Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Olmert 'wants Lebanon talks'
The Israeli prime minister has suggested that peace talks should be opened with Lebanon, following the resumption of negotiations with its neighbour Syria.
"Just as we started talks with Syria, I would hope it would be possible to start talks with Lebanon," an official quoted Ehud Olmert as saying in a cabinet meeting on Tuesday.
Israel and Syria announced last month that they had been holding indirect talks through Turkey.
Further meetings are expected for later this week, officials said.
However, a source, who spoke to the Reuters news agency on condition of anonymity, said that the prime minister "wasn't asking for talks with Lebanon" but was voicing his hope that conditions would emerge to enable negotiations. (Al Jazeera)
Hamas members killed in Gaza raid
Three members of Hamas's armed wing, the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, have been killed in an Israeli attack on the Gaza Strip, Palestinian officials say.
Health officials said at least four other Palestinians were wounded on Tuesday in separate Israeli air raids.
The Israeli military said it targeted fighters who had fired mortar rounds across the border.
Hamas said 16 mortar shells were fired towards an Israeli-controlled border crossing in retaliation for the killings.
Sami Abu Zuhri, a Hamas spokesman said Israel's military action "clearly indicates that Israel [is] not interested in achieving calm."
"Therefore they must be ready to pay the price," he told the Associated Press news agency.
The attacks occurred east of the town of Jebaliya, in northern Gaza. (Al Jazeera)
Labels: Hamas, Israel, Palestine
Most Israeli ministers support Gaza military operation
A majority of Israeli ministers on Tuesday voiced their support for launching a military operation in the Gaza Strip, while some others expressed their readiness to accept a serious truce with Palestinian militant groups.
"Israel must launch a large-scale operation in Gaza against Hamas and the rest of the terror organizations," Housing and Construction Minister Zeev Boim was quoted by local daily Yedioth Ahronoth as saying at the weekly cabinet meeting.
He added that "a truce would only serve Hamas' interests" and Israel cannot risk letting the militant group rearm itself "beforethe next round."
"We must act; The question is in what way," Industry, Trade, and Labor Minister Eli Yishai told the cabinet, stressing that theJewish state cannot accept a "virtual" calm that does not include the release of kidnapped soldier Gilad Shalit.
"But if there will be a serious ceasefire, then there's room totalk," he added. (Xinhua)
Survey of Israelis’ Attitudes Toward Politics Finds Disgust and a Growing Apathy
A third of Israelis expressed feelings of nausea, revulsion, depression or despair when asked what they felt or thought about the word “politics,” according to a new survey. Another third said they instinctively associated politics with corruption, betrayal or deceit.
The survey, the annual Democracy Index, being published on Tuesday by the Israel Democracy Institute, an independent research organization, also found that only about 60 percent of the public reported any interest in politics, a drop of 15 percentage points from the 2006 survey. Trust in public institutions has eroded significantly, with the army topping the list as the most trustworthy and the prime minister and political parties ranking last.
Early this year, 1,201 adults were queried in Hebrew, Arabic or Russian for the survey, which has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points. It was conducted before a new political scandal broke involving Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Morris Talansky, a 75-year-old Long Island fund-raiser and financier who testified in May that he had given an estimated $150,000, mostly cash stuffed into envelopes, to Mr. Olmert over a period of 13 years. (NY Times)
Labels: Israel
POLITICS-US: Pledging Allegiance to AIPAC
With the Iranian nuclear "threat" in the crosshairs, discussion of Palestinians or a Syrian-Israeli detente was virtually non-existent. But then again, one should not expect many overtures for peace when attending the annual policy conference for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).
As more than 5,000 Jewish-American activists ascended Capitol Hill last week, the most common word circulating through panel discussions, daily briefings, and remarks made by high-level officials and presidential candidates was "security" -- more accurately, Israel's security.
And most of the tough talk, whether substantive or merely stylistic, was directed at a nuclear Iran and its presumed proxies -- Lebanese Hezbollah, Palestinian Hamas, and even Syria.
The policy prescriptions, outlined in a draft proposal of AIPAC's policy agenda, urge, among other things, that the U.S. "take all appropriate measures to halt Iran's pursuit of nuclear and 152 other weapons of mass destruction and the means to deliver them."
The language remains unsettling for many Democrats and war-weary U.S. citizens, who view it as a license for the President George W. Bush administration to launch a military attack on Iran. (IPS)
Labels: Iran, Israel, Lebanon, Palestine, U.S.
Family of captured Israeli soldier receives letter
The family of Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier abducted by militants in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, received a hand-written letter from him, Israeli officials said on Monday.
Shalit, then 19, was captured on June 25, 2006 by Palestinian gunmen who tunneled into Israel from Gaza. There has been no sign of life from the captive soldier except for a letter in September 2006 and an audio tape released by Hamas last June.
Shalit's family was not available for comment.
The release of the letter comes as Egypt is trying to broker a truce between Israel and Palestinian militant groups in Gaza.
A senior Hamas official said the letter was released in a gesture to former U.S. President Jimmy Carter who met with the group's leaders during a trip to the region in April. (Reuters)
Labels: Hamas, Israel, Palestine
Monday, June 9, 2008
Rice to hold talks with Israeli, Palestinian teams
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice plans to hold a three-way meeting next week with the chief Israeli and Palestinian negotiators, a senior Palestinian official said on Monday.
