EDITOR: The Settlements Show is about to end! At Last
After a tense ten-day run of this less than popular Washington and Jerusalem run show, it seems that a happy end is in sight: Friendship is forever, love flourishes, and both Netanyahu and his Ambassador eat their words, but no change to policy. Love wins the day! A large fudge is being cooked and served to us all…
Sporadic rioting broke out in the West Bank on Wednesday
US and Israeli diplomats are trying to bridge divisions over Israeli building plans in occupied East Jerusalem, as clashes in the city have waned.
The Palestinians have pulled out of indirect talks because of the plan.
The US is awaiting Israel’s response to its request for gestures to reassure the Palestinians.
Clashes on Thursday between Palestinian stone-throwers and Israeli security forces have died down, but new violence began on Wednesday in the West Bank.
Overnight, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office welcomed comments by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton dismissing claims that US-Israeli ties were in crisis.
‘Warm remarks’
She had accused Israel of “insulting” and “deeply negative” behaviour after the Israelis announced they had pushed forward plans for 1,600 new homes in East Jerusalem during US Vice President Joe Biden’s visit to the region last week.
In her latest comment, she called the bond between the US and Israel “unshakeable”, but also urged Israel and the Palestinians to prove their commitment to peace.
Mr Netanyahu’s office said it appreciated her “warm remarks”, but added that Israel had already proved its commitment to peace “in both word and deed”.
Mr Netahyahu has apologised for the timing of the settlement announcement, but has stood by Israel’s policy on Jewish building in Jerusalem.
Also on Tuesday, Israel’s ambassador to the US, Michael Oren, denied comments widely quoted by Israeli media as saying that ties between the US and Israel were at their lowest point since 1975.
On Wednesday, movement restrictions on Palestinians, which had been in place for five days, were lifted as the previous days’ clashes died down in Jerusalem.
But violence broke out in the village of Beita in the northern West Bank, as at least 100 Palestinians threw stones at Israeli security forces, who responded with tear gas and rubber-coated bullets.
Clashes also took place at Qalandia checkpoint and Beit Anoun, near Hebron in the southern West Bank.
‘Days of rage’
In Tuesday’s unrest, the police said about 60 Palestinians had been arrested. Dozens of Palestinians and 15 police were injured, including one policeman who was shot in the hand.
The Islamist movement Hamas had called for a “day of rage” in defence of the Muslim holy site, the al-Aqsa mosque, in Jerusalem’s Old City.
Palestinians were angered over Jewish right wingers’ plans to enter the compound, which Jews call the Temple Mount, although police cancelled the event.
The reopening of a synagogue in the Jewish quarter of the Old City also increased tensions, as did five days of Israeli security restrictions limiting access to the al-Aqsa mosque to women and men over the age of 50.
Palestinians are also enraged over Israel’s continued building in East Jerusalem, where they want their future capital.
The international community considers East Jerusalem occupied territory. Building on occupied territory is illegal under international law.
Israel captured East Jerusalem in the 1967 Israeli-Arab war, and later annexed it in a move not recognised by the international community.
President Shimon Peres called the United States “a true friend” on Wednesday and said that both Israel and the U.S. want to ease the recent tensions between the two nations.
“We have deep respect for [U.S.] parliamentary and executive institutions, led by President Obama,” Peres told a group of high school students in Holon. “We want these relations and are interested in returning them to their regular, positive state.”
Speaking about indirect talks with the Palestinians, Peres said such talks, while not ideal, are better than nothing.
“In my opinion, proximity talks can open the path to renewing the peace negotiations,” he said. “I can say, on this stage, to our Palestinian neighbors and to whoever is listening – Israel has already made a historic decision to establish two states for two peoples. An Arabic state named Palestine and a Jewish state named Israel. I do not believe or think it possible that there is any other solution.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. Vice President Joe Biden spoke on the phone Tuesday night in a bid to reduce friction between the U.S. and Israel over a plan to construct 1,600 new housing units in East Jerusalem.
