Turkey demands apology from Israel over envoy ‘slight’: BBC
Turkey has demanded that Israel apologise over what it called the “discourteous” way its ambassador was treated during a diplomatic meeting.
Israel summoned Turkey’s ambassador to rebuke him over a TV series but ensured he was photographed on a lower chair.
In response, Turkey has summoned the Israeli ambassador to Ankara to express its “annoyance”.
The foreign ministry has also insisted it expects steps to be taken to compensate its envoy.
In a statement, the ministry said it awaited “an explanation and apology” for the “attitude” of Israel’s Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon.
“We invite the Israeli foreign ministry to respect the rules of diplomatic courtesy,” the statement said.
The television series that sparked the diplomatic row depicts Israeli intelligence agents as baby-snatchers.
‘Repeated provocation’
Footage of Mr Ayalon urging journalists to make clear that the ambassador was seated on a low sofa, while the Israeli officials were in much higher chairs, has been widely broadcast by the Israeli media.
He is also heard pointing out in Hebrew that “there is only one flag here” and “we are not smiling”.
In an interview with Israel’s Army Radio, Mr Ayalon was unapologetic.
“In terms of the diplomatic tactics available, this was the minimum that was warranted given the repeated provocation by political and other players in Turkey,” he said, according to Reuters.
One Israeli newspaper marked the height difference on the photo, and captioned it “the height of humiliation”.
The meeting with the Turkish ambassador, Ahmet Oguz Celikkol, was called over the fictional television series Valley of the Wolves, popular in Turkey.
It depicts Israeli intelligence operatives running operations to kidnap babies and convert them to Judaism.
Last October Israel complained over another Turkish series, which depicted Israeli soldiers killing Palestinians. In one clip, an Israeli soldier shoots dead a smiling young girl at close range.
The row comes ahead of a planned visit by Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak to Turkey on Sunday.
Turkey has long been an ally of Israel, but relations have deteriorated as Ankara has repeatedly criticised Israel for its offensive in Gaza a year ago.
Rights groups say about 1,400 Palestinians died during the operation, which Israel said was aimed at ending rocket fire by Hamas.
Please note: the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and olanned ones in Yemen and Iran are obviously not enough for Netanyahu! Now Tuekey is on the gunsight…
Netanyahu: Turkey drift toward Iran is worrying: Haaretz
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday that Turkey’s closer ties with Iran and Syria were a cause for concern in Jerusalem and that he fully backs Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman for the controversial reprimand delivered by his deputy in a meeting with Ankara’s ambassador.
“Turkey is consistently gravitating eastward to Syria and Iran rather than westward [over the last two years],” Netanyahu told aides. “This is a trend that certainly has to worry Israel.”
Officials in the prime minister’s bureau said that the decision to summon the Turkish ambassador for a reprimand was jointly made by Netanyahu and Lieberman.
Netanyahu aides added that the premier was not aware of the choreographed nature of the meeting between Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon and Turkish ambassador Ahmet Oguz Celikkol.
“From the moment the incident occurred, the prime minister is fully backing the foreign minister,” a source close to Netanyahu said.
The Turkish government communicated a blunt message Tuesday demanding an official apology from Ayalon for his televised castigation of Ankara’s ambassador to Tel Aviv.
Turkey said that Israel’s refusal to apologize posthaste would prompt retaliatory “diplomatic steps.” Israeli officials said that, in the worst case scenario, Turkey could recall its ambassador as a sign of protest.
Turkish officials made the demand during a meeting Tuesday to which they summoned Israel’s ambassador to Ankara, Gabi Levy.
The Israeli ambassador was asked to clarify a Foreign Ministry statement in response to Turkish Prime Minister Reccep Tayip Erdogan’s criticism of Operation Cast Lead. “The Turks are the last ones who can preach morality to Israel,” the statement read.
“We’re waiting for an apology from the Israeli side very soon,” a Turkish official told Levy. “If there won’t be an apology, we will respond with diplomatic steps of our own.”
A Turkish official denounced Ayalon and Lieberman on Tuesday as “adolescent youths” for the incident.
Israeli officials were angered by statements made Monday by Turkish Prime Minister Reccep Tayip Erdogan, who accused Jerusalem of using “disproportionate power … while refusing to abide by UN resolutions” relating to its policy toward the Palestinians.
In addition, Israeli officials were furious over a recently aired Turkish television program, “Valley of the Wolves,” which portrays Shin Bet security service agents as child kidnappers.
In response, Ayalon summoned the Turkish ambassador to Israel, Ahmet Oguz Celikkol, for consultations.
