EDITOR: The ‘Peace Process’ is taken out of the deep freeze, but is there any life left in this corpse?
Hopeful Overtures, or Distant Thunder?
Now, some 14 months after Obama has taken over the Oval Office with much trumpeting about ‘change’, he finally remembered to start worrying about the Middle East and Palestine. This reminds us of the similar timetable of all US presidents before him, and also of the less than auspicious results of such sham up to now. On the one hand, Obama and Clinton have to be seen to be doing something, as the noises from Palestine and the Arab world, not to mention sectors of the Israeli society, are all speaking about the ‘last chance for peace’. On the other hand, he cannot do anything; he is a prisoner of his own ‘convictions’ seeing Israel as the most important ally in the coming war on Iran, and the following chaos which will no doubt overtake the Middle East. Israel, for Obama and Clinton, who are facing a stalemate if not defeat in Afghanistan, and unknown dangers in Pakistan, Yemen, Iran and parts of the Gulf, with certain unrest in Egypt, seems like the only ‘stable domino piece, and on their side, for better or worse.
So, what will they do? What can they do? How new can this initiative be?
Unfortunately, Both Obama and Clinton are fully committed to the decades-old game of the so-called Two State solution, woefully ignoring all that was done since 1967, not to mention 1948. Their solution is a Pax Isriaeliana – a forced agreement denying the minimum basic rights and needs of Palestine, and fully colluding with the Israeli agenda of only one meaningful entity, political, military and financial, between the river Jordan and the sea, to be a vassal state of the US and serve its regional interests. Nothing else is on the table, and nothing ever was. This is the reason that despite the rush of talks, talks about talks, Nobel prizes and photo-opportunities, and a much reduced Palestinian leadership, especially after the split with Hamas, there was no meaningful movement towards a just solution in Palestine. As the US/Israel position concentrates and is predicated on Israel’s ‘security needs’, which as we know, engulf the globe rather than just the region, and Israel’s notion of what it needs in terms of territories, control and sheer military power, there was nothing for any Palestinian leader, however desperate (and most of them were, and still are) to sign on behalf of their people, if they do not wish to sign away any future prospects altogether. Every Palestinian leader knows that continuing with the charade of the ‘peace talks’, in the way it was established over the last few decades, is playing with fire near an open oil drum; the Palestinian population has suffered more than possibly any other since 1945, and there is no end in sight. Palestinians know clearly enough that all the Oslo agreements, promises and procedures were used by Israel for one aim – to advance, deepen and secure its stranglehold on Palestine through a system combining settlements, brutal military occupation, the ‘separation’ (apartheid in Afrikaans) wall, daily repression and mass starvation in Gaza. Even the most pliant Palestinian leader, and there was no one more pliant than the current one, must understand that they cannot puta signature to something which will not only stifle hope, but cannot be delivered. The Oslo cloud of misguided optimism has long been blown away.
So, what is the agenda of the current revival of the ‘peace’ rain-dance by Obama, Clinton and Mitchell? Surely, they also know what has been described here, and know it without any possible doubt?
As much as one would like to believe in the benign aims of US foreign policy, (not a position one could easily recommend) it seems that like in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran and many other fronts of the current conflict between Western Huntingtonian ‘civilizational’ crusade and the Moslem/Arabic cultures, with Palestine becoming the iconic conflict of this ‘clash of civilizations’. Pundits have told the various US administrations for decades that as long as the Palestine conflicts festers and occasionally boils over, the chance of stemming the anger in the Muslim and Arab world against the West is minimal; the US has overlooked, not to say ignored, such advice with surprising tenacity which seems foolhardy, to say the least. All the various efforts to quell unrest in the Muslim East have been on the US/Israel terms: “we will tell you how to behave, if you wish us to speak to you, and you better follow the instructions”. Such a policy could only produce the results which we know today.
So, is Obama able to ascend beyond the platitudes and destructive patterns which have dogged not only the Palestine conflict, but the whole US foreign policy? Is he able to reverse the trends of decades? Is he indeed willing to do so?
The answer to date must be a resounding NO. In all his foreign policy initiatives, Obama, and Clinton and Mitchell as his semi-autonomous apparatchiks, have proven their deep conservatism, their dependence on doctrines which have failed time and again to achieve the stated aims, and their beholden commitment to what they call ‘a strong Israel’, meaning the corollary of a weak Palestine, and a weak Arab Middle East. As long as this remains the order of the day, no amount of photo-opportunities will change the realities in Palestine, in the region, in the world. The US elite, its administration, its powerful economy, its military-industrial complex, have all combined to react in the well known rituals of the declining empire – a denial of unpalatable realities, a failure to think beyond their power grip, a selfishness bred by ultimate control for far too long, an inability to transcend patterns of behaviour ingrained by being so strong, that no other force need be consulted or taken into account.
This bodes ill for Palestine, of course; it does not herald some excellent times for Israel either, of course. Unless the Israeli leadership, its social, intellectual and financial elites, all colluding fully in the brutal occupation, are brought to book, are faced with the results of the decades of their crimes, there is no hope for Palestine, Israel, or the Middle East.
There is also no hope for the rest of us, as the current US administration is failing its first major test.
A slightly different version was sent to the Guardian today, by Haim Bresheeth
Joe Biden and George Mitchell arrive to kick-start Israeli-Palestinian talks: The Guardian
Indirect negotiations mark first return to peace process since Gaza war
George Mitchell meets Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem yesterday as he began a round of regional talks lasting four months. Photograph: Moshe Milner/EPA
The US vice-president, Joe Biden, is due in Israel tomorrow for an American diplomatic initiative to start indirect negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians.
The new round of so-called “proximity talks” could be announced as early as tomorrow, but there is scepticism on both sides about the chance of any agreement. George Mitchell, the US special envoy to the Middle East, will shuttle between Israeli and Palestinian leaders for four months hoping to find common ground. Although the talks are low-key, they mark the first return to a peace process since Israel’s war in Gaza more than a year ago.
Mitchell flew into Israel on Saturday night and met with Ehud Barak, the Israeli defence minister, for 90 minutes. He saw Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, today and will meet Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas tomorrow.
Mitchell’s team will handle the talks, while Biden’s visit is reportedly focused on trying to win Israeli support for the US administration’s policy on Iran and on discouraging Israel from any military action against the Iranian regime over its nuclear ambitions.
Abbas won the support of the Arab League and today the executive committee of the Palestine Liberation Organisation to go ahead with the talks. Yet they represent a partial climbdown for the Palestinian leader, who for a year has insisted there will be no talks with Israel without a full halt to the construction of Jewish settlements on occupied Palestinian territory. However, construction continues, with Israel offering only a limited, temporary halt that expires in a few months.