Marred by disputes over Jewish settlement expansion and violence in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, U.S.-backed peace talks have shown little sign of progress since they were launched at a conference in Annapolis, Maryland in November.
A corruption investigation of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert could trigger new elections, dimming the chances of a deal this year, Israeli, Palestinian and Western officials say.
Palestinian officials said the three-way meeting between Rice and the chief negotiators -- Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and former Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qurie -- would take place on June 15 in Jerusalem, and not June 16 as previously stated.
"It is to review the negotiations in all its aspects," said Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat.
Rice, who will visit Israel and the occupied West Bank, convened a similar three-way meeting earlier this year. (Reuters)
Labels: Israel, Palestine, U.S.
Israeli Attack Looking More Likely
The likelihood of a large-scale Israeli military operation in the Gaza Strip has crept closer as more rockets continue to land in southern Israel and another Israeli was killed by a mortar shell, further hardening attitudes amongst senior ministers against a proposed truce with Hamas.
Speaking to reporters aboard his plane as he returned to Israel from Washington, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Thursday that a military offensive was now a more likely option than a cessation of hostilities with Hamas. "The way it looks now, we are closer to a military operation in Gaza than we are to any other type of (diplomatic) arrangement."
Defence Minister Ehud Barak's assessment was similar. "A military operation is closer than ever, and it may even precede a ceasefire," he said Thursday while touring Kibbutz Nir Oz, where a 51-year-old Israeli man was killed earlier in the day by a mortar shell fired by Islamic militants in the Gaza Strip.
The mortar attack, which killed Amnon Rosenberg, father of three, when it slammed into a paint factory on Nir Oz, brought to three the number of Israelis killed in rocket and mortar attacks from Gaza in the past month.
Barak has been the strongest voice in the Cabinet in favour of accepting a truce with Hamas. Mediated by Egypt, the truce would see an end to the rocket fire from Gaza in exchange for a cessation of Israeli military operations in the strip and an easing of the siege Israel imposed on Gaza when Hamas seized control of the area a year ago. (IPS)
Israel backs away from minister's Iran statement
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert distanced himself on Sunday from a Cabinet minister's suggestion that Israel will be forced to attack Iran.
A spokeswoman for Transportation Minister Shaul Mofaz said he had not been expressing government policy.
Mofaz set off an international uproar over the weekend by saying in a published interview that Israel will have "no choice" but to attack Iran if it doesn't halt its nuclear program. Mofaz is a former military chief and defense minister, and has been Israel's representative in a strategic dialogue on Iran with U.S. officials.
Olmert's spokesman, Mark Regev, did not explicitly reject Mofaz's comments. But he said Olmert clearly stated Israel's policy last week during a trip to Washington.
Speaking to reporters after a White House meeting, Olmert called for tighter international sanctions, including boycotting Iranian businessmen and financial transactions and blocking the country's imports of refined petroleum. He also warned that a more "effective" solution was drawing closer, but would not elaborate. (AP)
Saturday, June 7, 2008
Hundreds of students still stranded in Gaza
They squander their days watching TV and surfing the Web instead of studying, but it's not for lack of discipline: Gaza students accepted at foreign universities are stuck at home because Israel and Egypt won't let them leave the blockaded territory.
The students' plight made headlines last week when Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice interceded with Israel on behalf of seven students with prestigious Fulbright scholarships awarded by the U.S. government. But hundreds without such powerful allies will likely lose their shot at a good education, given Gaza's sparse offerings.
The blockade, imposed after Hamas' violent takeover of Gaza a year ago, is meant to bring down the Islamic militants and inspire Gazans to opt for a more moderate leadership.
But critics say the closure, backed by the international community, is accomplishing the opposite.
Hamas has become more entrenched and Gazans are growing more angry at the West as isolation worsens the strip's poverty, say the critics, who include both Israelis and Palestinians. They add that Gaza is also being robbed of future leaders - the trapped students - because they can't get the necessary training. (AP)
Labels: Hamas, Israel, Palestine, U.S.
Israelis, Palestinians to start writing peace pact
Israel and the Palestinians have agreed to start drafting sections of a proposed peace accord that address the main issues of their conflict, the chief Palestinian negotiator said.
Ahmed Qureia, the veteran negotiator heading the Palestinian team, said the decision did not mean agreement had been reached on the major issues that have tormented peace talks for years: final borders, the status of disputed Jerusalem and the fate of Palestinian refugees.
But it is the first time since negotiations resumed more than six months ago that anything will be put to paper on these divisive questions.
"We agreed with the Israelis to begin writing the positions," Qureia told reporters late Friday. He did not say what issue the two sides would start with.
Israeli government officials declined to comment. (AP)
Robert Fisk: The West's weapon of self-delusion
So they are it again, the great and the good of American democracy, grovelling and fawning to the Israeli lobbyists of American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac), repeatedly allying themselves to the cause of another country and one that is continuing to steal Arab land.
Will this ever end? Even Barack Obama – or "Mr Baracka" as an Irish friend of mine innocently and wonderfully described him – found time to tell his Jewish audience that Jerusalem is the one undivided capital of Israel, which is not the view of the rest of the world which continues to regard the annexation of Arab East Jerusalem as illegal. The security of Israel. Say it again a thousand times: the security of Israel – and threaten Iran, for good measure.
