EDITOR: Will He or Won’t He?
So now Netanyahu calls Obama’s bluff – he says quite openly that he does not intend to follow the great leader in Washington, that the Jerusalem settlements are not up for discussion, and basically admits that he has not the slightest intention to follow the Washington plan for defusing the Palestine conflict. I say defusing, as it is definitely not directed at resolving it, but at lowering the tension in the Arab and Islamic world, so the wars in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, and anywhere else can continue at the pace and in the manner the US prefers. Now Netanyahu threatens this startegic objective of the US, believeing he is protected from Obama by AIPAC, the influential Jewish community in the US, and the many Senators and Congressmen who are aided and financed by AIPAC. He may well be right, and Obama may well lose this one!
Netanyahu raises stakes with US over settlements in East Jerusalem: The Independent
By Catrina Stewart in Jerusalem
Friday, 23 April 2010
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected US demands to freeze Jewish construction in East Jerusalem, creating a key stumbling block to renewed peace talks just as Washington’s Middle East envoy arrived in town.
“I am saying one thing. There will be no freeze in Jerusalem,” Mr Netanyahu said in comments broadcast on Israel’s Channel 2 last night. “There should be no preconditions to talks.”
The Israeli leader had formally responded to the Obama administration’s freeze request at the weekend, The Wall Street Journal reported.
His public comments, made just after George Mitchell’s arrival for his first visit in six weeks, seemed timed to undermine the US envoy’s bid to revive negotiations between the Israelis and Palestinians.
The Palestinians have called for a full construction freeze in the West Bank and annexed East Jerusalem, captured by Israel in 1967, before they will agree to return to peace talks, which have been stalled now for more than a year. “It’s a disaster,” said Moshe Ma’oz, professor of Islamic and Middle Eastern studies at Jerusalem’s Hebrew university. Jewish settlements are “the crux of the matter for the Palestinians. I don’t see what is holy to Jews about [Palestinian neighbourhoods] Abu Dis and Sheikh Jarrah”.
The timing of Mr Netanyahu’s decision sends a strong message to US President Barack Obama, who has invested significant political capital in securing a peace deal in the Middle East.
Mr Obama reportedly presented Mr Netanyahu with a list of measures, among them a construction freeze, during a fraught meeting at the White House in late March aimed at bringing Palestinians back to the negotiating table. Washington put its shuttle diplomacy efforts on hold while it awaited Israel’s response.
Jewish construction in East Jerusalem, internationally recognised as occupied territory, is a deeply contentious issue. Some 180,000 Jews live there, and 250,000 Palestinians. Palestinians claim East Jerusalem as the future capital of an independent Palestinian state, and fear Israel is seeking to predetermine its fate and make them a minority there. Mr Netanyahu has insisted that Israel will retain control over an undivided Jerusalem.
Mark Regev, Mr Netanyahu’s spokesman, insisted yesterday that Israel was committed to peace talks with the Palestinians. “We are working with the US to restart the talks, and we want that to happen,” he said.
In a bid to show willing, Israel has agreed to several other concessions, such as easing the flow of goods into the Gaza Strip, which has been under Israeli blockade since 2007, the release of Palestinian prisoners and the removal of some roadblocks in the West Bank, The WSJ reported.
But Israel’s lack of movement on settlements will likely complicate Mr Mitchell’s mission as he seeks to coax the Palestinians back to the table. Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erekat said yesterday that he hoped Mr Mitchell would convince Israelis to “give peace a chance” by halting settlements.
Travel ban imposed on Palestinian leader in Israel: The Electronic intifada
Press release, Popular Committee for the Defense of Political Freedoms and Ittijah, 23 April 2010
Ameer Makhoul (Adri Nieuwhof) On 22 April 2010 the Popular Committee for the Defense of Political Freedoms and Ittijah – Union of Arab Community-Based Associations issued the following statement:
This morning, the Israeli Border Police prevented Mr. Ameer Makhoul, the Director of Ittijah – Union of Arab Community-Based Associations inside Israel, from leaving the country. Makhoul, who also serves as the head of the Popular Committee for the Defense of Political Freedoms, received a prohibition order from leaving the country upon his arrival to the Jordan River Crossing. The order, which was issued by the Israeli Minister of the Interior, Eli Yishai, prohibits Makhoul from leaving the country for a period of two months.