In a speech on Saturday in Ramallah, in the occupied West Bank, Abbas warned the peace process had “almost reached a dead end. The Israeli government continues to procrastinate to gain time and strengthen its control of the occupied territories to prevent any realistic possibility of establishing an independent, viable … state of Palestine,” he said.
The Palestinian leadership wants an independent state in Gaza and the West Bank, with a capital in East Jerusalem. However, Netanyahu says he will not give up East Jerusalem, which Israel captured in the 1967 war, occupied and later annexed ‑ a move not recognised by the international community. He also insists on holding on to large Jewish settlement blocs in the West Bank and says Israel must maintain a key presence in the Jordan valley, along the border with Jordan.
Some Israeli commentators were doubtful about the new diplomacy and said the gap between Israeli and Palestinian leaders was too wide to bridge. “If the talks are held in the planned indirect format, they are not going to lead anywhere,” wrote Shimon Shiffer, a columnist in the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper. “They are going to lead neither to increased trust between the leaders nor to final status arrangement talks in the near future.”
The diplomacy comes at a time of heightened tension. There have been several days of clashes between Palestinians and Israeli police at the Haram al-Sharif, or the Temple Mount, in Jerusalem’s Old City. There has been criticism of an Israeli announcement about more houses planned inside East Jerusalem settlements and on Friday a 14-year-old Palestinian boy was critically injured when he was shot in the head with an Israeli rubber-coated bullet during a demonstration in Nabi Saleh, in the West Bank, against Israeli confiscation of village land.
In Jerusalem on Saturday night, more than 2,000 Israelis and Palestinians held a protest against the eviction of Palestinian refugees and the growing presence of rightwing Jewish settlers.
US to relaunch peace talks in Middle East: The Independent
US ready to apportion blame if new round of talks fails to make progress again
By Donald Macintyre in Jerusalem
Monday, 8 March 2010SHARE PRINTEMAILTEXT SIZE NORMALLARGEEXTRA LARGE
US Vice-President Joe Biden will arrive in Israel today following a formal decision by the West Bank Palestinian leadership to approve Washington’s proposal for indirect peace negotiations with Israel.
The Palestinian Liberation Organisation gave President Mahmoud Abbas a mandate to take part in the talks – the first with Israel for over a year – while warning that without real progress to a deal on borders they would pull out of the negotiations after four months.
With both US presidential envoy George Mitchell – who will shuttle between the two sides during the process – and Mr Biden in the region, a more detailed timetable for the talks is likely to emerge this week. The Palestinian negotiators have so far ruled out direct talks without the full freeze on settlement construction that had been sought by Washington.
Part of Mr Biden’s purpose in talks with Israeli leaders has been widely reported to be to urge Israel not to contemplate an Israeli military strike on Iran while President Obama continues to try for more stringent international sanctions to press Tehran to abandon its perceived military nuclear ambitions.
But the Vice President, the highest ranking US official to visit Israel since President Obama took office, will also meet Mr Abbas and other Palestinian leaders in Ramallah during his three-day visit. Yesterday’s PLO decision was expected after the heavily qualified approval given to the talks by the Arab League in Cairo last week.
There have been indications from the administration that it is ready to apportion blame for any failure to progress in the Israeli-Palestinian talks. At the same time, low expectations for the outcome were underlined by an internal Israeli Foreign Ministry paper assessing that the Middle East will be a relatively low priority for Washington in the run-up to November’s mid-term Congressional elections. The paper, leaked to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, says that in preparatory discussions for the so-called “proximity talks” US officials took positions closer to Palestinian requirements than to Israel’s. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has been demanding that the Palestinians explicitly recognise Israel as a “Jewish state”, has continued to affirm his opposition to the sharing of Jerusalem as a capital – regarded as a sine qua non by Palestinian negotiators – and envisages a continued Israeli presence in the Jordan Valley.
But the document also suggests that the US administration will avoid taking any position that suggests disagreement with Israel because of the support that Israel enjoys in Congress. The unspoken implication is that that will be particularly true as President Obama seeks to prevent heavy Republican gains in the mid-term elections.
The talks co-incide with an increase in grass-roots protests by some Palestinians, partly exacerbated by the inclusion of religious shrines in two West Bank cities, Hebron and Bethlehem, in a list of Jewish heritage sites published by Mr Netanyahu.
A 14-year-old boy Ehab Fadel Barghouthi was still critically ill yesterday after being shot by border police with a rubber-coated bullet that penetrated his skull during an anti-settlement protest in the West Bank village of Nabi Saleh on Friday. Eyewitnesses say he was shot at a range of around 20 metres during stone-throwing incidents.
And the Palestinian Authority has protested at the military detention of a 13-year-old boy Hasan El-Muhtaseb for six days for allegedly throwing stones during protests in Hebron. A military court yesterday released the boy on a £875 surety.
Biden’s Israel visit is a year too late: Haaretz
By Aluf Benn
I looked over the schedule for U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, who will arrive in Jerusalem on Monday, and found it hard to believe. An extensive meeting as well as a more limited meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, dinner with Bibi and Sara Netanyahu at their official residence, a helicopter tour with Defense Minister Ehud Barak and a speech at Tel Aviv University. A draft of his speech wasn’t made available to me, but I’ll go out on a limb and guess that Biden will expound on his declarations of love, support and limitless commitment to the security of Israel and its prosperity.
With so much attention, it’s a shame he’s arriving a year late – a year which his boss, President Barack Obama, wasted on fruitless diplomatic moves that only further compromised the shaky stature of the United States in the Middle East. Obama and his advisers expected the hand that he extended to the Arab world and Iran, the president’s reference in his Cairo speech to passages from the Koran, and the public and demonstrable distance that he created from Israel would soften the Muslims’ and Arabs’ residual hostility for America. It didn’t work.
Columnist Maureen Dowd of the New York Times, who recently visited the Saudi capital, Riyadh, quoted a disappointed highly-placed Saudi as saying: “Things are worse now than before, because our hopes were so high after Cairo.” The Iranians have ignored Obama’s gestures of friendship and subsequent threat of sanctions, and have simply continued to pursue their nuclear program.
In Israel, Obama has aroused concern that on the one hand he would exert heavy pressure and hit American aid to Israel in order to expedite an Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank and the establishment of a Palestinian state; and on the other hand that the United States will reconcile itself to an Iranian nuclear bomb. The Israelis, who’d gotten used to pampering and special gestures from Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, suddenly sensed they didn’t have a friend in the White House.
Biden’s visit is designed to open a new chapter in relations between Netanyahu and the U.S. administration, with a two-fold message: recognition of the political importance of Israel and its supporters in America in advance of the November Congressional elections; and giving Netanyahu the credit he’s not yet earned for his statement in support of “two states for two peoples” and his settlement construction freeze. He will get it now under the threat of a preemptive war against Iran.