Yes, Israelis deserve security. But so do Palestinians. So do Iraqis and Lebanese and the people of the wider Muslim world. Now even Condoleezza Rice admits – and she was also talking to Aipac, of course – that there won't be a Palestinian state by the end of the year. That promise of George Bush – which no-one believed anyway – has gone. In Rice's pathetic words, "The goal itself will endure beyond the current US leadership."
Of course it will. And the siege of Gaza will endure beyond the current US leadership. And the Israeli wall. And the illegal Israeli settlement building. And deaths in Iraq will endure beyond "the current US leadership" – though "leadership" is pushing the definition of the word a bit when the gutless Bush is involved – and deaths in Afghanistan and, I fear, deaths in Lebanon too. (Independent)
Labels: Israel, Lebanon, Palestine, U.S.
Obama 'softens' Jerusalem stance
Barack Obama has appeared to soften comments he made on Jerusalem that provoked a wave of anger among Arabs.
The presumptive US Democratic presidential nominee had said during a speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Council (Aipac), a pro-Israeli US lobby group, Jerusalem "will remain the capital of Israel and it must remain undivided".
But he later told CNN, the US broadcast network, that the Israelis and Palestinians had to negotiate over the future of the city.
"Well, obviously, it's going to be up to the parties to negotiate a range of these issues. And Jerusalem will be part of those negotiations," Obama said on Thursday.
Obama's remarks to Aipac days earlier appalled Palestinians, who see occupied East Jerusalem as part of a future Palestinian state. (Al Jazeera)
Labels: Israel, Palestine, U.S.
Arabs question Israeli role in Med Union
Arab countries have asked for clarification regarding Israel's membership in a proposed Mediterranean Union, plans for which are due to be unveiled next week, Algeria's foreign minister said Friday. Plans for the Union were at the top of the agenda Friday as the 15th round of the Mediterranean Forum opened in Algiers.
The proposed Union is an idea strongly advocated by French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who is due to present the project on July 13 at a Paris summit of Mediterranean candidates eligible to join the new bloc.
Attending the Forum in Algiers were 11 of the countries that line the Mediterranean to the north and south, including Slovenia - which currently holds the rotating EU presidency - and Libya, which currently heads the Arab Maghreb Union.
"Among the items that must be clarified are the consequences of Israel's presence inside the Mediterranean Union," said Algerian Foreign Minister Mourad Medelci, who opened Friday's conference.
"The Mediterranean Union must not normalize [relations] between Israel and Arab countries, something which has not been achieved by the Barcelona process," launched in 1995 to bring the EU and five countries from the Mediterranean's southern rim closer together, he said. (AFP)
Obama stands by controversial remarks backing Israeli claim to all of Jerusalem
Democratic White House candidate Barack Obama on Thursday defended his remarks that Occupied Jerusalem should not be divided under any Israeli-Palestinian peace pact, saying a divided city would be "very difficult to execute."A day after sparking outrage when he told a Jewish group that Jerusalem must be the "undivided" capital of Israel, Obama told CNN that the issue is still up to the two sides.
"Obviously it's going to be up to the parties to negotiate a range of these issues," he said, "and Jerusalem will be part of those negotiations."
However, he added: "My belief is that as a practical matter it would be very difficult to execute. And I think that it is smart for us to work through a system in which everybody has access to the extraordinary religious sites in old Jerusalem."
But, he said, "Israel has a legitimate claim on that city."
On Wednesday Obama pledged to a meeting of one of Washington's most powerful lobby groups, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), his "unshakeable commitment to Israel's security" if he is elected president in November, while making the statement that Jerusalem should not be undivided. (AFP)
Labels: Israel, Palestine, U.S.
Friday, June 6, 2008
Israel to attack Iran unless enrichment stops: minister
An Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear sites looks "unavoidable" given the apparent failure of sanctions to deny Tehran technology with bomb-making potential, one of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's deputies said on Friday.
"If Iran continues with its program for developing nuclear weapons, we will attack it. The sanctions are ineffective," Transport Minister Shaul Mofaz told the mass-circulation Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper.
"Attacking Iran, in order to stop its nuclear plans, will be unavoidable," said the former army chief who has also been defense minister.
It was the most explicit threat yet against Iran from a member of Olmert's government, which, like the Bush administration, has preferred to hint at force as a last resort should U.N. Security Council sanctions be deemed a dead end.
Iran has defied Western pressure to abandon its uranium enrichment projects, which it says are for peaceful electricity generation rather than bomb-building. The leadership in Tehran has also threatened to retaliate against Israel -- believed to have the Middle East's only atomic arsenal -- and U.S. targets in the Gulf for any attack on Iran. (Reuters)
Labels: Iran, Israel, Nuclear Power
EU VIPs hurt at West Bank protest
European Parliament Vice-President Luisa Morgantini and the Irish Nobel laureate, Mairead Corrigan, have been injured at a protest in the West Bank.
An Italian judge, Julio Toscano, was also hurt when Israeli troops fired tear gas to disperse the demonstration against the West Bank barrier in Bilin.
He suffered head wounds when he was hit by one of the tear-gas canisters.
The incidents came on the last day of an international conference supporting local protests against the barrier.