In the prohibition order itself, the Israeli Minister of the Interior, Eli Yishai, states that “I have reached the conviction that the exit of Ameer Makhoul from the country poses a serious threat to the security of the state, and therefore I issue this order to prevent him from leaving the country until the 21st of June, 2010” according to article 6 of the 1948 emergency regulations. Even though the order grants Makhoul the right to appeal to the Israeli Supreme Court, Makhoul already stated his unwillingness to do so. Usually in such cases, Makhoul stated, the Supreme Court acts as an extension of the Israeli General Security Services (GSS), the Shabak [Shin Bet].
We consider this administrative order as one that aims at the creation of a culture of fear among Palestinian civil society and a direct attack on our popular and political bodies. We confirm our insistence to continue consolidating our relations with the Arab world and the world in general, and our call to boycott the State of Israel and its policies. Our relations with the Arab world are dependent upon neither the Israeli minister nor the GSS, but on our natural right based on international law and peoples’ rights. We also consider the order to be a direct attack on the Popular Committees for the Defense of Political Freedoms and its activities on local and international levels that manifest our people’s deep roots in our land.
Furthermore, this order constitutes the culmination of the Israeli intelligence persecution of Ittijah – Union of Arab Community-Based Associations during the last few years, due to its wide relations with the Arab world and its role in representing Palestinian civil society inside Israel on local and international levels.
Following the issuance of this prohibition order, representatives of Ittijah, the Popular Committee and the High Monitoring Committee of Arabs in Israel decided to convene today in order to discuss the methods to confront the order.
Lebanon Rejects Israel Accusations About Scuds: NY Times
BEIRUT, Lebanon — Lebanon’s prime minister has dismissed Israeli accusations that Syria had been providing Scud missiles to the Hezbollah militia in his country, comparing them to claims that Iraq had unconventional weapons before the American-led invasion in 2003.
The prime minister, Saad Hariri, made his comments late Monday during a state visit to Italy. They were Lebanon’s first official comments about the accusations, made last week by Israel’s president, Shimon Peres. Mr. Hariri’s comments, though aimed to quell anxiety, hinted at Lebanon’s unease over its possible role as a battleground if rumors of a regional war should be realized.
“At the start of the summer season, they make such threats,” Mr. Hariri told a group of Lebanese citizens living in Rome, in comments published Tuesday by Al Mustaqbal, the newspaper of his political movement. “All this is similar to what was said previously about the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, that were never found.”
Syria has denied Mr. Peres’s accusations about the Scuds, which can carry warheads of up to a ton, have a range of hundreds of miles and presumably could make all of Israel vulnerable to an attack launched from Lebanese soil.
American officials have said they did not have any confirmation that Scuds were actually delivered to Hezbollah. But on Monday, the Obama administration summoned Syria’s ranking diplomat in Washington to express its concern nonetheless.
Syria and Iran are widely believed to have significantly rearmed Hezbollah since the group’s July 2006 war with Israel, which devastated Lebanon’s infrastructure and left more than a thousand Lebanese and several dozen Israelis dead.
On Monday, Israel’s defense minister, Ehud Barak, sought to allay fears of a war, saying on Army Radio that Israel had no intention of starting one.
Mr. Hariri has often issued warnings about Hezbollah’s weapons and Syria’s role in supplying them, especially in the years after Syria’s withdrawal from Lebanon in 2005. But after Hezbollah asserted itself militarily in the streets of Beirut in May 2008, political realities began to shift, in recognition that the United States — for all its rhetorical support for Lebanon — was not willing to intervene by force. Some of Mr. Hariri’s allies, notably the Druse leader, Walid Jumblatt, began to curtail their criticisms of Syria and Hezbollah.