Israel has a justifiable reputation as an apprehensive and nervous country – and as a serial attacker of nuclear reactors. To calm Israeli nerves and ensure that the Middle East is not set aflame, Obama has no choice but to use the tried and true methods of the past: supporting, stroking and promising loyalty.
Barak: Israel would rather hold direct talks with Palestinians: Haaretz
As U.S. Vice-President Joe Biden flew to Israel with the aim of kick-starting U.S.-mediated peace talks, Defense Minister Ehud Barak said Monday that he would rather be negotiating with the Palestinians face to face.
“We would prefer direct negotiations with the Palestinians but in the current climate it was hard enough to achieve indirect talks, Barak said.
But the Labor party leader vowed that the so-called ‘proximity’ talks would continue until direct talks became possible.
“Proximity talks won’t stop until we have found a way to direct dialogue between us and the Palestinians, in which every issue can be laid on the table,” he said.
Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said on Monday that
U.S.-mediated indirect talks between Israel and the Palestinians will be a last chance to keep the Middle East peace process alive.
“The relationship has deteriorated to this stage where the U.S. is trying to save this peace process with the last attempt – by the way, mark my words – this will be the last attempt in order to see if it can be a tool to make decisions between Palestinians and Israelis,” he told Army Radio.
U.S. envoy George Mitchell planned talks with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas later in the day following a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on restarting statehood negotiations.
Both sides have agreed to indirect contacts to revive talks suspended since December 2008, in a boost to U.S. President Barack Obama’s difficult quest to end decades of conflict.
“Today President Abbas will hand a written response to Senator Mitchell about our acceptance of the proposal of the proximity talks,” Erekat told Reuters.
The Palestine Liberation Organisation endorsed the indirect talks on Sunday, following Arab League backing last week for four months of negotiations which the Palestinians say should focus on security and borders of a future state.
Abbas had demanded a complete halt to Israeli settlement building as a condition for resuming talks and has rejected as insufficient a limited freeze Netanyahu ordered in November under U.S. pressure.
But the PLO and Arab League decisions gave the Western-backed leader political support for re-engaging with Israel without a total settlement moratorium. Netanyahu has agreed to indirect talks, saying he hoped they would lead to face-to-face negotiations.
Erekat said he hoped Abbas and Netanyahu would take the lead in the coming talks and reiterated the Palestinian outline for a peace deal – a state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip along the lines in place before Israel captured the two territories in a 1967 war, “with agreed swaps”.
Israel’s previous prime minister, Ehud Olmert, had pursued a peace agreement under which land inside Israel would be transferred to a Palestinian state in exchange for major Jewish settlement blocs in the West Bank.
Netanyahu has not endorsed the concept.
Mitchell, who has been trying to broker a resumption of peace talks for a year, met Netanyahu in Jerusalem for more than two hours on Sunday and held further talks with him on Monday.
Many observers and politicians doubt that the indirect talks, in which Mitchell is widely expected to shuttle, at least initially, between Jerusalem and the West Bank city of Ramallah, can succeed where years of negotiations have failed.
Abbas faces a continuing challenge from the Hamas Islamist movement, which has controlled the Gaza Strip for three years and opposes the U.S.-backed peace efforts.
Netanyahu, who has spelled out his vision of a Palestinian state with limited powers of sovereignty, heads a coalition government that includes political allies of settlers in the occupied West Bank.
Israel to build more settler homes: HAl Jazeera TV
Israel has given the green light for the building of 112 new homes in a Jewish settlement in the occupied West Bank despite a partial moratorium on such construction.
The announcement came hours before the arrival of Joe Biden, the US vice-president, and one day after the Palestinians agreed to indirect talks with Israel while warning that further settlement growth threatened the peace process.
Gilad Erdan, the Israeli environment minister, said the project in the Beitar Illit settlement near Bethlehem was an exception to a partial halt on settlement expansion announced in November.
He said: “At the end of last year, the government decided to freeze construction, but this decision provided for exceptions in cases of safety problems for infrastructure projects started before the freeze.”
“Such is the case in Beitar Illit,” he told army radio.
Peace obstacle
Israel’s continued expansion of settlements is one of the biggest obstacles to the resumption of peace talks with the Palestinians, now suspended for more than a year despite months of US-led shuttle diplomacy.
The Israeli anti-settlement group Peace Now slammed the new project, saying it would “widen the gap with the Palestinians and the two-state solution, which risks becoming obsolete.”
The new project came to light a day after the Palestinians grudgingly agreed to four months of indirect peace negotiations with Israel but warned that the US-brokered process would collapse if it continued expanding settlements.
It also came as Biden was to make his first visit to the region since assuming office. George Mitchell, the US Middle East envoy, is also in the region on the latest of several visits to meet Israeli and Palestinian leaders.
The Palestinians insist they will only return to direct talks if Israel agrees to a complete freeze on settlement construction in the occupied West Bank, including annexed Arab east Jerusalem.
Moratorium
The United States initially backed that demand, but has since called on both sides to immediately return to negotiations while routinely criticising Israeli settlement activity in line with longstanding policy.
Erdan played down the chances of a strong US reaction to the latest settlement boost and blamed the Palestinians for stalling peace efforts.
He said: “Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Vice President Joe Biden know that the key is that the Prime Minister (Binyamin Netanyahu) is ready at any moment to engage in direct negotiations.
“However [Palestinian president] Mahmoud Abbas wants to limit the indirect negotiations to four months after months of setting unprecedented conditions for accepting dialogue, and this is not the way to discuss peace.”
Israel announced a 10-month moratorium on new building permits for settler homes in the occupied West Bank in November but it excludes east Jerusalem, public buildings and works already under way.
Around a half million Israelis live in more than 120 settlements scattered across the occupied West Bank, including east Jerusalem. The international community considers all settlements illegal.
EDITOR: NY Times is happy to report…
As usual, the NY Times only report such stories which it considers supportive of Israel, written by the Israeli Ethan Bronner, whose sone serves in the IOF, and his offices in Jerusalem are located in Palestinian-owned confiscated building. How more objective can one be?
Biden Arrives in Israel on Trip to Restart Peace Talks: NY Times
By ETHAN BRONNER
JERUSALEM — Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. arrived in Israel on Monday, culminating a two-month procession of high-ranking Americans seeking to restart Israeli-Palestinian peace talks and persuade Israel to help efforts to impose sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program rather than pursue military action.
Related
Mr. Biden is due to stay through Friday, meeting Israeli, Palestinian and Jordanian leaders and giving a speech at Tel Aviv University aimed at expressing American solidarity with Israel.