During the meeting, Celikkol was seated in a low sofa, and facing him, in higher chairs, were Ayalon and two other officials – an arrangement carried out on the orders of Ayalon’s superior, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman.
A photo-op was held at the start of the meeting, during which Ayalon told the photographers in Hebrew: “Pay attention that he is sitting in a
lower chair and we are in the higher ones, that there is only an Israeli flag on the table and that we are not smiling.”
Celikkol’s associates told Army Radio on Tuesday, that the meeting with Ayalon was the most shameful display he had seen in 35 years as a diplomat.
According to the associates, Celikkol had no idea what the topic of conversation was to be when first seated. When the cameras left the room, the sources said, the meeting was normal and professional.
“Had the ambassador understood Ayalon’s intentions, which were only expressed in Hebrew, he would have responded in kind,” the source told Army Radio.
Celikkol told Army Radio that the episode was the most shameful experience of his 35-year career.
Israel’s Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday that Ayalon did not intend to humiliate Celikkol by seating him in a lower chair without flag representation during their meeting.
Celikkol was called in regarding a recent Turkish television drama depicting actors dressed as Shin Bet officers who kidnap babies.
In response to the incident, the Turkish Foreign Ministry on Tuesday summoned Israeli Ambassador Gaby Levy for clarification.
“It would be worthwhile for Israel to know its boundaries and to not dare cross them,” a Turkish official said.
He added that Ankara knows to differentiate between the various constituent elements of the Israeli government, and that it would prefer to deal only with ministers and leaders who assume a more moderate line.
Ankara on Tuesday rejected Israel’s criticism of Turkey’s past while accusing Lieberman and Ayalon of staging the incident to enhance their domestic political standing.
“Turkey has always been a friend to Jews,” the Turkish Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
“Deep-rooted relations between Turks and Jews that precede the establishment of the Israeli state and the general structure of our relations give us the responsibility to make such warnings and criticism,” the statement read.
“We expect an explanation and apologies from Israeli authorities for the attitude against our Tel Aviv ambassador Oguz Celikkol, and the way this attitude was reflected,” the Turkish foreign ministry said in a statement.
“We call on the Israeli Foreign Ministry, whose behavior and attitude towards our Tel Aviv ambassador did not comply with diplomacy, to obey courtesy rules,” it said.
The Foreign Ministry stressed that it had summoned the envoy and ordered the seating arrangment to make clear that it would respond to any insult made by the Turkish leadership.
Meanwhile, Turkey’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Ahmet Davutoğlu spoke on Tuesday during a press conference in London following his meeting U.K. Foreign Secretary David Miliband regarding his country’s ties with Israel.
“Relations between Turkey and Israel will go back to normal once Israel returns to a pro-peace policy,” he said, adding that “the Turkish government made great efforts to advance the peace process between Israel and Syria, but Israel’s attack on Gaza harmed our efforts and has become an obstacle in our country’s relations,” he added.
Just three months ago, a similar diplomatic instance occurred between the two countries after Turkey aired the controversial television drama Ayrilik (“Separation”) which featured actors dressed as Israeli soldiers killing Palestinian children.
Israeli officials: Liberman wants to keep tense ties with Turkey
Meanwhile, ministry sources said Monday that Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman was trying to stop Defense Minister Ehud Barak from visiting to Turkey next week, in order to keep up the recent tensions between the two allied countries.
Barak was scheduled to leave for Turkey on Sunday to meet with his counterpart and the foreign minister there, in an attempt to improve deteriorating relations.
Tensions were renewed on Monday, after Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan declared that Israel was endangering world peace by using exaggerated force against the Palestinians, breaching Lebanon’s air space and waters and for not revealing the details of its nuclear program.
According to Foreign Ministry sources, Lieberman is now looking to “heat things up” before Barak’s trip, so as to torpedo attempts to mend the tensions.
“We get the sense that Lieberman wants to heat things up before Barak’s visit,” a senior Foreign Ministry source said. “All of the recent activities were part of Lieberman’s political agenda.”
The Turkish government was expected to give a warm welcome to Barak, who alongside Labor Minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer was looking to bring the allies’ relations back to stability.
The Foreign Ministry sources surmised that Lieberman’s efforts were aimed at preventing Turkey from resuming its role as mediator in Israel’s peace talks with Syria.
Israel-Turkey rift resurfaces over TV show: The Guardian
Israeli government publicly reprimands Turkish ambassador after television drama depicts Israeli forces kidnapping children
A new diplomatic row has broken out between Israel and Turkey after the Turkish ambassador appeared to be publicly humiliated by Israeli government officials.