In September, the Israeli Supreme Court ordered the government to redraw its route near Bilin, accepting an appeal by residents, who had argued it prevented them from reaching 50% of their agricultural land.
The International Court of Justice issued an advisory ruling in 2004 that the barrier breached international law where it is built on occupied Palestinian territory and should be dismantled.
Despite the supreme court's ruling last year, the Israeli authorities have not yet begun to implement it, meaning Bilin's residents continue to be prevented from accessing around 200 hectares (500 acres) of their farmland. (BBC)
Labels: European Union, Israel, Palestine
Olmert threatens Gaza offensive
Israel's prime minister has said that the country's military could launch fresh large-scale military operations in the Gaza Strip.
Ehud Olmert's warning on Friday came as Israeli raids on the occupied Palestinian territory left at least one person dead and at least 17 injured.
"According to the information we have now, the pendulum is much closer to a decision on a harsh operation," Olmert said, soon after he returned from the United States.
He had earlier told US reporters that Israel was heading towards a military operation in Gaza.
He said that Egyptian peace efforts on the Gaza Strip were "not ripening in a way that can bring a ceasefire".
In Friday's raids, a member of the armed wing of Hamas died in an exchange of fire between Palestinian fighters and the Israeli military, emergency medical services said. (Al Jazeera)
Water crucial to Golan talks
Israel recently confirmed that it was in talks with Syria, mediated by Turkey, over the thorny issue of the Golan Heights. The prospect of progress on the Syrian-Israeli front comes as Israel's Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is weakened by allegations of corruption at home.
Although Steve Applebaum does not think that talks over the Golan will ever get anywhere, precisely because of Mr Olmert's domestic "issues", he is nonetheless unimpressed by the prime minister's intentions.
Known as "Apple Steve" for more than just the obvious reason, Mr Applebaum moved to the Ortal Kibbutz, at the northern end of the Golan plateau 25 years ago.
The kibbutz grows some of the best, most desirable fruit you can find. Crunchy apples, sweet cherries and apricots.
Mr Applebaum, who is in charge of irrigation and water supplies on this huge communal farm, knows how important water is to the kibbutz and to Israel.
Golan, added to natural spring-water, ultimately provides Israel with about one-third of its fresh water. (BBC)
Analysis: Growing talk of Iran attack
Last December American intelligence agencies said they had "high confidence" that in late 2003 Iran had stopped trying to build nuclear weapons.
That seemed to end much of the talk about an American - or Israeli - attempt to destroy the facilities that Iran has developed for what it insists is a purely peaceful nuclear programme.
Plenty of influential people in the Middle East, Europe and the United States think an attack on Iran would have consequences potentially as disastrous as the invasion of Iraq in 2003. It would also send oil prices, already through the roof, into orbit.
But the talk has started again. Negotiations with Iran - and sanctions against it - have not stopped it enriching uranium, which its critics say is being done to make a bomb.
In one of his first acts after he secured the Democratic nomination for president of the US, Senator Barack Obama told Aipac, America's most powerful pro-Israel lobby, that he would do everything in his power to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon.
He repeated the word "everything" several times. Even allowing for the fact that he was also trying to dispel the impression that he was soft on Iran, it was strong language. (BBC)
Thursday, June 5, 2008
It's a Mitzvah
Now, here's a change we can believe in.
A mere 12 hours after claiming the Democratic presidential nomination, Barack Obama appeared before the American Israel Public Affairs Committee yesterday -- and changed himself into an Israel hard-liner.
He promised $30 billion in military assistance for Israel. He declared that the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps' Quds Force has "rightly been labeled a terrorist organization." He used terms such as "false prophets of extremism" and "corrupt" while discussing Palestinians. And he promised that "Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel, and it must remain undivided."
Vowing to stop Tehran from getting a nuclear weapon, the newly minted nominee apparent added: "I will always keep the threat of military action on the table to defend our security and our ally, Israel. Do not be confused."
How could they be confused? As a pandering performance, it was the full Monty by a candidate who, during the primary, had positioned himself to Hillary Clinton's left on matters such as Iran. Yesterday, Obama, who has generally declined to wear an American-flag lapel pin, wore a joint U.S.-Israeli pin, and even tried a Hebrew phrase on the crowd. (Washington Post)
Labels: Israel, Palestine, U.S.
Child killed in Israeli air attack
A four-year-old girl has been killed and her mother wounded in an Israeli air strike in the Gaza Strip.
Another woman was also wounded in the attack which the Israelis said had targeted Palestinian armed groups.
The attack came after Palestinian fighters shelled an Israeli kibbutz (collective village), killing one person and injuring three others.
The girl and her mother were outside their house near Khan Yunis in southern Gaza when a drone fired a missile, witnesses said.
The Khan Yunis hospital identified the girl as Aya Al-Manjar and said her mother was critically wounded.
An Israeli military spokeswoman confirmed the attack, saying: "The air force conducted a raid and fired at Palestinian gunmen."
She said the attack targeted the area from which armed Palestinians earlier fired rockets that slammed into a kibbutz in southern Israel, killing one person and wounding four. (Al Jazeera)
Arabs shocked by Obama speech
Arab leaders have reacted with anger and disbelief to an intensely pro-Israeli speech delivered by Barack Obama, the US Democratic presumptive presidential nominee.