His visit is likely to coincide with the start of indirect negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians, brokered by George J. Mitchell, the administration’s Middle East envoy, who is also here. They will be the first peace talks in more than a year but have generated only the faintest enthusiasm here. Israeli and Palestinian leaders are skeptical that the other side will really accept a two-state solution. In addition, the contours and powers of a future Palestinian state are in sharp dispute.
Saeb Erekat, the Palestinians’ chief negotiator, told Israel’s Army Radio that this seemed likely to be the last chance of achieving two states and indicated that if the effort failed, there would be no choice but to insist that Israelis and Palestinians share one state.
He added that the Palestinians were prepared to see a small percentage of West Bank territory stay in Israeli hands to accommodate settlements built after the area was conquered by Israel in the 1967 war but only on condition that Israel yield an equal amount of land in compensation.
“I’m not saying the borders of ’67, I’m saying the size of ’67,” he said.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu backs two states but wants the Palestinian side to be demilitarized and accept an Israeli military presence on its future eastern border to prevent the import of weapons and rockets that could be aimed at Israel’s population centers.
The issue of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and of Jewish residents in East Jerusalem is also expected to be a source of great contention. There are 500,000 Israeli Jews living on land the Palestinians want as part of their state. Even if much of the land they are on were granted to Israeli annexation in exchange for territory for the Palestinians, there would still be a need to relocate tens of thousands of settlers.
Israel announced a 10-month partial freeze on settlement building in November but allowed the completion of some 3,000 units already started and excluded Jerusalem from the moratorium, meaning that construction has not really slowed. On Monday, as Mr. Biden was heading into the country, the Defense Ministry announced permission for another 112 units in an ultra-Orthodox settlement, Beitar Illit, saying there were “safety” reasons for the exception and that the units had been approved before the moratorium was announced. The move was condemned by the Palestinian leadership as Israeli hypocrisy.
A full construction freeze in settlements has been a Palestinian condition for renewing direct talks, and Palestinian leaders say it remains their condition to move from these indirect talks to direct ones.
The upcoming negotiations are expected to last some months and are being billed as “proximity talks,” meaning that Israeli and Palestinian leaders will not sit at the same table but will respond to proposals carried by American officials between Jerusalem and the Palestinian leadership’s headquarters in Ramallah. After thousands of hours of direct talks in past years, this is a sign of how poor relations have become.
Much of Mr. Biden’s attention will be on Iran and assuring Israel that its fear of an Iranian nuclear weapons program is shared by the Obama administration and most of the world. Iran insists its nuclear program is aimed at peaceful purposes, but few Western governments believe it.
“I can promise the nation of Israel that we will meet, as allies, any security challenge that we may face,” Mr. Biden told the Israeli newspaper Yediot Aharonot in written answers to questions published on Monday. “Iran equipped with nuclear weapons will constitute a threat not only to Israel, but also to the United States.
“Iran’s obtaining nuclear arms will deeply undermine the stability of the entire international community and could lead to a nuclear arms race in the Middle East that will be extremely dangerous for everyone involved, including to Iran. For this reason, our administration is mobilizing the international community to insist that Iran fulfill its international commitments. If it does not, it will have to deal with serious consequences and with increasing isolation.”
Israel feels its risk from an Iranian nuclear weapon is greater than almost anyone else’s given its proximity and the ideology of the Iranian leadership, which calls for the end of the Jewish state, arms Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza, both of which also oppose the existence of Israel, and frequently casts doubt on the reality of the Holocaust.
Israel has been training for a military attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities, but Washington has been pressing it to hold off and help work out a sanctions regime. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the director of the C.I.A. and the national security adviser have all been here with that message. Mr. Biden is expected to say the same.
Jerusalem mayor, are you causing a third Intifada?: Haaretz
By Nir Hasson
Palestinian residents have put up 88 homes without building permits in the Gan Hamelekh complex, in East Jerusalem’s Silwan neighborhood. Gan Hamelekh – “the king’s garden” in Hebrew – is at the juncture of the Kidron and Ben-Hinnom gorges, 500 meters from the Temple Mount and 100 meters from the City of David.
Mayor Nir Barkat intends to demolish some of these buildings, to issue permits for most of them and to create a park that will attract tourist on the site.
What is your plan for Silwan?
“Above all, good news for its inhabitants, even though understandably it may be hard for them to say this in public. The proposal offers a conceptual change in my thinking: not only to enforce the law and court rulings on the illegal structures but also to help the families to build new homes in accordance with the law.
“In other words, issuing permits retroactively for dozens of homes on the eastern side and granting construction permit for additional homes, which will move from the east to the west [of the Kidron Valley].
“On the eastern side of the Kidron we will add 3,000 square meters for commercial use as well as homes for all those who move from the western side, which will remain an open public space.
All together, you get an anchor for tourism to which people can come for shopping, a good restaurant and a cafe, and in addition there is room for everyone to live. The plan will provide jobs for residents as well as homes and quality of life.
“The situation today is that the vast majority of the homes are unauthorized and the courts have ordered their demolition. Under the new situation, not only will the houses be made legal but 2,000 square meters of commercial enterprises and public buildings will be added for the benefit of the residents. There will be classrooms, day care centers, kindergartens, a gym, a swimming pool, a well-baby center and so forth. The alternative to a plan that takes into consideration the existing situation is the demolition of all of the homes.”
Can you understand the suspicion and distrust on the part of the Palestinian residents?
“Yes. After more than 40 years of neglect one can understand that. But the suspicion is unwarranted. I have heard expressions such as ‘a home demolition plan.’ It’s true that when you upgrade the entire complex with a ‘tear down/rebuild’ program, 20 people will move a few dozen meters to the east. But to come and say that the intention is to expel them? These are irresponsible, baseless portrayals.”
Are you frustrated by the gap between your perception of the plan, as benefiting the residents, and the headlines about the imminent eruption of a third intifada?
“No, not at all. Unfortunately I know the media are the last to grasp what is happening. On the ground the project is progressing nicely. People recognize that this is a serious plan and are beginning to make comments. Media spin doesn’t upset me. I would be happy, of course, if the media reported it differently.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asked you to wait, and to continue to negotiate with the residents. Will you destroy the homes even without their agreement?
“The alternative is to destroy all of them, or to not carry out the court rulings and to leave the inferior living conditions in place. I would prefer to implement my plan, which speaks of putting things in order.”
The Palestinians ask who is the king of the “king’s garden,” and the answer is obvious – David. They believe that another City of David compound will be created – a religious-nationalistic park under the settlers’ control. Are you willing to discuss its character with them?
“I have been asked whether the Elad association [which promotes the Judaization of East Jerusalem] is connected with the plan. Unequivocally, no. The municipality is behind the project and the nature of the park is open to discussion. We will want to suit it to the millions of visitors who will want to come.
