Erdogan: Israel erasing Palestinians: YNet
Turkish prime minister slams Israeli approval of new homes in east Jerusalem, says normalization of relations depends on lifting of Gaza siege
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan condemned an Israeli decision to approve hundreds of new housing units in east Jerusalem, Turkish news agencies reported Friday.
In a meeting with his party, the Justice and Development Party (AK), Erdogan said ties between Israel and Turkey would not return to normal until the removal of the siege on the Gaza Strip.
Erdogan added that the decision to approve 1,600 new homes in Jerusalem’s Ramat Shlomo neighborhood was “unacceptable”, and proves Israel “wants to erase the Palestinians step by step”.
He called on Israel to halt all settlement activity and allow worshippers into Temple Mount immediately. “The steps taken by Israel can harm regional stability,” Erdogan added.
Tensions have been mounting between Jerusalem and Ankara since Operation Cast Lead last year, and Turkey has criticized Israel severely for its actions in the Gaza Strip.
Despite this, Turkey’s ambassador to Israel was optimistic last week, and told MKs “developments” would take place soon in the relations between the two countries.
EDITOR: The ‘Only Democracy in the Middle East’…
The Only democracy, maybe the only democracy in the world… is of course a Jewish, Zionist and racist democracy. Most people understood this a long time ago. In an editorial attacking this racist and antidemocratic legislation, which denies the Palestinians the right to mourn the Nakba, as it might annoy some Israelis who dance their ‘independence’ on that day. The right to mourn is obviously only a right Jews should have…
Mocking democracy: Haaretz Editorial
The Knesset yesterday put Israeli democracy to shame when it passed the “Nakba Law” at first reading with a majority of 15 against eight.
If the law is passed at second and third readings it will be able to deprive bodies of state support and fine them if they mark Independence Day as a day of mourning, or if they hold memorial events for the Palestinians’ “catastrophe” in 1948.
The proposal adopted at the end of the Knesset’s winter session was “moderate” compared to the original one initiated by MK Alex Miller of Yisrael Beiteinu. It stipulates fining public institutions that hold activity “denying Israel’s existence as a Jewish and democratic state,” and activity supporting armed struggle or terror against the state, inciting to racism or degrading the state’s flag or symbol.
The bill is not aimed at punishing individuals and threatening them with imprisonment, as the original version was.
But the amended version, despite its euphemistic wording, cannot hide the cabinet’s intention – excluding Arab citizens and infringing disproportionately on their freedom of expression and their right to tell their own historic narrative.
Avigdor Lieberman’s party, which ran a blatant election campaign against Israeli Arabs, has scored a victory on its way to implementing its racist slogan of “no loyalty – no citizenship.”
The idea that it is possible to blur the Arab community’s past consciousness with laws and threats of fines is stupid. The “Nakba” wasn’t forgotten in the 62 years since Israel’s establishment, and the term is much more familiar and prevalent among Israelis today than in previous generations.
The Palestinian refugees’ flight, the destruction of hundreds of Arab villages and the erection of Jewish towns and settlements in their stead are part of Israeli history. It cannot be made to disappear, as the majority’s narrative cannot be foisted onto a fifth of Israel’s citizens.
The threat of depriving institutions that mark the “Nakba” of state financing is reminiscent of Culture Minister Limor Livnat’s complaints against the co-director of the movie “Ajami,” Scandar Copti, who said he does not represent Israel.
Like the “Nakba Law” initiators, Livnat too believes that an artist who receives state support is bound to “loyalty” and must represent the state in competitions abroad.
This is the Netanyahu-Lieberman cabinet’s spirit – we’ll support only those who think like us.
Integrating Arab citizens into Israeli society is first and foremost a national interest, and its implementation requires that the Jewish majority display tolerance and openness toward the minority.
Clearly the conflict makes this difficult and the Jewish-Arab rift will not disappear soon. But proposals like the “Nakba Law,” beyond violating basic democratic values, will only push the Arab community to greater extremism and separatism.
The Knesset should be ashamed of passing the law at first reading. The Kadima and Labor factions should be denounced for not opposing it. But it’s not too late to block the harmful law in the next readings, before it stains Israel’s body of law.