The New York Times also said that the American administration had confirmed the conversation. The Prime Minister’s Bureau did not elaborate on the details of the conversation, which lasted until 2 A.M. Netanyahu’s advisers Yitzhak Molcho and Ron Dermer, along with Israeli envoy to the U.S. Michael Oren, were also present.
Israel’s announcement of plans to build 1,600 housing units in East Jerusalem strained ties with the U.S., which has said it regarded last week’s decision – made public while Biden was in Israel – as an insult.
Netanyahu is expected to convene a meeting of seven senior cabinet ministers on Wednesday to discuss a response to demands raised by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that could help defuse the diplomatic row.
A U.S. State Department spokesman said Clinton and Netanyahu may speak by phone as early as Wednesday. Netanyahu is expected to deliver Israel’s official response to Clinton during that conversation.
Clinton’s demands include the cancellation of the Ramat Shlomo construction project in East Jerusalem, which was announced during U.S. Vice President Joe Biden’s visit to the region last week.
She also wants goodwill gestures toward the Palestinians and a public declaration by Netanyahu of his willingness to discuss the conflict’s core issues in the framework of peace negotiations with the Palestinian Authority.
Israel’s response had been set to be the main focus of a meeting Wednesday of the forum of seven senior cabinet members, though that meeting will now not take place.
Clinton said Tuesday that Israel must prove it is committed to the Mideast peace process. But she brushed aside suggestions that relations with the main U.S. ally in the Mideast are in crisis over Israeli plans to build new Jewish housing in East Jerusalem.
She stressed that the United States remained committed to Israel’s security despite current tensions.
“We are engaged in very active consultations with the Israelis over steps that we think would demonstrate the requisite commitment to the process,” Clinton said. She had outlined her steps that Israel could take in a telephone call to Netanyahu on Friday.
State Department spokesman Philip J.Crowley on Tuesday also tried to downplay the tension, saying that no one in U.S. administration used the word “crisis” to describe the situation.
Also on Tuesday, Ambassador Oren said that he was misquoted in the media over the recent diplomatic row.
“Recent events do not – I repeat – do not represent the lowest point in the relations between Israel and the United States,” clarified Oren.
“Though we differ on certain issues, our discussions are being conducted in an atmosphere of cooperation as befitting long-standing relations between allies. I am confident that we will overcome these differences shortly.”
Netanyahu’s office on Tuesday issued a statement that read, “The government of Israel has proved its commitment to peace in the last year in words and in deeds.”
Still, in contrast to the tone of messages exchanged in recent days, the statement from Netanyahu’s office included praise of Clinton’s assertion that ties between Israel and the United States are unbreakable and that Washington remained committed to Israel’s security.
The statement also accused the Palestinians of failing to take steps toward launching negotiations with Israel while engaging in incitement in Jerusalem. “We are going above and beyond in an effort to resume negotiations without preconditions and the Palestinians are doing nothing,” said a senior aide to the prime minister. “This needs to be clear to the international community.”
Discussions between Netanyahu aides and White House officials continued Tuesday in an effort to ease tensions. The U.S. Mideast envoy, George Mitchell, canceled a visit to the region that was scheduled to begin on Tuesday.
WASHINGTON — For President Obama, getting into a serious fight with Israel carries obvious domestic and foreign political risks. But it may offer the administration a payoff it sees as worthwhile: shoring up Mr. Obama’s credibility as a Middle East peacemaker by showing doubtful Israelis and Palestinians that he has the fortitude to push the two sides toward an agreement.
The risks at home were on display on Tuesday, as more than two dozen members of Congress, many of them Democrats, implored Mr. Obama to ease the tensions with the Israeli government after its announcement of a Jewish housing plan during a visit by Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.
The House Republican whip, Representative Eric Cantor of Virginia, called the White House chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, to complain that the administration had seized on a minor diplomatic contretemps to try to impose its views on a loyal friend. Sarah Palin, the former Republican vice presidential candidate, issued a statement urging the president to “push the reset button on our relations with our ally Israel.”
For all the angst coming from Capitol Hill, however, the Obama administration seemed generally unruffled. And there were tentative signs that it was taking steps to cool the temperature.
