of Qamishli and the central city of Homs.Scores of plainclothes security agents deployed Friday in Damascus near the historic Umayyad mosque. A crowd of at least 300 Assad supporters, carrying Syrian flags and pictures of the president, broke out into clapping and chants of Allah, Syria, Bashar! Security forces made no attempt to stop them. State Department spokesman Mark Toner condemned the violence and called on Syrian authorities to allow peaceful demonstrations.We've been very clear all along in our support for their essential rights to express their views, he told reporters in Washington. The unrest in Syria could have implications well beyond the country's borders, given its role as Iran's top Arab ally and as a front line state against Israel.The protests also have brought the country's internal, sectarian tensions into the open for the first time in decades. Syria has a Sunni majority ruled by minority Alawites, a branch of Shiite Islam.Assad has placed his fellow Alawites into most positions of power in Syria. But he also has increased economic freedom and prosperity to win the allegiance of the prosperous Sunni Muslim merchant classes. Dissenters have been punished with arrest, imprisonment and physical abuse.Assad inherited power 11 years ago at the age of 34 after the death of his father, Hafez, who ruled Syria with an iron fist for three decades. While Assad came to power promising reforms, internal challengers and regional upheaval have slowed down the reform process, including an old guard that fears an end to its privileges.Syrians have seemed generally sympathetic to Assad facing an old guard clinging to power — but now, it seems, many are starting to tire of the excuse.AP writers Bassem Mroue Beirut, Lebanon, and Ahmed Al Haj in Sanaa, Yemen, contributed to this report.
Islamic Jihad militant killed in tunnel collapse
– Thu Mar 31, 3:32 pm ET
GAZA CITY, Palestinian Territories (AFP) – An Islamic Jihad militant was killed Thursday when a tunnel he was digging to attack Israeli troops collapsed in the northern Gaza Strip, the group said.An Al-Quds Brigade member was martyred when a resistance tunnel collapsed, Islamic Jihad said in a statement, referring to its military wing.It said the collapse was accidental and occurred near Jabaliya in the northern Gaza Strip.Militants use resistance tunnels to try and infiltrate into Israel or attack Israeli soldiers, like the one used to capture Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit.More than 100 Palestinians have also been killed in accidents in smuggling tunnels linking southern Gaza to Egypt.Also Thursday militants fired a rocket from Gaza toward the Israeli city of Ashkelon, but it fell in an open are without causing damage, Palestinian witnesses and Israeli media said.
The Israeli military said it could not confirm the rocket attack.Last week militants had agreed to observe a period of calm, effectively calling a halt to 10 days of rocket attacks and Israeli counter strikes.Despite the tension in and around Gaza, both Israel and Hamas appear reluctant to be dragged into another bloody confrontation along the lines of the deadly 2008-2009 war, which killed more than 1,400 people, the vast majority Palestinians.That 22-day offensive was launched by Israel in order to stamp out persistent rocket fire from Gaza.
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