The countries have in the past had close relations, and even military co-operation, but since the war in Gaza last year their relationship has been strained. The latest dispute came when Israel summoned the Turkish ambassador, Ahmet Çelikkol, to complain about a Turkish television drama that depicted Israeli security forces kidnapping children and shooting elderly men.
Last night the ambassador was called to the Knesset office of the Israeli deputy foreign minister, Danny Ayalon. With television cameras filming, Çelikkol was seated on a low sofa before the Israeli officials who sat on higher, upright chairs. There was no handshake or refreshments, only an Israeli flag on the table between them.
Ayalon turned to the Israeli television journalists and photographers and said in Hebrew: “The important thing is that people see that he’s low and we’re high and that there is one flag here.” When journalists asked Ayalon to shake hands with the ambassador, he said: “No. That’s the point.” Turkey summoned the Israeli ambassador today to express its “unease” over the incident.
The disagreement over the television show is the latest in a series of disputes between the countries. The Turkish prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has been particularly critical of Israel’s three-week war in Gaza a year ago, in which 13 Israelis and nearly 1,400 Palestinians were killed.
The Israeli prime minister at the time, Ehud Olmert, met Erdogan in Ankara for talks in December 2008 and reportedly gave no notice of the imminent war. When the Israeli bombing began days later the Turkish government was left embarrassed and Erdogan was publicly very critical of the Israeli operation.
Previous close relations, in which Turkey acted as a mediator in peace talks between Israel and Syria, quickly broke down. Erdogan walked off the stage at the World Economic Forum in Davos a year ago after an angry exchange over Gaza with the Israeli president Shimon Peres.
Erdogan told a news conference in Ankara last night: “We can never remain silent in the face of Israel’s attitude … it has disproportionate power and it is using that at will, while refusing to abide by UN resolutions.”
In Israel there was some criticism over the government’s tough attitude towards the Turks, but there was also praise from some commentators in the press.
Israel’s foreign ministry defended its actions, and said the Turks should be the last to preach morality. Ayalon told Army Radio: “It’s the Turks who need to apologise.”
The latest row is likely to make life awkward for Israel’s defence minister, Ehud Barak, who is scheduled to visit Turkey on Sunday, a trip that was intended to repair ties between the countries.
Now they are blamed for a murder in Iran. If true, it will not be the first of its kind, of course – they have done this for decades, with total impunity:
Israel and US behind Tehran blast – Iranian state media: BBC
Iranian state media have accused Israel and the US of being involved in a bomb attack which killed an Iranian physicist in Tehran.
State broadcaster Irib quoted Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman as saying there were signs of Israeli and US involvement “in the terrorist act”.
The US state department dismissed the allegation as “absurd”.
Masoud Ali Mohammadi – described as a “devoted revolutionary professor” – was killed by a remotely-controlled bomb.
ANALYSIS
Jon Leyne, BBC Tehran correspondent
The original story seemed straightforward. According to Iranian media, Masoud Ali Mohammadi was a nuclear scientist, assassinated by counter-revolutionaries, Zionists and agents of the “global arrogance”.
The implication was clear – it was a Western plot to sabotage Iran’s nuclear programme. But as so often in Iran, there was more to it.
According to British academics, Mr Mohammadi is an expert in another branch of physics, and highly unlikely to be involved in nuclear research.
At the same time, the reformist movement issued what it said was evidence that Mr Mohammadi supported their presidential candidate Mir-Hossein Mousavi in last year’s election.
It all added to suspicions created by the unusually prompt and thorough coverage of his death in the Iranian media.
Whatever actually happened, the opposition will certainly fear this killing will be used as an opportunity for a new crackdown.
Reports in the Iranian media described Mr Mohammadi as a nuclear physicist, but it appears that his field of study was quantum theory.
There was also confusion as to whether the attack had any political overtones.
One university official said Mr Mohammadi was not a political figure. But other reports said his name appeared on a list of academics backing opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi before the 2009 presidential election.
Tensions have been high in Iran since the disputed election led to mass protests against the government.
Mr Mohammadi, who worked at Tehran University, “was killed in a booby-trapped motorbike blast” in the city’s northern Qeytariyeh district, state-run Press TV reported earlier.
It showed pictures from the scene of the blast, saying windows in the nearby buildings had been shattered by the force of the explosion.
‘Triangle of wickedness’
Local media reports say the bomb was attached to a motorcycle parked outside Mr Mohammadi’s home, although one agency said it had been planted in a rubbish bin.
Irib later quoted Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman as saying that “in the initial investigation, signs of the triangle of wickedness by the Zionist regime, America and their hired agents, are visible in the terrorist act”.