Obama told the influential annual policy conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Council (Aipac): "Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel and it must remain undivided."
His comments appalled Palestinians who see occupied East Jerusalem as part of a future Palestinian state.
Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian negotiator, told Al Jazeera on Thursday: "This is the worst thing to happen to us since 1967 ... he has given ammunition to extremists across the region".
"What really disppoints me is that someone like Barack Obama, who runs a campaign on the theme of change - when it comes to Aipac and what's needed to be said differently about the Palestinian state, he fails."
"I say to Obama ... please stop being more Israeli than the Israelis themselves, leave the Israelis and Palestinians alone to make decisions required for peace."
Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, rejected the statement, saying: "We will not accept an independent Palestinian state without having Jerusalem as the capital.
"I believe that case is clear."
He said: "Jerusalem is part of the six points that are subjects on the negotiations' agenda.
"And the whole world knows that East Jerusalem, Arab Jerusalem and Holy Jerusalem were occupied in 1967." (Al Jazeera)
Labels: Israel, Palestine, U.S.
Iran's Lebanese 'aircraft carrier'
Indirect negotiations between Israel and Syria over a possible return of the Golan Heights have major implications for the Lebanese political and militant organisation Hezbollah.
A peace deal with Israel is likely to be conditional on Syria severing its connections with Hezbollah, but it would also remove Syria as the bridge to the group's other state backer, Iran.
In Hezbollah's stronghold in southern Beirut, Alam Shourab, a young manager of a mobile phone shop, is very happy with the movement's dependence on Iran.
Here dozens of buildings and bridges that were bombed by Israel during the summer war in 2006 are are being rapidly and impressively rebuilt mostly with funding from Iran.
"I think this is a good thing," he told me, "Israel is supported by America, so there's nothing wrong with Hezbollah being supported by Iran."
The support is considerable. At the Carnegie Endowment independent think tank in Beirut, Paul Salem put it in a nutshell: "Hezbollah was set up, established, trained, armed, financed... wholly by Iran."
He says Hezbollah has about 50,000 salaried employees and "a large modern army" - most of whom are paid with money from Tehran. (BBC)
Labels: Hezbollah, Iran, Israel, Lebanon, Syria
Zawahiri urges more Israel attacks
Ayman al-Zawahiri, al-Qaeda's second-in-command, has called on Palestinians to step up attacks on Israel, according to a new audio clip.
Increased suicide and rocket attacks were the only way to end Israel's blockade of the Gaza Strip, a voice attributed to the Egyptian-born al-Qaeda deputy said in the message posted online on Wednesday.
The message marked the 41st anniversary of the 1967 Middle East war, which Arabs refer to as the "naksa" or "setback", a banner accompanying the 11-minute audio file read.
Israel occupied the West Bank, including Arab East Jerusalem, Gaza, the Sinai and the Golan Heights during the war.
In the audio clip, the speaker told Palestinians: "Step up your martyrdom-seeking operations, and increase your missiles and ambushes, as there is no solution but this.
"Salvation of the Muslim nation is through the march of its sons on the path of jihad." (Al Jazeera)
Syria says Israel terms signal not serious on peace
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said if Israel keeps insisting that peace talks resume from scratch it would show the Jewish state was not serious about reaching a deal with Syria.
Israel and Syria said last month they had launched indirect peace talks mediated by Turkish officials, the first negotiations between the two sides in eight years.
The last peace talks came close to a deal over the Golan Heights but broke down in 2000 over control of the shore of Sea of Galilee, from which Israel takes much of its water.
Syria wants the full return of the Golan Heights, which Israel seized from Syria in the 1967 Middle East war.
Assad said during a visit to Kuwait that the Israelis were insisting that negotiations restart from scratch and that the progress made in the earlier talks in the 1990s be cancelled.
"This signals that Israel does not desire peace and is not willing to reach it," he said in comments carried by Kuwait's state news agency KUNA. (Reuters)
Almost half of South now cleared of cluster bombs
Almost half the areas in South Lebanon contaminated with cluster bombs dropped by Israel in 2006 have been cleared, a UN official said on Wednesday. "Forty-three percent of the areas affected by cluster bombs dropped during the July 2006 war have been cleared," said Dalya Farran, spokeswoman for UN Mine Action Coordination Center for South Lebanon.
"Efforts are under way to clean 49 percent of the contaminated areas," she told AFP, adding that work had yet to begin in 8 percent of the affected areas.
She said 970 contaminated sites had been found in an area that spanned some 39 million square meters.
Since the war's end in August 2006, cluster bombs have caused "256 civilian casualties between deaths and injuries," added Farran.
She said that there have also been 51 casualties from the Lebanese Army and international forces in the area.
Farran added that Israel had to make known "the number of bombs that were dropped as well as their locations." (AFP)
Labels: Israel, Lebanon, U.N., Weapons Ban
When the nukes start dropping ...
Most men, it is generally agreed, will do anything to survive. In my favorite World War II/Holocaust movie, Lina Wertmuller's 1975 Seven Beauties, a harmless little nebbish of an Italian petty thief, Pasqualino (Giancarlo Giannini), finds himself in a horrible, hellish Nazi concentration camp; the camp setting is some sort of huge, enclosed, indoor hall, a setting so evil that the inmates never even see the sun.