Mr. Biden and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel spoke by telephone on Tuesday evening, an administration official said. It was not clear what the two men talked about; aides to Mr. Biden did not return calls.
And earlier on Tuesday, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton reaffirmed the relationship between the United States and Israel, brushing aside talk of a crisis.
“Oh, I don’t buy that,” Mrs. Clinton said. “I’ve been around not that long, but a long time. We have an absolute commitment to Israel’s security. We have a close, unshakable bond between the United States and Israel and between the American and Israeli people.”
Mrs. Clinton did keep up the pressure on Mr. Netanyahu to demonstrate that he was committed to negotiations with the Palestinians.
A senior administration official said the harsh rebuke of Mr. Netanyahu, delivered in a phone call last week by Mrs. Clinton, was important “to demonstrate we mean what we say when we enter these talks.” The announcement of a housing plan, the official said, undermined trust just as the United States was trying to open indirect talks between the Israelis and Palestinians.
“We felt we had to call that out,” he said, on the condition of anonymity because of the delicacy of the matter.
On the Israeli side, there were also efforts to calm the waters. Israel’s ambassador to Washington, Michael B. Oren, who had been widely quoted as saying that relations between Israel and the United States were facing a historic crisis, issued a statement saying he had been “flagrantly misquoted.”
“I am confident that we will overcome these differences shortly,” he said.
Taking a tough line with Israel helps the administration counter a perception that it folded last summer when Mr. Netanyahu rebuffed Mr. Obama’s demand that Israel freeze all construction of Jewish settlements. When Mr. Netanyahu countered with an offer of a 10-month partial freeze on the construction on the West Bank, Mrs. Clinton praised the offer as “unprecedented.”
That soured the Palestinians and left much of the Arab world wondering whether Mr. Obama would ever deliver on the promise in his speech in Cairo of a new approach to the Muslim world. American officials worried that this credibility gap could hinder their campaign to rally support from Persian Gulf countries for new sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program.
“For the nine months after the Cairo speech, people were saying, ‘Where’s the beef?’ ” said David J. Rothkopf, a former Clinton administration official who writes about foreign policy. “So far, engagement hasn’t worked anywhere. This might give them a chance to revitalize engagement.”
But Mr. Rothkopf, like others, sees as many risks as rewards. The harshness of the American response to Mr. Netanyahu, he said, could call into question the ability of the United States to manage its relationship with Israel. “The administration’s prestige in the region is damaged by its inability to manage the one relationship they are supposed to be able to manage,” he said.
Other analysts said the United States should not use a specific grievance over housing units to press a broad range of extremely difficult issues with Israel.
“I don’t think this issue should be like a Christmas tree, where you hang all these other ornaments on it,” said David Makovsky, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “The whole episode should end where it began: you had a problem with those units, so you figure out how to fix it.”
But even some of Israel’s staunchest supporters in Congress said the dispute might focus minds on the larger prize. “It’s a moment for the Obama administration to say to our Israeli partners and our Palestinian partners, ‘We need to see peace,’ ” said Representative Gary L. Ackerman, Democrat of New York. “It’s a never-let-a-crisis-go-to-waste moment, and this is a mini-crisis, if even that.”
That message was echoed by Gen. David H. Petraeus, the commander of the military’s Central Command, who told the Senate Armed Services Committee that the lack of progress in the Middle East was a large challenge to American interests.
“The conflict foments anti-American sentiment due to a perception of U.S. favoritism toward Israel,” he said.
Clashes in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Issawiya on Tuesday (photo Reuters)
Clashes in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Issawiya on Tuesday (photo Reuters)
JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Palestinians mounted violent protests in a `day of rage` in Jerusalem on Tuesday and a U.S.-Israeli crisis over a Jewish settlement project deepened with the cancellation of a U.S. peace envoy`s visit.
Dozens of rock-throwing Palestinians clashed with police in several locations in East Jerusalem, which Israel captured in a 1967 war along with the West Bank. Police responded with teargas and rubber bullets.