Press TV quoted security officials at the scene as saying that the equipment and system of the bomb used in the attack had been related to a number of foreign intelligence agencies, particularly Israel’s Mossad.
In its earlier report, Irib said Mr Mohammadi “was martyred this morning in a terrorist act by anti-revolutionary and arrogant powers’ elements”.
The BBC’s Tehran correspondent Jon Leyne, who is in London, says Iran usually refers to its enemies in the West as “the arrogant powers”.
The opposition in Iran will fear that Tuesday’s blast will be used against it as part of a crackdown, our correspondent adds.
Police sealed off the area and launched an investigation into the incident.
Some conservatives have suggested that the People’s Mujahideen Organisation – a banned militant group opposed to the Tehran government – was involved. The group denied the accusation.
No-one has claimed responsibility for the blast and at this stage there could only be speculation as to possible motives for the attack, correspondents say.
There has been much controversy over Iran’s nuclear activities.
Tehran says its nuclear programme is for peaceful energy purposes, but the US and other Western nations suspect it of seeking to build nuclear weapons.
In December, Tehran accused Saudi Arabia of detaining an Iranian nuclear scientist and handing him over to the US.
Saudi Arabia denied the claim.
Tehran university professor killed by bomb: The Guardian
Massoud Mohammadi, professor of nuclear physics, dies in remote-controlled blast outside home in Iran’s capital
A Tehran University professor has died in a bomb attack, Iran’s state-run Press TV reported today.
The report said Massoud Mohammadi, a professor of nuclear physics, was killed by a remote-controlled bomb attached to a motorcycle parked outside his home in the north of the Iranian capital.
Tehran University was one of several around the country at which students held anti-government protests last month. Before the election, pro-reform websites published Mohammadi’s name on a list of 240 university teachers who supported the main opposition candidate, Mir Hossein Mousavi.
The government blamed the attack on an armed Iranian opposition group under the direction of Israel and the US.
“In the initial investigation, signs of the triangle of wickedness by the Zionist regime, America and their hired agents, are visible in the terrorist act,” the state broadcaster IRIB quoted the office of the foreign ministry’s spokesman as saying.
“Such terrorist acts and the apparent elimination of the country’s nuclear scientists will definitely not obstruct scientific and technlogical processes,” it said.
Although Mohammadi’s name appeared on the list of academics who supported Mousavi, Press TV reported that he was “a staunch supporter” of the 1979 revolution that brought Islamic clerics to power in Iran.
The blast happened at a time of heightened tension in the Islamic republic, seven months after a disputed presidential election plunged it into turmoil. Such bomb attacks are rare in Iran.
Iranian universities have been the scene of rival protests by opposition campaigners and government supporters since the June election, which the reformist opposition claims was rigged to secure the re-election of the president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
The poll has led to Iran’s most serious domestic unrest since 1979, as protests by opposition supporters against the result have turned violent. The authorities have denied allegations that the voting was rigged.
Eight people died in clashes between security forces and opposition supporters on Ashura, the day of ritual Shia Muslim mourning, on 27 December.
Israel air strike kills Gaza militants: BBC
Israeli air strikes have destroyed sites in Gaza
Three Palestinians militants have been killed in the Gaza Strip by an Israeli air strike, Palestinian medics say.
The three gunmen belonged to the Islamic Jihad group and were in a field often used to launch rockets into Israel, they said.
An Israeli military spokesman said one of their aircraft had carried out the strike in the Gaza Strip.
It came after three Palestinians were killed early on Friday by air raids in response to rocket attacks from Gaza.
After Sunday’s attack, the Israeli military said the group was hit as they “were preparing to fire rockets into Israel.”
“We won’t tolerate the firing of rockets into Israel and we will respond harshly as we did now,” a military spokesman told AFP news agency.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told his cabinet on Sunday that there had been 20 mortar bombs and rockets from the Gaza Strip last week.
He vowed an “immediate and powerful response” to future attacks, Reuters news agency reported.
The current Apartheid Wall is not enough for Israel. In order to be the perfect Ghetto, the whole state will soon be surrounded bya wall… The next logical stage will be to also build a roof over Israel, so no one could possibly sneak in…
Israel to construct barrier along Egyptian border: BBC
Israel’s government has approved plans for the construction of a barrier along its border with Egypt in a bid to keep out illegal migrants and militants.
It will be built along two parts of the border – near the Red Sea city of Eilat and on the edge of the Gaza Strip.
PM Benjamin Netanyahu said the decision was taken to secure Israel’s Jewish and democratic character, but that refugees would still be allowed to seek entry.
In recent years, thousands of migrants have crossed into Israel via Egypt.