To survive, Pasqualino agrees to make love to the camp commandant, a ghastly, sadistic, Brobdingnagian-girthed gorgon-like SS officer, played by Shirley Stoler. Pasqualino outlasts both the camp and the war, but his soul dies. He did what he had to do to survive.
Failing being placed in a circumstance where their lives are at stake, there are things that men don't want to do. One of those is to kiss another man. In 1978, on the NBC Network program Saturday Night Live, the troupe performed a skit lampooning the legends of white slaveowners forcing themselves onto their black slaves in the US ante-bellum south. The script called for comedian Bill Murray, playing a slaveowner, to attempt to force his desires on an unwilling slave; the comedy was in that the slave was not a woman, but America's favorite, cheerful, non-threatening African-American of the time, O J Simpson. (Asia Times)
Labels: GCC, Iran, Israel, Nuclear Power, U.S.
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
4 Fulbright students leave Gaza
Israel allowed four Palestinian Fulbright scholars to travel to Jerusalem to apply for U.S. student visas but delayed permission for three others to leave the Gaza Strip, one of the students and a human rights group said Wednesday.
American officials have protested Israel's prior refusal to allow the scholars to leave the Hamas-ruled territory. Israel has insisted that its security considerations are the overriding concern.
The prestigious scholarships were briefly deferred when the students could not get out of Gaza, but were reinstated Monday after intercession by the State Department.
U.S. diplomats had told the students the deferments were necessary because Israel would not grant an exception to its near-total travel ban on Palestinians living in the sealed-off Gaza Strip.
Gisha, an Israeli human rights group that escorted the four students after they entered Israel, said the delay for the three other students probably meant security checks were taking longer than anticipated.
Gisha director Sari Bashi welcomed the approval for the four students but said the rest should be allowed out. (AP)
Labels: Israel, Palestine, U.S.
Chomsky: Bush's bankrupt vision
In mid-May, President Bush travelled to the Middle East to establish his legacy more firmly in the part of the world that has been the prime focus of his presidency.
The trip had two principal destinations, each chosen to celebrate a major anniversary: Israel, the 60th anniversary of its founding and recognition by the United States, and Saudi Arabia, the 75th anniversary of US recognition of the newly founded kingdom. The choices made good sense in the light of history and the enduring character of US Middle East policy: control of oil, and support of the proxies who help maintain it.
An omission, however, was not lost on the people of the region. Though Bush celebrated the founding of Israel, he did not recognise (let alone commemorate) the paired event from 60 years ago: the destruction of Palestine, the Nakba, as Palestinians refer to the events that expelled them from their lands.
During his three days in Jerusalem, the president was an enthusiastic participant in lavish events and made sure to go to Masada, a near-sacred site of Jewish nationalism.
But he did not visit the seat of the Palestinian authority in Ramallah, or Gaza City, or a refugee camp, or the town of Qalqilya Ñ strangled by the Separation Wall, now becoming an Annexation Wall under the illegal Israeli settlement and development programmes that Bush has endorsed officially, the first president to do so. (Khaleej Times)
Labels: Iran, Israel, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, U.S.
Israel halts Gaza fuel after depot attack
Israel suspended fuel deliveries to the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip on Wednesday after a mortar fired by Palestinian militants struck the territory's only fuel depot, wounding a Palestinian worker.
Israel blamed Islamist Hamas, which opposes coexistence with the Jewish state, for the attack on Nahal Oz border crossing. But Hamas issued a rare denial of involvement and said it would try to halt Palestinian fire against Gaza's imports conduits.
"Fuel deliveries were frozen after the mortar hit," said Gil Karie, a spokesman for the Israeli District Coordination Office, which oversees deliveries to Gaza.
"They are checking the situation ... We don't know yet if it will open again today, or at what time."
Deliveries of European Union-funded fuel to Gaza's sole power station were not affected because no deliveries had been scheduled for Wednesday, an EU official said.
Israel has reduced supplies to Gaza since Hamas routed the forces of Western-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to take over the coastal territory in June 2007. Israel has suspended fuel deliveries in the past after militant attacks. (Reuters)
Labels: Hamas, Israel, Palestine
AIPAC Roundup
Olmert - (Full Transcript)
"We must stop the Iranian threat by all possible means," he said.
"Each and every country must understand that the long-term cost of a nuclear Iran greatly outweighs the short-term benefits of doing business with Iran." (Haaretz)
McCain - (Full Transcript)
The unofficial Republican nominee called for tougher sanctions as a means of safeguarding Israel as well as promoting U.S. interests. Of the horrors of the Holocaust he had this to say: ”When we join in saying ‘never again,’ that is not a wish, a request, or a plea to the enemies of Israel. It is a promise that the U.S. and Israel will honor, against any enemy who cares to test us.” The crowd erupted in a standing ovation.
The Arizona senator, who coauthored the Iran-Iraq Arms Non-Proliferation Act in 1992, suggested limiting gasoline imports as well as specific sanctions on the regime’s leaders such as denying visas and freezing assets. To harm the leaders further, McCain also called for a “world-wide divestment campaign.”
“As more people, businesses, pension funds, and financial institutions across the world divest from companies doing business with Iran, the radical elite who run that country will become even more unpopular than they are already,” he said.