Medical officials said at least 40 Palestinians were treated in East Jerusalem hospitals. Police said two policemen were hurt.
The violence was another challenge to U.S. efforts to revive Middle East peace talks after Israel angered Palestinians and touched off a dispute with Washington by announcing plans to build 1,600 homes for Jews in a part of the occupied West Bank it annexed to Jerusalem.
U.S. Middle East envoy George Mitchell cancelled plans to return to the region on Tuesday after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he would not curb such construction, opposed by the United States, in and around East Jerusalem.
`There is an explosive situation. There are Netanyahu`s policies, which are tantamount to pouring oil on fire,` said Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erekat.
Hamas, an Islamist group that controls the Gaza Strip, said in a statement that Palestinians should `regard Tuesday as a day of rage against the occupation`s (Israel`s) procedures in Jerusalem against al-Aqsa mosque.`
Hamas leaders made particular mention of the renovation of the Hurva synagogue, in the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem`s walled Old City, saying the restoration work was an Israeli plot to demolish al-Aqsa, some 400 metres (yards) away.
Israel has denied the allegation and the U.S. State Department, appealing for calm, voiced concern at what it described as Palestinian incitement and mischaracterisation of the renovation of the 18th century synagogue.
HOUSING PLAN
Citing biblical and historical links, Israel sees all of Jerusalem as its capital, a claim not recognised internationally. The Palestinians want East Jerusalem to be the capital of a future state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Israel`s announcement, during a visit last week by U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, of the Jewish housing plan in what Israel describes as a Jerusalem neighbourhood embarrassed the White House.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who had just agreed to start indirect talks with Israel, demanded the project be scrapped first.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, in unusually blunt remarks, called Israel`s actions an insult. Netanyahu voiced regret at the timing of the move but made no move to cancel the plan. Israel said construction was several years away.
Clinton telephoned Netanyahu on Friday to convey unspecified demands about the housing project as well as about demonstrating commitment to the U.S.-mediated peace talks, the State Department said, without elaborating.
U.S. officials said they were still waiting for Israel`s formal response. Israeli media reports said Clinton had asked for the settlement plan to be scrapped and for Israel to agree to discuss core statehood issues with the Palestinians.
Palestinians say Jewish settlements will deny them a viable state. Washington has urged both sides not to make moves that could prejudge the outcome of peace talks.
Israeli ‘ethnic cleansing’ making outbreak of third intifada inevitable, Arab leaders warn.
Dozens of Palestinians clashed with Israeli police in East Jerusalem on Tuesday after Hamas declared a “day of rage” to protest Israel’s consecration of an ancient synagogue in the city one day earlier.
Palestinians hurled stones at police and burned tires and trash bins in several areas of East Jerusalem, which Israel captured along with the West Bank during the 1967 Six-Day War.
Police responded with tear gas and fired rubber bullets, witnesses said. Some 40 Palestinians were treated at East Jerusalem hospitals for minor injuries, medical officials said.
Thirty-one people were arrested as dozens of youths hurled stones at Border Police officers in the Shoafat refugee camp and in the neighborhoods of Isawiyah, Abu Dis and Wadi Joz.
Jerusalem police spokesman Shmuel Ben-Ruby said police fired stun grenades to disperse dozens of protesters at one site. He said village elders helped end protests at another site.
Police also arrested an Israeli rightist who sought to enter the Temple Mount compound and was refused by security forces.
A police spokesman said some 3,000 officers were put on high alert after Hamas, an Islamist group that controls the Gaza Strip and wields influence in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, called for anti-Israel protests.
“We call on the Palestinian people to regard Tuesday as a day of rage against the occupation’s [Israel’s] procedures in Jerusalem against al-Aqsa mosque,” Hamas said in a statement.
Hamas and Palestinian officials affiliated with its rival Fatah movement have said the restoration work at the ancient Hurva synagogue in the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem’s walled Old City endangered al-Aqsa, situated some 400 meters away.
Israel has denied the accusation but Arab MKs warned on Tuesday that Israeli policy could lead to a third Palestinian intifada, or uprising.