The site is an international asset that must be open to all. There is no intention of spiting anyone. That is part of the residents’ distrust. There is no doubt that we must develop trust. I hope that they will understand that I mean what I say and I say what I mean.”
At the press conference [convened by Barkat last Tuesday to announce his plans for developing the Gan Hamelekh complex], you made a remark that was untypical for a Jerusalem mayor – that the city and the state bear responsibility for the problem of unauthorized construction in East Jerusalem.
“There are 20,000 illegally built structures in the city. That is undoubtedly a systemic failure. There is no excuse for illegal behavior, but the state must look in the mirror and recognize that something is wrong. We will try to take as lenient an approach as possible, to reduce friction while taking the prevailing situation into consideration. We shall create reasonable, practical plans and implement them.”
Did you select Silwan and Gan Hamelekh as the prototype for dealing with unauthorized building in Jerusalem because of the commitment of you and your political partners not to evacuate Beit Yonatan [the seven-floor apartment building housing eight Jewish families that was built without permits in the heart of Silwan by the nationalist Ateret Cohanim organization, and whose demolition the state has ordered]?
“No. I began there because of the state comptroller’s report. I took responsibility instead of burying my head in the sand. This is a comprehensive solution that has nothing to do with [the identity of] the people living there, Jews or Arabs.”
In conclusion, to another matter: Last week we had the privilege of seeing the trial run of Jerusalem’s light railway. Should people in Tel Aviv be jealous yet, or will the project continue to be synonymous with failure?
“When I entered office I placed a real question mark over the light rail project, which accelerated many measures. It will take another month or two but in the end it will come right.
“In the past six months I have been busy mainly with the next stages. The first rail line is a serious and worthy improvement, but we plan to announce a network of lines so that everything can connect with everything else. In Jerusalem, everything needs to connect.”
MESS Report / Israel threatens PA: ‘fight violence or we will’: Haaretz
Israel has conveyed messages to the Palestinian Authority over the past few days that it must contain the popular protests that have recently erupted in the West Bank, stop PA officials from participating in them and keep them from turning violent, Palestinian sources told Haaretz.
They said Israel also told the PA it must reduce incitement regarding the Temple Mount and Jerusalem and curtail its campaign against the use of Israeli products.
Israeli officials said that if the PA does not cut down on the incitement and keep the protests and boycott campaign in check, Israel will reduce cooperation with the PA and increase its arrests in Palestinian-controlled areas, the Palestinian sources said.
Over the past few months, arrests by Israel in PA areas have declined, and the Israel Defense Forces has been limiting the entry of troops into those areas.
The messages to the PA were delivered during several conversations between senior Israeli security officials and their Palestinian counterparts, as well as by political figures. The Palestinian sources said Shin Bet security service chief Yuval Diskin had discussed the matter with the PA official responsible for civil matters in the West Bank, Hussein al-Sheikh.
The PA has sponsored several rallies in the villages of Bil’in and Na’alin, west of Ramallah, some of which have been attended by PA officials. In recent weeks, the PA has also backed protests in the village of Nebi Salah, north of Ramallah, and in Umm Salamuna in the Bethlehem region. Palestine Liberation Organization officials are prominently involved in clashes in the Jerusalem area and have come out against what the PA describes as the Judaization of Jerusalem.
In addition, PA President Mahmoud Abbas has spoken out sharply against the inclusion of Hebron’s Tomb of the Patriarchs and Rachel’s Tomb, near Bethlehem, in a list of Jewish heritage sites.
The PA has so far done nothing to curtail the protests and as of Sunday, had conveyed no message to its grassroots activists to maintain a lower profile at upcoming rallies.
Sources in the Israeli security establishment say they sense that the PA is taking an active part in organizing popular protests in the West Bank. Security sources say that at this point a third intifada does not appear imminent. However, the sources say, the PA could lose control if it gives the protesters too much leeway.
Mitchell to meet Abbas on Monday
The PLO executive committee on Sunday announced its support for indirect talks with Israel on a final-status agreement, mediated by U.S. special envoy George Mitchell, for a four-month period.
Mitchell is to meet in Ramallah on Monday with Abbas and the chief Palestinian negotiator, Saeb Erekat.
On Tuesday, Mitchell will meet with Abbas and U.S. Vice President Joe Biden.
Palestinians are pessimistic about the chances for the success of renewed talks in light of Israel’s harsh stands on several issues.
EDITOR: Prof. Moshe Macover’s speech at the weekend seminar on Palestine and the Left
To read the whole speech, use the link below:
Moshe Machover: Israeli Socialism and anti-Zionism: IOA
The terms “Right” and “Left” as used in Israel are misleading: they do not denote a socio-economic position (as they do elsewhere, especially in Europe). They denote attitude to Israeli policy towards Palestinians, towards war and peace.
I will avoid this confusing usage. I will talk not about “left” but about socialism.
My theme is the correlation – if you like, the dialectical relation – between the struggle for socialism and the struggle against Zionism.
My main theses are two sides of one medal:
1. In Israel the struggle for socialism must be part of a regional struggle; and it necessarily implies a struggle to overthrow Zionism.
2. Conversely, a defensive struggle against the worst effects of Zionism can be waged on its own as a series of one-issue campaigns, by single-issue groupings; but Zionism cannot and will not be overthrown in this way. It can only be overthrown as part of a socialist transformation of the entire region, the Arab East. And it requires an organization set up according to this strategy.
1. Socialists must struggle against Zionism
I will be brief on this part of the thesis. I will say just this: Capitalism is a structured world system, in which individual states have specific roles. Israel is a capitalist country, but it is not “like any other capitalist country” (in fact, no capitalist country is like any other…).
Israel’s articulation in the world capitalist system is specifically as a Zionist state, a colonial settler state, with a regional role as a local enforcer of imperialism.
Therefore the struggle for socialism in Israel, against capitalism, necessarily involves resolute opposition to Zionism. Thus for socialists in Israel opposition to Zionism goes beyond a purely moral position. It includes, but cannot be reduced to, supporting Palestinian national rights and national liberation.
We in Matzpen understood this from our early days. Matzpen was founded in 1962. At that time, in the period between the Suez war of 1956 and the 1967 war, the Israeli–Arab conflict was at its least acute phase. Matzpen was not formed specifically around this issue, but as a revolutionary socialist group. However, it was clear to us that we had to confront the nature of Zionism as a colonizing project, and the Israeli state as a settler state. It was clear to us that we must support Palestinian national liberation and the right of return.
You can find all this, for example, in a statement we published in May 1967: “The Palestine Problem and the Israeli–Arab Dispute.”
Before the 1967 war, when we expressed an explicitly anti-Zionist position and described Israel as a colonizing settler state, we were met with puzzled incomprehension. I recall my former comrades in the Communist Party (from which I had been expelled in 1962) saying: “A Zionist settler state? What on earth are you talking about? This is just history!”