McCain said the responsibility falls first on the United Nations Security Council—but that the U.S. should be prepared to take action. “Should the Security Council continue to delay in this responsibility, the U.S. must lead like-minded countries in imposing multilateral sanctions outside the U.N. framework,” McCain said to applause from the large crowd. McCain said the U.S. specifically should impose financial sanctions on the Central Bank of Iran. (WSJ)
Hilary -
"I know that Senator Obama will be a good friend to Israel." (Haaretz)
Obama - (Full Transcript)
"Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel and it must remain undivided," Obama told the vast annual policy conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Council (AIPAC).
"We must isolate Hamas unless and until they renounce terrorism, recognize Israel's right to exist, and abide by past agreements. There is no room at the negotiating table for terrorist organizations."(AFP)
"I'll do everything in my power to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. Everything," Obama told the pro-Israel lobby at a conference in Washington, only hours after securing his party's nomination.
The Illinois senator also vowed he would never compromise on Israel's security, especially "not while there are still groups who deny the holocaust, not when there are terrorist groups that are committed to Israel's destruction... Not while there are rockets raining down on Sderot."
"I will always stand up for Israel's right to defend itself in the United Nations and around the world," he added. (Haaretz)
Rice - (Full Transcript)
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice... stressed the urgency of establishing a Palestinian state, saying that the increase in violence in the Middle East makes the establishment of a peaceful Palestinian state more urgent rather than less.
Regarding the Iranian issue, Rice said "We would be willing to meet with them, but not while they continue to inch closer to a nuclear weapon under the cover of talk."
"Our partners in Europe and beyond need to exploit Iran's vulnerabilities more vigorously and impose greater costs on the regime - economically, financially, politically and diplomatically," she added. (Haaretz)
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Labels: Iran, Israel, Roundup, U.S.
Assad rules out direct talks with Israel until 2009
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said direct peace talks with Israel are unlikely before 2009, adding they also depended on the stability of Israel's government, an Emirati newspaper reported on Tuesday. "The date to begin direct talks depends on Israel itself. There is a crisis related to [Israeli Prime Minister Ehud] Olmert," Al-Khaleej daily quoted Assad as telling local newspaper editors during a visit to the United Arab Emirates.
Olmert has been dogged by a corruption scandal in recent weeks, and many analysts believe he may be forced to resign or call early elections.
Direct talks would not start before next year and "depend on the stability of the Israeli government, and the seriousness of the other party," Assad said, ac-cording to the newspaper, which paraphrased his remarks.
Assad, who concluded a visit to the UAE on Tuesday, said that the Turkish-brokered indirect talks with Israel would eventually need "international sponsorship" from the United States.
Israel and Syria confirmed last month that they had resumed peace negotiations after an eight-year break. Israel said that they began through Turkish go-betweens in February 2007.
The last round of peace talks broke down in 2000 over the fate of the Golan Heights, the strategic plateau which Israel seized from Syria in the 1967 war. (AFP)
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
Report: Assad says talks with Israel need US sponsor
Syria's president said he was willing to hold direct peace talks with Israel in the future under U.S. sponsorship, laying out his vision of how negotiations could progress.
President Bashar Assad said the preliminary stages of negotiations will be conducted indirectly - both countries recently confirmed that they are holding peace talks through Turkish mediators - and that they don't need a sponsor.
"We believe indirect negotiations are sufficient at this stage as we are still negotiating to find a common ground," he said, according to United Arab Emirates newspaper interviews published Tuesday. He is on a trip to Gulf states to discuss regional issues.
"(But) we are willing to move to direct negotiations once this is reached," he said. "In later stages, they would require international sponsorship especially from the United States, a superpower that has special ties with Israel."
The Syrian leader has previously said direct talks with Israel will probably not begin until a new U.S. administration takes office. His latest comments further clarified what role he hopes the U.S. will play in the negotiations.
In Washington, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said neither country has asked Washington to play a role in the talks. He indicated that the U.S. wants to focus for now on the Palestinian-Israeli track which the Bush administration helped relaunch last year. (AP)
Ahmadinejad says Israel to vanish with or without Iran
The state of Israel will cease to exist with or without the involvement of Iran, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Tuesday.
"This will happen whether we are involved in it or not," the Iranian leader told a news conference at a U.N. food summit in Rome, when asked to explain his statement on Monday that the Jewish state would soon disappear from the map. (Reuters)
Israeli strikes in Gaza after rocket barrage
An Israeli air strike injured three Islamic Jihad militants in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip on Tuesday after cross-border rockets fired from the territory wounded five Israelis.
One of the Islamic Jihad militants was critically injured in the air strike near the southern Gaza town of Khan Younis, medical officials and Islamic Jihad said.
An Israeli army spokesman said the air strike had targeted a single "armed Palestinian as he was preparing to launch rockets" into Israel.
The spokesman said the same area had been used by militants earlier in the day to launch five cross-border rockets at the Israeli village of Yesha, injuring five agricultural workers.
Israel frequently launches raids into the Gaza Strip, which it says are aimed at curbing cross-border rockets fired by Palestinian militants. The rocket salvoes rarely cause death or injury but sow panic in southern Israeli communities. (Reuters)
Labels: Islamic Jihad, Israel, Palestine
'Military Escalation Brewing'
After another round of Egypt-brokered talks between Israel and Palestinian resistance factions, a cessation of hostilities remains elusive as ever. According to statements by both sides, failure to achieve a degree of calm in the short term could lead instead to open confrontation.