“The policies of the Netanyahu government are nothing less than ethnic cleansing and are a the strongest possible incitement to a third intifada,” said Hanin Zuabi, an Arab Knesset member.
“It seems the submissiveness of the official Palestinian and Arab response has given Israel the false impression that Palestinians will not fight for their liberty and their rights.”
Another MK, Jamal Zahalka, said: “Anyone who builds settlements in Jerusalem is digging a grave for peace,” while Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erekat likened Israel’s handling of the situation to “pouring oil on fire”.
An inauguration ceremony was held on Monday at the synagogue, which was blown up by Jordanian forces when they overran the Jewish Quarter in the 1948 Middle East war.
Sporadic violence has erupted in recent weeks in Jerusalem after Israel decided to include West Bank religious sites in a Jewish national heritage plan stoked Palestinian anger.
Limitations on access to Muslim prayers on Temple Mount will continue for the fifth day. Members of the Higher Arab Monitoring Committee are set to hold a procession in the east of the city on Wednesday.
Galilee police set up roadblocks around Safed and Acre on Tuesday to prevent Israeli Arabs from northern towns and villages from traveling to Jerusalem to take part in the protests.
EDITOR: The only Military Democracy in the Middle East
So now the IOF has closed the villages for 5 MONTHS! This is an interesting and innovative way of controlling reality. Indeed, with the blockade of Gaza, and with those villages under ‘closure’, why not ‘close’ the whole of Palestine? Surely it would save trouble… Israel is losing any sense of reality, and is doing all it can to start the 3rd Intifada. The future is red, red with blood.
By Amira Hass, Haaretz Correspondent Police cite military edict restricting movement in Bil’in and and Na’alin until August.
The army has declared the West Bank villages of Bil’in and Na’alin a ‘closed military area’ until August 17, it emerged Monday.
In arresting a demonstrator on Friday, police cited a military edict closing off the two villages, where weekly protests against the barrier Israel is erecting around the West Bank have often turned violent.
Bil’in residents told Haaretz that late on Friday night dozens of soldiers, some of them masked, deployed throughout the village to post notices of the order, signed on February 17 by the chief of army Central Command, Gen. Avi Mizrahi.
The ruling, which will stay in force six months, applies to land that lies between the separation fence and built up areas in Bil’in.
In Na’alin, restrictions apparently cover the entire village, including residential areas.
For over five years the two villages have seen often violent, and twice fatal, clashes between activists and security forces during regular Friday demonstrations.
In the past year the IDF and the security service, Shin Bet, have tried a variety of tactics to end the protests, including mass arrests, night operations, restrictions on the movement of Israeli activists and the arrest of minors – prompting a military court to declare the measures inappropriate.
On Sunday a Bil’in activist, Iyad Burnat, was summoned for talks with Shin Bet officers, around an hour after sending out an emailed report of last week’s protests entitled “the third intifada [uprising] is knocking at the door”.
At the time of publication, the army had not yet responded to requests by Haaretz for information on the closures.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 16 March 2010
On 12 January 2010 Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared that Israel would never ‘cede control of united Jerusalem nor retreat to the 1967 borders’. Since this assertion by Netanyahu that Israel would never end its military occupation of East Jerusalem and return to the 1967 Green Line, Israeli military forces have gradually increased restrictions on Palestinian residents of occupied East Jerusalem. In recent days, there has been a sudden increase in closures and restrictions imposed most significantly in Sheikh Jarrah, Silwan, and the Old City of Jerusalem.
On 28 February Israeli military forces stormed the yards of Al-Aqsa Mosque, in the Old City of Jerusalem, firing rubber bullets and tear gas at worshippers holding a demonstration in the compound. In the weeks following the incident, tensions in the Old City have continued to rise with repeated clashes between Israeli forces and Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem. It appears inevitable that clashes will intensify in the coming days as Jewish settlers re-open the Hurva Synagogue in the Old City’s Jewish Quarter on 15 March and as they attempt to lay the foundation stone for the Temple Mount on 16 March.