Leading article: Barack Obama should keep the pressure on Israel: The Independent Editorial
The American President has some new domestic cards to play
It is a testament to the hubris of Benjamin Netanyhau’s government that having seen off an attempt by Barack Obama to freeze settlement construction, it has now given the US President a second chance to claw back that defeat. Much has been said about the inadequacy of Mr Netanyahu’s apologetic admission that last week’s announcement of a plan to expand the Ramat Shlomo settlement was badly timed. As the American Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, made admirably clear to the Israeli Prime Minister in her famous telephone call last Friday, Washington objected to the substance as much as to the timing.
Yet the timing was indeed bad. It came less than 48 hours after Mr Obama’s envoy George Mitchell had finally been able to announce that indirect negotiations would go ahead – negotiations which an infuriated Palstinian leadership said it would not participate in if the plan stood. It is hard to believe that some in Israel’s government did not know that this would be the consequence. Certainly Mr Netanyhau’s suggestion that because the settlement is viewed by most Israelis as an integral part of Jewish Jerusalem, nobody thought to challenge it, is extraordinarily lame. No one who has been around Middle East politics as long as he has could be ignorant of how Palestinians would see the move.
One view is that President Obama is heading for another defeat and that in an election year he cannot withstand the wrath of the powerful right- wing pro-Israel lobbying group, AIPAC. If so, serious scrutiny of the way AIPAC uses its ample funding to influence American democracy, mainly in what it perceives to be the interests of a foreign government, is overdue. Fortunately the arrival of J Street, a vastly less well-funded group but one more representative of the impressive majority of American Jews who voted for Mr Obama in 2008, and which is backing him now, makes that possible without the usual charges of anti-Semitism.
But, as it happens, many American Jews will rally to the powerful argument that by restraining a Likud government prepared to jepoardise peace talks in this way, Mr Obama is actually acting as a true friend of Israel and its long-term security. And Mr Obama also has other domestic cards to play. This week’s warning by General David Petraeus of the “enormous” effect of continued Israeli-Palestinian tension on the tasks confronted by US forces in Muslim countries like Afghanistan and Iraq is a salutary, if overdue, reminder that an end to the conflict is an urgent American interest as well as an Israeli and Palestinian one.
Yet Mr Obama may not be able to rely on mere rhetoric as President Bush senior did not when he briefly suspended loan guarantees to bring Israel to negotiations in 1991. Here the EU, a key trading partner of Israel, needs to lend its (albeit secondary) support. Lady Ashton did herself nothing but good yesterday by visiting Gaza. She should add her voice at the Quartet meeting in Moscow today to those urging an end to the destructive two and half year economic siege.
She was of course right to condemn yesterday’s fatal Qassam rocket attack. And as she grows in authority, Baroness Ashton should ally herself with US efforts to break the wider deadlock in the Middle East. That need not bring Mr Netanyahu down (though it may). The Israeli prime minister could reach out to the centre and left to replace the fundamentalists in his coalition. But it is primarily the job of Mr Obama to help him decide whether those friends are more important to him than the alliance with the US.
EDITOR: A sea-change on settlements?
I an interesting response to Israel’s offensive and badly managed operation last week, which has managed to annoy just about everyone elsewhere, we can see that the Gaza Carnage in 2008/2009 has at last started to change the dynamics in Palestine. While there is no doubt that we are a long way away from a solution, there seems to be growing international tiredness with Israel and its aggressive agenda and murderous actions, and a greater readiness to confront it. Netanyahu and Liberman are obviously helping to bring this about, as their behaviour can hardly be acceptable even to hardened Zionist such as Biden and Clinton, as well as Obama. It will certainly take more to persuade dyed-in-the-wool Zionists like Brown and Sarkozy, but maybe their time is over, anyway. It seems clear to me that Israel has moved itself into a defensive square on the international map, and that its propaganda is no longer managing to cower international figures as it did in the past.
This is still not enough, of course. Palestine is now represented by a pliant and spineless unelected government, and unless there is a change there, and resistance to the occupation, wall, settlements and the daily illegalities and brutalities are enshrined by the PNA, and also its own opeaations become democratic and open, then the chances for a just political settlement must be as low as they have ever been, or lower. With the war criminal Tony Blair representing the Quartet (what did he ever do to bring about negotiations, in the years he spent being paid by the Quartet?) then the chances for it playing a positive role are nil.