At least 17 migrants, mostly African, have been killed since May by Egyptian police, who say they are trying to stop people trafficking.
According to Israeli police estimates between 100-200 illegal immigrants cross into Israel from Egypt every week.
Eritrea is the most common country of origin for people trying to cross illegally from Egypt to Israel, followed by Ethiopia and Sudan.
‘Illegal aliens’
On Sunday, Mr Netanyahu said he had approved the construction of sections of barrier that would block the main infiltration routes along the 266 km (166-mile) frontier, and the installation of advanced surveillance equipment.
BORDER BARRIER
To cover 112km (70 miles) of the 266km (166 mile) frontier
100-200 illegal immigrants cross each week
17 migrants killed by Egyptian police since May
Estimated $270m to build
The project is set to cost $270m and take several years to complete.
“I took the decision to close Israel’s southern border to infiltrators and terrorists. This is a strategic decision to secure Israel’s Jewish and democratic character,” the prime ministers said in a statement.
Mr Netanyahu said Israel would “remain open to refugees” from conflict zones, but added: “We cannot let tens of thousands of illegal workers infiltrate into Israel through the southern border and inundate our country with illegal aliens.”
Egyptian officials said Israel had not informed them of its plans, but that they would not object so long as the barrier was built on Israeli soil.
“It is an Israeli affair,” foreign ministry spokesman Hossam Zaki is quoted as saying by the AFP news agency.
Israel has also been building a controversial barrier in and around the occupied West Bank in recent years. It says it is needed to defend Israeli citizens from attacks by militants. Palestinians, however, consider it a land grab.
In 2004, the International Court of Justice in The Hague issued an advisory ruling that the barrier was illegal and should be removed.
Egypt is meanwhile building an underground barrier along its border with Gaza to stem the smuggling of weapons through tunnels.
Israel to build surveillance fence along Egyptian border: The Guardian
Prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu says £170m project will close border to ‘infiltrators and terrorists’
Binyamin Netanyahu: ‘We cannot let tens of thousands of illegal workers infiltrate into Israel.’
Israel is to build a fence equipped with advanced surveillance tools along part of its border with Egypt to keep out African migrants and illegal workers.
The two-year project will cost around 1bn shekels (£170m) and is intended to challenge the increasing number of migrants trying to cross into Israel from Egypt’s Sinai desert. Israeli police say between 100 and 200 African migrants arrive every week. Some come for work, others to escape political persecution. Some are jailed, many are simply turned back.
The Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, said the fence would also deter militants, although it will cover only part of the border. “I took the decision to close Israel’s southern border to infiltrators and terrorists. This is a strategic decision to secure Israel’s Jewish and democratic character,” he said. Although he said Israel would be open to refugees from conflict zones, he added: “We cannot let tens of thousands of illegal workers infiltrate into Israel through the southern border and inundate our country with illegal aliens.”
The fence appears primarily intended to stop Africans looking for asylum or work from crossing through Egypt into Israel, rather than to prevent terrorist attacks. When complete, the new sections of fence will mean Israel will be almost entirely fenced in. On its international borders Israel already has heavily-patrolled fences with Lebanon, Syria and Jordan. The Egyptian border will only be partly fenced under this new plan.
In recent years Israel has built fences with the occupied Palestinian territories too: the Gaza boundary is marked with an electronic fence and inside the West Bank a vast concrete and steel barrier has been half-built, ostensibly for security but which many believe may yet become a political border.
“We need a fence, as I said 10 years ago, with all of our neighbours,” said Ehud Barak, Israel’s defence minister. “With the Palestinians we need two states for two people, a fence that will surround a solid Jewish majority, we will be here and they will be there.”
The full length of the border is around 170 miles (270km), but the fence will be built only in two areas, according to Israeli reports. One part will run south and east from Gaza for around 30 miles, while a second fence will run north from the Israeli city of Eilat over another 30 miles. It will have two layers of fencing, one with barbed wire, and a radar to alert Israeli border patrols to anyone trying to cross. Electronic devices will cover the area between the two fences.
In recent years there has been a sharp increase in the number of African migrants trying to cross into Israel. Some are able to stay and find short-term work, but very few get the official refugee status they seek and which some of them do deserve. Many come from Sudan, including Darfur, others come from Eritrea and elsewhere in Africa. There are Christians and Muslims but their arrival has brought a sharp debate in Israel, a country built in large part on the wave of Jewish refugees fleeing the Holocaust in Europe.
Israeli officials believe many migrants are simply coming to find work in the nearest developed economy, rather than being on the run from political persecution at home. Human rights workers in Israel say some do have genuine asylum cases and that those seeking asylum should be individually screened and assessed.