"Both sides appear to be heading not to a ceasefire but towards military escalation," Abdelaziz Shadi, political science professor and coordinator of the Israeli studies programme at Cairo University, told IPS.
Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman made a quick trip last month to Tel Aviv where he tried to persuade Israeli leaders to back an Egyptian proposal for a calming of hostilities, or "tahdia", between the Hebrew state and Palestinian resistance factions.
In April, Suleiman convinced resistance group Hamas, along with a dozen smaller resistance factions, to sign on to the plan.
The initiative calls for a halt to Israeli military assaults on targets in the Gaza Strip in return for an end to the firing of Palestinian rockets on Israeli towns. In addition to a cessation of hostilities, the Egyptian proposal also calls for the reopening of border crossings -- including Egypt's Rafah terminal.
Since Hamas wrested control of the territory almost a year ago (after winning an election in 2006), virtually all routes in and out of the Gaza Strip have been hermetically sealed by the Israeli authorities.
Under the terms of the proposal, the ceasefire would initially apply only to the Gaza Strip. In the event that the truce holds, it would be extended to the West Bank, governed by the western-backed Fatah Party of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.
But the offer met with a tepid response by Israeli officials, who insisted on attaching several of their own conditions. (IPS)
Labels: Egypt, Israel, Palestine
Remains 'were from five Israelis'
Israel's military says human remains handed over by Hezbollah were of five Israeli soldiers killed in the 2006 war with the Lebanese Shia movement.
Military sources said four had died when their helicopter was shot down two days before the conflict ended.
The fifth was killed by an anti-tank missile in a separate incident.
The remains were delivered on Sunday after Israel released a Lebanese-born man who had served six years in prison for spying for Hezbollah.
Correspondents say the exchange raised speculation that there had been progress in indirect talks between Israel and Hezbollah over a broader prisoner swap.
This could involve two Israeli soldiers captured by Hezbollah in 2006 - an incident which prompted the 33-day war - and a number of Lebanese citizens held by Israel. (BBC)
Labels: Hezbollah, Israel, Lebanon
Israel: Report peace talks with Syria set to resume Thursday not true
The Prime Minister's Office denied on Tuesday reports by the Syrian news agency Sham Press saying that indirect peace talks between Israel and Syria were set to resume in two days in Turkey.
According to the report, quoted from the Jordanian magazine "A Liwa", the two sides were preparing to discuss the establishment of negotiation teams as well as other issues on the negotiation agenda.
The Prime Minister's Office issued a statement saying that the officials leading the negotiations were in the United States together with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, and will still be there in two days.
Syrian sources told "A Liwa" that Syria is demanding mutual security agreements in talks. The sources stressed that Syria was demanding that Israel return the Golan Heights, the territory that Israel captured from Syria during the 1967 Six-Day War, and that its sovereignty over the territory would be modeled after Israel return of the Sinai Peninsula to Egypt in 1982. The Sinai agreement stipulates that Egypt receive complete sovereignty over the territory while maintaining special security arrangements with Israel and arrangements regarding the entry of Israelis into its territory.
Turkish sources told "A Liwa" that during the previous round of negotiations between Israel and Syria, the sides discussed Israeli withdrawal from the Golan, commercial ties between the two nations, division of the water reserves from Israel's Sea of Galilee and diplomatic relations. (Haaretz)
Israel court condemns student ban
The Israeli Supreme Court has called on the government to reconsider its almost total ban on Palestinian students leaving the Gaza Strip to study abroad.
The court said the policy was harming prospects for future coexistence between Israelis and Palestinians.
This follows the reinstatement by the US state department of Fulbright grants to seven Palestinians in Gaza.
The scholarships had been withdrawn because Israel would not provided exit permits to the students.
Israel tightened its blockade of Gaza after Hamas seized power there a year ago, largely cutting off the territory from the outside world.
The Israeli Supreme Court heard on Monday a petition filed by Israeli human rights group Gisha on behalf of two Palestinian students whose requests to leave Gaza to study in Britain and Germany have been rejected by Israel.
Palestinian human rights groups in Gaza said hundreds of students would miss deadlines to pursue studies at universities abroad if Israel did not relax travel restrictions. (BBC)
On Stand, Imam Tells of Torture in Israel
A Muslim cleric living in New Jersey graphically described on Monday the torture to which he claims he was subjected in Israeli custody. The description came during the final day of testimony as he fought to block efforts by the United States to deport him on grounds that he lied on his residency application.
The detention is at the heart of the deportation proceedings against the cleric, Mohammad Qatanani, a Palestinian who has been the spiritual leader at the Islamic Center of Passaic County in New Jersey since 1996.
United States officials, in rejecting his bid for permanent residency, said that Mr. Qatanani failed to disclose on his green card application a 1993 arrest and conviction in Israel for being a member of the militant group Hamas.
Mr. Qatanani denies the charges, saying he and many other Palestinians were detained, not arrested, by the Israelis at the time. He claims that he was not aware of the conviction and that he was subjected to physical and mental abuse while in detention. Over the past few weeks, a number of character witnesses have testified on his behalf, incl