2. How can Zionism be overthrown?
I will say a bit more about the converse part of my thesis: what is required for resolution of the conflict?
As it is caused by colonization, resolution requires decolonization. In this specific case, as the cause is Zionist colonization, what is required is deZionisation, overthrow of the Zionist project and its state.
I will argue that this can only be achieved as part of a regional socialist transformation – which requires an organizational setup designed for the struggle for socialism. And I will further argue that in this long-term endeavour socialists in Israel have a crucial role to play.
Let me stress: what I am talking about is resolution of the conflict – as distinct from resistance against the current effects of Zionist colonization. Such resistance is both necessary and possible, and indeed is taking place in Palestine/Israel as it is now, in the region as it is now, in the world as it is now.
This resistance is waged by the Palestinian masses and is aided by a whole range of single-issue solidarity campaigns and coalitions, in Israel, in the region and throughout the world.
Engaging in this struggle does not necessarily need to be conducted under a socialist banner. To engage in it you don’t necessarily need to be a socialist. It helps if you are a socialist, but you don’t have to be one.
But in my opinion it is an illusion to believe that this struggle by itself – even intensified as much as it is possible to intensify it – can lead to decolonization, deZionisation, overthrow of Zionism and its machinery.
“But why not?”, I hear many people say, “decolonization has been achieved in many places, especially after the Second World War, in the second half of the 20th century.” The most recent example is often cited: South Africa.
If South-African apartheid could be overthrown within the present global order and without a socialist revolution, why not Zionist apartheid?
Here it is vital to make an observation that to Marxists is elementary and almost obvious, although it is usually ignored by those to whom colonialism is only a moral issue.
Marxists distinguish two types, two models of colonization and colonial settler states. The difference is a structural one, regarding the political economy of the colonization project and the resulting settler state.
In all places where decolonization occurred in the 20th century, the settlers’ economy depended on exploiting the labour power of the indigenous people. As a result, the settlers were a relatively small minority, far outnumbered by the indigenous people; and the settlers needed the indigenous people, without whose labour they could not exist.
Thus the conflict was an internal one, a quasi-class struggle within a common economy.
Despite superficial appearances, the balance of power was not favourable to the settlers; they could only impose their domination by using force – against the very people whose presence was vital to their political economy. This was unsustainable in the long term.
In contrast, I know of no case of successful decolonization in places where colonization followed the other model: not exploiting the indigenous people as source of labour power, but excluding them, ethnically cleansing them.
Historically, in all such places the settlers became a new settler nation, whereas the indigenous people, if not exterminated, were pulverized or at best overwhelmed and marginalized. At any rate, they were externalized.
Significantly, in the original US Constitution (Article 1, Section 2 Subsection 3), in counting the number of persons in each state of the Union, an African slave counted as three fifths of a person; but a so-called “Indian” counted as zero, a non-person.
The remaining indigenous people of Australia or North America, for example, cannot hope to reclaim their ancestral homeland. The best they can hope for, and do indeed struggle for, is for equal rights and for the freedom to foster and preserve their old languages and traditions – but in a national framework dominated by the language and culture of the settlers.
We can say that in such places the conflict between settlers and indigenous people was in some sense resolved – but resolved in favour of the former, the settlers.
This is quite different from what happened in places where colonization followed the exploitative model.
This is why the analogy of South Africa is very misleading when applied to Palestine/Israel.
Of course, this does not mean that the fate of the North-American and Australian aborigines necessarily awaits the indigenous Palestinian Arab people in this last remaining unresolved colonial conflict. I do not argue such determinism.
However, we must be honest, even if this forces us to pessimism of the intellect.
This analytical observation should make us see that the danger is very real – including the danger of another major wave of ethnic cleansing. This is why the defensive resistance struggle, and campaigns of solidarity with it, assumes an extreme importance and great urgency.
EDITOR: Talk by Assaf Kfoury
To read the whole text use the link below:
Assaf Kfoury: Whither Hezbollah: IOA
Posted by admin on Mar 8th, 2010
Hezbollah is the guerilla force that stymied the Israeli military in southern Lebanon in the 1990’s. The Israeli occupiers and their proxies in the South Lebanon Army finally gave up and withdrew in May 2000. In a return confrontation in July-August 2006, Hezbollah again stood its ground, and the Israeli military was again stunned by a gritty enemy. This time round, it was the Bush administration’s open goading – recall Condoleezza Rice’s monstrous declarations (“the birth pangs of the new Middle East”) to justify the destruction and the killing[1] – which pressed Israel to pursue an increasingly futile and elusive finish. In July-August 2006 just as in the 1990’s, Hezbollah did not cave in, remained defiant, wore down its more powerful opponent, and fought it to a draw.
There is much to respect and reflect on here. The business with Hezbollah is not police action against murderous criminal gangs – though this is how it often sounds in the western media – which are moreover said to be armed and abetted by one of America’s current bogeymen (Iran). It is unfinished business with far-reaching consequences for the US, Israel, and western interests in the Middle East. Autocratic Arab regimes have fallen in line with the dictates of the American overlord, one after the other, or else faced outright destruction, as in Iraq. By contrast, Hezbollah has repeatedly played spoiler and provided inspiration to others to resist. It is the only organized Arab force that the mighty Israeli army has been unable to subdue and the only one whose declarations of steadfastness have matched its performance on the battlefield.[2] Largely thanks to Hezbollah, the plans for a “new Middle East”, at least as imagined by George W. Bush and Condoleezza Rice, have collapsed.
Not without inflicting great pain, however. The cost for the Lebanese that have sheltered Hezbollah has been very steep. The wholesale devastation wrought on Lebanon by Israel over the years has been all out of proportion with what Israel has suffered in return. In July-August 2006, for example, the ratio of Lebanese civilian fatalities to Israeli civilian fatalities was more than 25 to 1, while the ratio of combatant fatalities was about 1 to 1.[3]
Hezbollah’s resilience has come at an even heavier price for the Palestinians to the south. Israel has undertaken with a vengeance to make the Palestinians under its control pay for its setbacks to the north. In recent years, commentators in the West have taken to chiding Israel’s “disproportionate” response to Palestinian acts of resistance – as if there would be nothing to denounce about Israel’s relentless decades-long dispossession of the Palestinians, had its response been “proportionate”. Such was the liberal verdict, for example, on Israel’s destruction of Gaza in January 2009. By Israeli generals’ own admission, this “disproportionate” response was deliberately designed to preempt any Palestinian urge to duplicate Hezbollah’s experience.[4]
But Hezbollah is not just an effective guerilla force resolutely opposed to US-led western domination. It is also a political party, though one that is not neatly defined by traditional categories of the left (or the right). Since its shadowy beginnings shortly after Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon, Hezbollah has transformed itself from a small underground militia into a large party deeply entrenched in Lebanese politics.[5] Along the way, it has battled other parties to impose itself as the dominant powerbroker inside the Lebanese Shia community and then, without shedding its exclusive Shia identity, in Lebanon as a whole. It has shrewdly used the prestige and notoriety that have come its way to further its own communal agenda. It has often formed contradictory or unlikely alliances with political players to its right – out of expediency or Islamist affinity, sacrificing support from potential allies to its left – both inside Lebanon and in the region at large.