Egyptian police also patrol the desert border with Israel and have reportedly stepped up their attempts to stop people illegally crossing. They have killed at least 17 migrants in the past year.
Egypt is also now building an underground steel wall along its short border with the Gaza Strip, apparently under pressure from Israel and the US to crack down on the smuggling industry on which Gazans have become reliant.
Galloway right to relish Egypt expulsion: The Guardian
In making an enemy of Hosni Mubarak’s regime, George Galloway has taken a lead western governments should follow
Ajmal Masroor
George Galloway was deported from Egypt on Friday as “persona non grata” by the Egyptian authorities, accusing him of undermining Egyptian security. What a bizarre, twisted and demented accusation from a dictatorial regime that has ruled Egypt for over 30 years and which has been an accomplice with Israel to the Gaza blockade causing untold suffering of the Palestinian people.
Let me declare my interest from the outset, I am not a great fan of Galloway, in fact I am standing as the Liberal Democrats’ parliamentary candidate for Bethnal Green and Bow, where he is the current MP, and in the next general election I will be providing a direct challenge to his party, Respect.
However, leaving aside party or political differences I agree with Galloway when he says “It’s always been a badge of honour to be deported by a tinpot dictator”. I, like many others around the world, have been disgusted by the way Egyptian authorities have dealt with this aid convoy. I have found Galloway courageous enough to stand up to both Israel and Egyptian authorities. It is a shame that no other British MPs or politicians have shown even an ounce of courage in the same way.
Hosni Mubarak, the Egyptian president, has never been a friend of freedom-loving people. He has never supported just causes and of course he has never signed up to democratic reform in Egypt. No civilised person should have any word of support for this dictator nor should we have any economic or political relationship with the regime. People of Egypt have been strangled by this regime and if I ever support regime change, this regime would be at top of my list. Unfortunately, the British and American governments have sustained such illegitimate regimes for too long.
Mubarak has even been accused of meddling in changing the Egyptian constitution to ensure his son Gamal continues the families’ grip on power and continue the reign of tyranny. Never mind Galloway calling for the overthrow of Mr Mubarak, we all should be doing the same.
I believe if the UK and the US government stopped supporting Mubarak, the people of Egypt will get rid of this dictator faster than we can blink. I remember meeting one senior Egyptian security personnel once who was very remorseful for behaving heavy-handedly to his political oppositions in his country but then confessed that he was only doing his job. I know this is not an isolated example. Given the right opportunity, international support and freedom, Egyptian society at every level would abandon Mubarak.
George Galloway, even your opponents would applaud you in your effort to help people of Gaza. We should all be doing the same. If fully functioning democracies in the world can do one thing to improve the world, it must be to end injustice.
Hamas to Gaza militias: Stop firing rockets at Israel: Haaretz
Hamas in Gaza tried to ease tension with Israel and Egypt Tuesday, urging other Palestinians to stop firing rockets into the western Negev and promising Cairo answers over the shooting of an Egyptian soldier at the border.
Ismail Haniyeh, prime minister of the Islamist movement’s government in the coastal enclave, said other armed groups in the Gaza Strip should observe what has amounted to a ceasefire since Israel’s major offensive a year ago. That, Haniyeh said, was in the interests of protecting Gazans from Israeli attacks.
On Monday, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak had warned Hamas to rein in its allies “or else” – a threat of more Israeli action.
Rocket fire by smaller groups Islamic Jihad and the Popular Resistance Committees, and Israeli air strikes that killed several Palestinians, made the past two weeks among the most violent since the three-week war that killed 13 Israelis and over 1,400 Palestinians before a ceasefire in mid-January 2009.
“We call upon Palestinian factions to intensify their meetings in order to reinforce the national agreement and to work in a joint spirit to protect our people and to protect our interests and to block any possible Israeli aggression against our people,” Haniyeh said before a cabinet meeting in Gaza.
Despite denials from some of the smaller groups, Hamas has insisted lately there was an agreement to hold back on attacks.
While hostility between Hamas and Israel is the norm, the Palestinian Islamist movement has also been concerned of late over a deterioration in relations with Egypt, which controls the short southern border of the Gaza Strip.
Already frustrated in its efforts to promote reconciliation between Hamas and the rival Fatah party of West Bank-based Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and by its difficulties in brokering a prisoner swap between Hamas and Israel, Cairo was angered last week by the death of a soldier at the Gaza border.
He was shot during clashes when Hamas supporters rallied at the frontier in the town of Rafah to protest at Egyptian efforts to stem supplies reaching Gaza through secret tunnels.