Middle East Quartet urges Israeli settlement freeze: BBC
The international Quartet of Middle East peace mediators has urged Israel to freeze all settlement activity.
Speaking for the Quartet, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon condemned Israel’s announcement of plans to build new homes in disputed East Jerusalem.
That move undermined efforts to restart indirect Israeli-Palestinian talks.
Speaking to the BBC, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton indicated that hardening the tone with Israel had paid off, with talks now back in prospect.
Mr Ban met Mrs Clinton and the other Quartet foreign ministers – new EU foreign policy chief Baroness Ashton and Russia’s Sergei Lavrov – in Moscow.
[The Quartet] condemns the decision by the government of Israel to advance planning for new housing units in East Jerusalem
Ban Ki-moon
UN Secretary General
In a strongly worded statement, the Quartet condemned Israel’s announcement last week of planning permission for 1,600 new homes in East Jerusalem, occupied by Israel since 1967.
After the announcement, the Palestinians declared they could not begin US-brokered indirect, or “proximity”, talks with the Israelis.
“The Quartet urges the government of Israel to freeze all settlement activity, including natural growth, dismantle outposts erected since March 2001 and to refrain from demolitions and evictions in East Jerusalem,” Mr Ban said.
“Recalling that the annexation of East Jerusalem is not recognised by the international community, the Quartet underscores that the status of Jerusalem is a permanent status issue that must be resolved through negotiations between the parties, and condemns the decision by the government of Israel to advance planning for new housing units in East Jerusalem.”
ANALYSIS
Kim Ghattas, BBC News, Moscow
Hillary Clinton seems to believe that the spat over settlements with Israel might produce something positive. In a BBC interview she appeared to concede that escalating the tone with the Israelis had been a risk but she said it was “paying off”.
She added she believed there would be a “resumption of the negotiating track soon”. In other words, pressure on Israel is working.
But the pressure will have to continue if there are to be concrete results. Israeli officials are already pushing back.
Mrs Clinton said Benjamin Netanyahu had committed to peace and she made clear she expected him to deliver. She added it was his responsibility to bring the whole of his government, a right-wing coalition, on board.
Mr Ban stated the goal of an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement – including a Palestinian state – within two years.
Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erekat welcomed the Quartet statement and urged the creation of a “surveillance mechanism installed by the Quartet to make sure that Israel does effectively halt completely all settlement activity in the West Bank and East Jerusalem”.
The pressure is now on the Israelis to offer concessions that will convince the Palestinians to participate in talks, says the BBC’s Richard Galpin in Moscow.
But Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said the Quartet timetable was unrealistic and ignored “the last 16 years of Israeli attempts” at negotiating with the Palestinians.
He said Israel had made many “significant gestures” and it was up to the Palestinians to “prove that they are really interested in negotiations”.
Mrs Clinton told the BBC she hoped to see the resumption of indirect talks in the near future, eventually moving to direct talks.
Asked whether she had taken a risk in escalating the tone with Israel, Mrs Clinton said: “I think we are going to see the resumption of the negotiating track, and that means that is paying off, because that is our goal.”
West Bank clashes
Events on Friday in the Middle East highlighted the difficulties the Quartet faces.
Palestinians in the West Bank town of Hebron threw stones at Israeli security forces, who fired tear gas in return.
And a rocket was fired into southern Israel from the Gaza Strip. It caused no injuries, but came a day after a rocket attack killed a Thai agricultural worker when it hit an Israeli kibbutz.
Israeli aircraft attacked up to six targets in Gaza overnight but there were no reports of any serious casualties.
On the eve of the Quartet meeting, Mr Netanyahu informed Mrs Clinton of new confidence-building measures that could be taken, but no details have been given.
It is likely this means a goodwill gesture by the Israelis, like the release of Palestinian prisoners, says the BBC’s Kim Ghattas, travelling with Mrs Clinton.
Enough progress was apparently made in their telephone conversation for George Mitchell, Washington’s Middle East envoy, to travel to the region this weekend.
Mr Netanyahu is to visit Washington next week for further talks with Mrs Clinton.
At the heart of the conflict are disputes over the status of Jerusalem, the borders of Israel and a future Palestinian state and the fate of Palestinian refugees.