From the 1985 Open Letter to the 2009 Political Manifesto
Hezbollah’s trajectory is punctuated by two documents, its so-called 1985 Open Letter[6] and its 2009 Political Manisfesto.[7] After more than two years of secretive operations, Hezbollah issued its Open Letter in 1985, addressed to the “downtrodden in Lebanon and the World.” After a lengthy dedication, the opening paragraph of the Open Letter sets the tone for the entire document and reads thus:
We are the sons of the Umma [the worldwide Muslim community], the Party of God [Hezbollah], whose vanguard God made victorious in Iran where it re-established the nucleus of the Islamic State in the World. We obey the orders of the sole, wise, and just command of the faqih [Islamic Jurisprudent], which are presently embodied by the imam and guide, Ayatollah Khomeini. May his authority empower the Muslims and be the harbinger of their glorious renaissance!
After proclaiming the advent of the Islamic State and pledging loyalty to the Rule of the Jurisprudent (wilayat al faqih), the rest of the Open Letter is infused with enmity towards the US (“that arrogant superpower”), France, Israel and their “local agents” (foremost among whom are the Phalangists and their leader, Bashir Gemayel, “that butcher”), just as it never fails to invoke Islam as the only salvation for humanity (“we reject both capitalism and communism,” “only an Islamic government is capable of guaranteeing justice and liberty for all,” “we call upon you [the non-Muslims] to embrace Islam so that you can be happy in this world and the next”).[8] Lebanon is peripheral in this agenda: If it is mentioned, it is as one of the battlefields where the Umma confronts its enemies.
Whereas the 1985 Open Letter is an angry call to arms, the 2009 Political Manifesto by comparison is deliberately studious and more than three times as long. The first is interspersed with paragraph-long jeremiads against accumulated grievances at the hands of the confessional system and its foreign backers, the second tries to frame these grievances in the context of conflicting socio-economic interests. The second document is still short on analysis – running into ambiguities of its own, and unable or unwilling to discard the pointless (for a political manifesto) Islamic frills – but nevertheless confirming the extensive changes Hezbollah has experienced since the early 1980’s.[9]
The most significant perhaps, seen from a Western perspective that tends to stress Hezbollah’s narrow Islamist focus, is the shift away from the call to bring to Lebanon the unifying Islamic State (already established in Iran). This call, as well as allegiance to the Rule of the Jurisprudent, are absent from the Political Manifesto. Though still referring to Islam as the inspiration for the party’s ideology and action, the 2009 document makes no mention of the Umma and insists instead on Hezbollah’s identity as a patriotic Lebanese organization.[10]
Just as significant for those among whom Hezbollah has to operate is the 2009 document’s acceptance of ethnic, cultural and religious diversity, not only emphatically in Lebanese society, but also in the Middle East at large. It considers this diversity “a source of wealth and social vitality.”[11] This is a far cry from the appeal in the 1985 Open Letter to non-Muslims to “embrace Islam where you will find salvation and happiness upon Earth and in the Hereafter.”
Top Fatah official faces jail over Jerusalem Protests: Maan News
Jerusalem – Ma’an – Israeli Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein filed a litany of charges against senior Fatah official Hatem Abdul Qader, all in relation to recent civil unrest among Palestinians in Jerusalem.
Abdul Qader was charged with violating court orders against visiting the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, inciting riots, and assaulting police officers. A trial has been set for 27 April.
Palestinian legal officials said Abdul Qader could face more than a year in prison if convicted.
Abdul Qader himself rejected the charges saying in a statement, “the occupation is attempting to punish me for political activity in Jerusalem.”
Abdul Qader, a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) and former cabinet minister for Jerusalem affairs, has been arrested several times by Israeli forces, particularly during demonstrations at the Al-Aqsa compound. This is the first time the attorney general has filed criminal charges against him.
Dozens of Palestinians were hurt on Friday when Israeli forces stormed the Al-Aqsa compound, firing tear gas and stun grenades at demonstrators.
EDITOR: One-sided negotiations
It seems that the Palestinians are not really necessary here, and Israel and the US have sorted it all out between them… how surprising…
Israel and U.S. launch indirect peace talks: Haaretz
The United States has already begun to mediate indirect peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians, the Israeli Embassy in the U.S. confirmed on Monday.
All three parties were cautious however whether the current round of talks, which effectively ended 14 months of suspended contacts, would yield any significant developments in the Middle East peace process.
The United States announced earlier Monday that Israel and the Palestinians have formally agreed to indirect peace negotiations brokered by its special envoy to the Middle East, George Mitchell.
Mitchell, who is visiting the region along with U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, said in a statement that he was “pleased” the two sides had accepted the proposal that will see him shuttle between Israel and the Palestinian territories over the next several weeks.
“We’ve begun to discuss the structure and scope of these talks and I will return to the region next week to continue our discussions,” Mitchell said. “As we’ve said many times, we hope that these will lead to direct negotiations as soon as possible.
In his statement, Mitchell appealed to the two sides to be careful and void any actions that might jeopardize the talks.
“We also again encourage the parties, and all concerned, to refrain from any statements or actions which may inflame tensions or prejudice the outcome of these talks,” he said.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanuahu on Monday welcomed the Palestinians’ acceptance of the talks and said he hoped for direct negotiations in the near future, but reiterated that any permanent settlement would require recognition of Israel as a Jewish state and a long-term guarantee of Israel’s security.
Defense Minister Ehud Barak said earlier Monday that he would rather negotiate with the Palestinians face to face than hold talks via a U.S. mediator.
“We would prefer direct negotiations with the Palestinians but in the current climate it was hard enough to achieve indirect talks, Barak said.
But the Labor party leader vowed that the so-called ‘proximity’ talks would continue until direct talks became possible. “Proximity talks won’t stop until we have found a way to direct dialogue between us and the Palestinians, in which every issue can be laid on the table,” he said.
Also Monday, Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said that
the indirect talks between Israel and the Palestinians would be a last chance to keep the Middle East peace process alive.
“The relationship has deteriorated to this stage where the U.S. is trying to save this peace process with the last attempt – by the way, mark my words – this will be the last attempt in order to see if it can be a tool to make decisions between Palestinians and Israelis,” he told Army Radio.