Egyptian officials have said the soldier was hit by a bullet fired from the Palestinian side. Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said Tuesday there was evidence the Egyptian border guard could have been hit by a bullet from his own side.
Whatever the case, Haniyeh said, Hamas was working in good faith to clarify what happened and to protect relations with Cairo: “We are carrying out an investigation … (which) aims to arrive at the truth and to put measures in place that ensure Palestinian-Egyptian relations are protected.”
Cairo has long had cool relations with Hamas, which shares roots with the banned Egyptian opposition movement the Muslim Brotherhood. But Egypt, the first Arab state to make peace with Israel, is also keen to avoid being portrayed as an ally of the Jewish state in its conflict with the Palestinians
Netanyahu: Israel will never share Jerusalem with Palestinians: Haaretz
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared on Tuesday that Israel would never cede control of united Jerusalem nor retreat to the 1967 borders, according to a bureau statement.
The statement came after Egypt’s foreign minister said in Cairo last week that Netanyahu was ready to discuss making “Arab Jerusalem” the capital of a Palestinian state.
Meanwhile, the Palestinian Authority could abandon its demand for a freeze on construction in East Jerusalem in exchange for an easing of the siege on Gaza and a halt to Israeli assassinations in the West Bank.
Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit met the foreign ministers of Egypt, France, Jordan, Spain and Tunisia in Cairo last week to revive the nascent Mediterranean Union. He briefed them about Netanyahu’s talks with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak a few days earlier, Israeli and European officials said.
Aboul Gheit reportedly said Israel’s willingness to give the Palestinians “100 percent of the West Bank” and the readiness to discuss Arab Jerusalem as the capital of Palestine indicate “openness, goodwill and a change compared to the past.”
According to the Arab foreign ministers, the Palestinians have agreed to waive their conditions for reopening the negotiations with Israel in exchange for other terms that Netanyahu could accept more easily.
The Palestinians previously had demanded a complete freeze on construction in East Jerusalem and resuming talks from the point they left off. Now their conditions are Israel stopping its assassinations and military operations in Palestinian cities; easing the blockade on the Gaza Strip and bringing in construction material to enable Gaza’s rehabilitation; rezoning West Bank areas where Palestinians have full authority (A) and where they have only civil authority (B) – meaning, having the Israel Defense Forces withdraw to where it was before the Al-Aqsa intifada in September 2000; releasing certain Palestinian prisoners to the PA; and removing eight specific roadblocks in the West Bank.
If Israel agrees to these terms, the Palestinians will return to the negotiations even if the building in East Jerusalem continues and the talks do not pick up where they left off.
Aboul Gheit said the United States would issue a statement against Israeli construction in East Jerusalem and expressing its commitment to the territory of the future Palestinian state.
The visiting foreign ministers agreed that the difficulty in resuming the talks is due to Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ refusal to announce their new positions publicly.
Don’t say you have not been told: The second Gaza war is in prparation, and they are speaking and writing about it in Israel quite openly:
Israel’s looming war in Gaza: Can Obama stop it before it starts?: Haaretz
By Bradley Burston
Next week, or the week after, Barack Obama may well see intelligence reports of tank battalions moving south and west along Israeli highways, and whole infantry brigades setting up camp in the western Negev.
The countdown to the Second Gaza War has begun in earnest. Date it, if you like, to Sunday, and a coolly terrifying analysis by Yom Tov Samia, former overall Israeli military commander of the Gaza Strip and the adjacent Negev.
Or date it, if you prefer, according to the axiom of contemporary Israeli history which reads: A future war becomes all but inevitable the moment a key IDF reserve major general declares it so.
Alternatively, date it from the moment that selective amnesia allows Israeli political figures to court the illusion that Hamas can be invaded to death.
All this and more was to be had from an interview Samia gave Army Radio this week, which should give pause not only to the Palestinians and Israelis who may fall victim to a Second Gaza War, but to Washington as well.
If last year’s brutal fighting is any indication – and there is every reason to believe that it is – a full-on drive to prevent the looming Israel-Hamas confrontation in the Strip belongs at the top tier of Obama’s already staggering pile of priorities.
Another Gaza war, this one likely to be an even more bitter onslaught, could not only prove lethal to what is left of Israeli moral credibility, it could undermine and cripple Obama’s military-political offensives in Iraq, Afghanistan and, slipping further down the slope, Yemen.
If Obama still nurses hopes of brokering a peace process between Israel and the Palestinians, his first task must be defusing the war wagon before it once again engulfs Gaza – and, this time around, Tel Aviv as well. As it is, war in Gaza has shifted Israel’s political landscape, and not in Obama’s favor.