Mr. Hariri himself visited Damascus, Syria, last year after becoming prime minister, in what was seen as part of Syria’s renewed influence in Lebanon.
US envoy Mitchell meets Netanyahu in push to end rift: BBC
Mr Mitchell (left) and Mr Netanyahu both said they were pushing for peace
US Middle East envoy George Mitchell is meeting Israeli and Palestinian leaders in the hope of ending a row over Israeli building in East Jerusalem.
Mr Mitchell met Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday, on his first visit since the disagreement scuppered planned indirect peace talks.
Reports suggested Israel may be willing to make several gestures to bring the Palestinians back to the negotiations.
But Israel’s PM has stressed he will not stop building in East Jerusalem.
Ahead of his meeting with Mr Mitchell, Mr Netanyahu said Israel was “serious” about trying to advance peace, and hoped the Palestinians would “respond”.
Mr Mitchell stressed the “unbreakable bond” between the US and Israel.
Officials said the two would meet again on Sunday, after Mr Mitchell has met Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas later on Friday.
US demands
The Palestinians pulled out of the scheduled “proximity talks” last month after Israel approved a plan for 1,600 homes in East Jerusalem, where the Palestinians want the capital of their future state.
We should give proximity talks the chance they deserve, but it is evident… that this Israeli government is determined to continue the course of settlements, dictation and confrontation
Saeb Erekat, Palestinian chief negotiator
That announcement, as US Vice-President Joe Biden was visiting to launch the negotiations, triggered a crisis in relations between Israel and its greatest ally, Washington.
A planned visit by Mr Mitchell in March was cancelled.
The US has requested that Israel make a series of moves, which have not been officially made public, to reassure the Palestinians.
As Mr Mitchell arrived, Mr Netanyahu stressed in a television interview that he would not yield to US pressure to completely halt building in the occupied East of Jerusalem.
“I am saying one thing: there will be no freeze in Jerusalem,” he said.
But on Thursday, the Wall Street Journal quoted unnamed US officials as saying that Mr Netanyahu had offered measures including easing the blockade on Gaza, releasing prisoners, freezing the controversial building project in Ramat Shlomo for two years, and agreeing to discuss borders and the status of Jerusalem.
‘Fruitful’
In Washington, a US state department spokesman said there had been “good give and take” with the Israelis.
The decision that Mr Mitchell would visit was only made on Wednesday, with reports from lower level US-Israeli meetings suggesting it would be “fruitful for him to travel”, the spokesman, PJ Crowley said. But he added that the Israelis still had not done everything the US wanted.
“The status quo is not sustainable,” he warned.
Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erekat said the Palestinians “should give the proximity talks the chance they deserve”.
But he added: “It is evident after Mr Netanyahu’s statements that this Israeli government is determined to continue the course of settlements, dictation and confrontation and not peace and reconciliation.”
The Palestinians’ position on exactly what Israel must do before they would join indirect talks remains unclear.
Since the row broke out, Mr Abbas has said Israel must halt all settlement activity, including in East Jerusalem, though he initially agreed to the negotiations without a total freeze.
But a senior Palestinian official has told the BBC the Ramat Shlomo project must be put on ice for at least three years, and the Israelis must not “continue to take actions which destroy our credibility”.
‘No preconditions’
Mr Netanyahu has said that no other Israeli prime minister in the past 46 years has been asked to stop building in Jerusalem, which would be unacceptable to his right-wing coalition partners.
He says he is willing to talk without preconditions, but has laid out a tougher stance on final status issues such as borders and Jerusalem than his predecessor, Ehud Olmert.
Israel has occupied East Jerusalem since 1967. It annexed the area in 1981 and sees it as its exclusive domain.
Under international law the area is occupied territory and the international community does not recognise Israel’s annexation of East Jerusalem.