Mitchell met with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Monday afternoon following two days of talks with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on restarting statehood negotiations.
Both sides had agreed in principle to the U.S. proposal for indirect contacts to revive talks suspended since December 2008, in a boost to U.S. President Barack Obama’s difficult quest to end decades of conflict.
The Palestine Liberation Organization on Sunday endorsed the indirect talks, following Arab League backing last week for four months of negotiations which the Palestinians say should focus on security and borders of a future state.
Abbas had demanded a complete halt to Israeli settlement building as a condition for resuming talks and has rejected as insufficient a limited freeze Netanyahu ordered in November under U.S. pressure.
But the PLO and Arab League decisions gave the Western-backed leader political support for re-engaging with Israel without a total settlement moratorium. Netanyahu has agreed to indirect talks, saying he hoped they would lead to face-to-face negotiations.
Erekat said he hoped Abbas and Netanyahu would take the lead in the coming talks and reiterated the Palestinian outline for a peace deal – a state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip along the lines in place before Israel captured the two territories in the 1967 Six-Day War, “with agreed swaps”.
Israel’s previous prime minister, Ehud Olmert, had pursued a peace agreement under which land inside Israel would be transferred to a Palestinian state in exchange for major settlement blocs in the West Bank.
Netanyahu has not endorsed the concept.
Mitchell, who has been trying to broker a resumption of peace talks for a year, met Netanyahu in Jerusalem for more than two hours on Sunday and held further talks with him on Monday.
Many observers and politicians doubt that the indirect talks, in which Mitchell is widely expected to shuttle, at least initially, between Jerusalem and the West Bank city of Ramallah, can succeed where years of negotiations have failed.
Abbas faces a continuing challenge from the Hamas Islamist movement, which has controlled the Gaza Strip for three years and opposes the U.S.-backed peace efforts.
Netanyahu, who has spelled out his vision of a Palestinian state with limited powers of sovereignty, heads a coalition government that includes political allies of settlers in the West Bank
Israel agrees to let UN chief, EU commissioner enter Gaza: Haartez
Israel has agreed to grant United Nations secretary general and the European Union’s foreign policy commissioner entry visas into the Gaza Strip, the first time it has acceded to such a request from international officials since Operation Cast Lead in December 2008.
The Foreign Ministry announced on Monday that the two unusual entry permits were granted to the United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and the European Union’s foreign policy commissioner Catherine Ashton.
“In response to the unique requested submitted by the UN chief, Mr. Ban Ki-moon, and the EU Foreign Policy commissioner, Lady Catherine Ashton, Israel has decided to permit their entrance into the Gaza Strip for close inspection of humanitarian aide work,” the Ministry’s statement wrote.
Foreign Ministry sources added that Lady Ashton would enter the Gaza strip first during her visit to the Middle East next week.
Ban is scheduled to arrive in Israel within the next few weeks, during which he will also cross the border into Gaza.
The reason for the unusual permits is reportedly to ease the international pressure on Israel relating to blockade on the Gaza Strip.
The British stateswoman, who has also served as the Commissioner for Trade in the European Commission, said earlier that in the EU’s view: “East Jerusalem is occupied territory, together with the West Bank.”
Ashton demanded that Israel immediately lift its blockade on the Gaza Strip, and reiterated that the union opposes the existence of the West Bank separation fence, as it opposes evictions of Palestinians from their homes in East Jerusalem.
The stateswoman, whose full title is Baroness Ashton of Upholland, also only defined Israel’s partial freeze of West Bank settlement construction as a “first step,” as opposed to the warmer description of the move by EU foreign ministers, who last week took “positive note” of it.
EDITOR: Whistling in the dark
In the best tradition of Haaretz, somewhat resembling the missives of Jonathan Freedland in The Guardian, the Editorial in Haaretz is straining every muscle to claim that this is the very chance everyone was waiting for. They always say that. They could not hurt a fly.
Editorial / U.S. is proving it wants Mideast peace – now it’s Israel’s turn: Haaretz Editorial
The visit to Israel this week by U.S. Vice President Joseph Biden, along with American Middle East envoy George Mitchell’s meetings here, testify to the United States’ readiness to not miss the opportunity to advance the peace process. The latest American diplomatic effort comes on the heels of the Arab League granting Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas qualified “permission” to conduct indirect talks with Israel – which also represents an important gesture on the part of those countries that have signed on to the Arab peace initiative.
On the other hand, a recent Israeli Foreign Ministry report indicates that the U.S. administration has no intention of expending too great an effort to achieve a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and that the Obama administration’s positions are closer to those held by the Palestinians than to Israel’s stance.
Israel and the Palestinians must decide which of the two perspectives they will embrace: either the view that hope is still not abandoned, or the one that dampens expectations entirely. If Israel intends to do nothing more than evade responsibility for the failure of the peace process and placate the U.S. administration until the expiration of the settlement construction freeze, it would be better not to launch the indirect talks at all. Every past diplomatic step that turned out to be nothing more than another exercise in evasion only served to push the peace process several substantial steps backward, leaving in its wake great despair and frustration that gave rise to more violence.
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Israel is not entitled to simply shrug its shoulders at the revival of the peace process – not only because its standing in the world has sunk and its relations with the United States have declined to mere diplomatic correctness. All the signs in the territories point to the danger of a descent into violence and even a third intifada. The revival of the peace process is an essential step in halting this deterioration in the short run, and ending the conflict in the long term. In the four months during which the indirect talks are set to be conducted, the Israeli government must invest every effort in convincing its own citizens, first of all, that it indeed intends to refrain from its sleights of hand and to take the negotiations seriously.
Subsequently, the state must freeze construction in the settlements unequivocally and without delay. That will allow the process to advance to the stage of direct talks. There is no other channel of negotiations. The ridiculous recent public service announcements encouraging Israelis to explain the “other” Israel to the world, cannot be a substitute for a serious policy articulating hope for a breakthrough.
Interpol seeks arrest of 16 more suspects in Dubai hit: Haaretz
The international police agency Interpol on Monday issued arrest notices for an additional 16 suspects over the assassination of a Hamas operative in Dubai earlier this year.
Interpol last month added to its most wanted list 11 suspected assassins allegedly responsible for killing Hamas strongman Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in his Dubai hotel in January.
The individuals were tagged with “Red Notices,” according to the Interpol’s official website.
The website also specifies that Interpol chose to publish the photos of the suspected assassins since the identities the perpetrators allegedly used were fake, using fraudulent passports to aid them in accomplishing their aim.
Dubai police chief ahi Khalfan Tamim last month said that Interpol should issue a warrant to help locate and arrest the head of Israel’s spy agency Mossad if the organization was responsible for the killing of a Hamas militant in Dubai.