The 2005 disengagement from Gaza, with its resultant rocket fire against the Negev and lack of any peace dividend, proved a huge blow to the Israeli left. But it was the Gaza offensive a year ago, a war supported at first even by Meretz, that was the end. It was the end of Meretz, the end of the Labor Party, the end of a leftist alliance with Israeli Arab parties.
Can Barak Obama stop the coming war in Gaza? Only if he acts fast. And only if his advisors study and apply with care lessons from the last war, in particular the period which immediately preceded it.
One logical place to start is another analysis, also broadcast by the IDF radio station, this one five days before the last war began. It was by Shmuel Zakai, a retired brigadier general who served under Samia and later commanded the IDF’s Gaza Division.
Zakai urged a fundamental reappraisal of how Israelis should regard Hamas. At heart, “The State of Israel must understand that Hamas rule in Gaza is a fact, and it is with that government that we must reach a situation of calm.”
Should he wholly adopt the peacemakers’s role, Obama has resources and conditions which were unavailable a year ago.
It is, of course, no coincidence that what may prove a crucial test of the Obama administration coincides with the anniversary of his taking office. Cast Lead, pointedly launched at the interregnum between the outgoing Bush administration and the incoming Obama White House, ended with a unilateral Israeli case fire barely 48 hours before the president-elect took the oath of office.
At the time, a scandal-plagued, lethally unpopular prime minister desperate to redeem a reputation for military misjudgment that complemented his record of personal malfeasance, took advantage of a power vacuum in Washington to mount a war that failed to achieve any of its stated objectives, casting Israel, in the world’s eye, as an unapologetic aggressor.
This time around, the Obama administration has a number of elements in its favor. There is Benjamin Netanyahu, who while disliked by nearly everyone at this point, has a government of unusual stability – one which has shown that it prefers quiet to chaos – and an opposition most of which would support a frank effort to avoid war. The government also labors in the shadow of the Goldstone Report, and little desires a new version. Finally, Netanyahu has demonstrated grudging openness to White House requests, as in the partial settlement freeze.
Then there is the present predicament of Hamas, which has promised its constituents a prisoner release in exchange for captive IDF soldier Gilad Shalit and, having greatly raised expectations across the Palestinian territories, has yet to deliver. Hamas, ever-attuned to Palestinian public opinion, can also ill afford another devastating campaign in the ravaged Strip so soon after Cast Lead.
Another is a potentially proactive and newly constructive role on the part of Egypt, which until recently has sat largely passive, if apprehensive, on the sidelines. Analysts have said Egypt’s huge iron wall project now underway along the border between Gaza and Egyptian Sinai sends a strong message to both Hamas and Israel.
With Samia hinting that in a new war the IDF might capture and occupy the tunnel-honeycombed Philadelphi Corridor which borders the new wall, Professor Yoram Meital of the Negev’s Ben-Gurion University said this week that to Israel, “The message is that Egypt is setting out a border, and views any effort to touch it as an attack on its national security.”
“To Hamas they are saying ‘We will not under any circumstances lend our hand to the establishment of a mini-state in the Gaza Strip,’ and are thus closing the Rafiah crossing nearly hermetically, and erecting the iron wall in the bowels of the earth.'”
One of the most important lessons of last year’s bloodletting is that war or no war, Hamas and only Hamas decides when and if rockets are to be fired from Gaza into Israel. Rockets flew throughout the three-week war, and stopped only at Hamas’ order, several hours after Israel stilled its guns.
The mayor of rocket-scarred Sderot, David Buskila, said this week that, “By the close of Operation Cast Lead, we understood that the military solution cannot be a comprehensive one, it’s a solution that can create breaks between escalations.”
In the end, Israel holds perhaps the most significant card to play, a move which may depend on a uncharacteristically hands-on Obama White House. With third-party international mediation, Israel could offer to resurrect the 2008 truce by significantly alleviating its stranglehold embargo on the Strip.
To decide to do that, however, Israel would also have to abandon its longtime belief in firepower as a lever to bend Gaza to its will. And that means abandoning reasoning that goes precisely like this:
Samia: “The State of Israel is not doing this to replace the regime in Gaza. The State of Israel is doing this because [of] a situation in which Hamas controls the Gaza Strip and the basis of its world view is to annihilate the State of Israel and to fire on schools and kindergartens and to carry out terror attacks in restaurants.
“For the State of Israel, it doesn’t matter if Hamas calls itself a regime or a just a terror organization it’s a terrorist organization in every way, and we must deal with it and annihilate it.
“If, at the same opportunity, the moderates rise and come to power, that’s good enough for us, we’ll be pleased.”