Since Thursday, 11 March, the Old City has been surrounded by Israeli military and police personnel who control the movement of Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem, as well as Palestinian citizens of Israel, in and out of the gates. Israeli forces are denying entry to any Palestinian below the age of 50 who does not have an address within the Old City. In addition, Al-Aqsa mosque’s yards have been under restrictive closure since Friday 12 March, with Israeli forces preventing Palestinians under the age of 50 from praying there. Furthermore, three schools located within the Al-Aqsa compound have been affected by the closure, while the students of all the boys’ schools in the Old City are being denied access to their places of study.
As a Palestinian human rights organization, Al Haq finds it necessary to highlight the ongoing violations of human rights resulting from Israel’s discriminatory policies, and requests that action be taken by the international community to prevent Israeli violations of Palestinian rights. The right to manifest religion through worship, the right to education, and the right to freedom of movement are amongst the most basic of rights. Israel’s continuing discriminatory and unlawful policies and practices are successfully raising tensions in East Jerusalem, contributing to the manifold pressures on Palestinians to leave the city. These actions and policies are aimed towards, and effectively achieving, a gradual erosion of the Arabic and Palestinian characteristics of East Jerusalem. The vast majority of Palestinians living under the occupation are already denied any form of access to Jerusalem and its Holy Sites. What we are now witnessing is a further restriction on the rights of Palestinian residents of Jerusalem to move and live within their own city, and a significant assault on the Palestinians right to self-determination.
EDITOR: Act 3 scene 4 of the Settlement Show in Jerusalem
We apologise for having to face the readers with the continuation of this bad performance; Not the best show in town. however, signs are that this is nearing is end, at last. If Obama does not understand that he has done exactly what Israel wanted, and froze the talks they were against anyway, than this blog cannot help him. As the whole process was forced on Israel, that wants nothing more than the death and burial of the ‘peace process’, the result is unlikely to worry it unduly. All involved understand that as the Congressional elections get under way, Obama is in the pocket of the Israel Lobby, rather than the other way round. Now all they are fighting about is the ‘bad timing’ on the announcement, as pointed out by Moshe Arens in Haaretz, below. He is, of course, right: for over four decades, the US and EU have done nothing, absoloutely nothing, to stop the illegal settlements being built; why do they have to worry about it now? It is clear that this is just a performance, and it will pass away.
George Mitchell delays regional visit pending Netanyahu’s reponse to U.S. demands.
A visit to Israel by U.S. special peace envoy George Mitchell was on hold on Tuesday pending an Israeli response to a series of American demands.
Mitchell had been due to leave Washington for Israel early on Monday but will delay his trip in a sign of the Obama administration’s growing anger at Israel’s refusal to stop building Jewish homes in east Jerusalem.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has refused to draw a line under a crisis in Israeli-U.S. relations that erupted last week when Israel announced plans for 1,600 new housing units in Ramat Shlomo, an orthodox Jewish suburb beyond the Green Line in the northeast of the city.
Israel would continue to build in Jerusalem, Netanyahu said on Monday.
“For the past 40 years, no Israeli government ever limited construction in the neighborhoods of Jerusalem,” he said.
Mitchell is thought to have delayed his travel plans until late Tuesday but may now cancel his visit to Israel altogether, instead flying straight to Moscow for talks with the ‘Quartet’ of Middle East peace mediators – the European Union, the United Nations, the United States and Russia.
“We want to make sure that we have the commitment from both sides that when he travels we can make progress,” State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said.
Late Monday night Israel’s foreign ministry was still in last ditch negotiations to dissuade Mitchell from calling off his trip.
“Mitchell is hesitant as he is not convinced that the timing of the visit, at a moment of high tension between Israel and the U.S., is genuinely conducive to advancing negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority,” a senior Israeli official told Haaretz.
According to a report in The Washington Post Tuesday, U.S. officials say that Mitchell’s visit will remain on hold until the White House receives an Israeli response to key demands.
Israel must reverse its approval for construction in Ramat Shlomo, make a “substantial gesture” towards the Palestinians and publicly declare that all of the “core issues” in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, including the status of Jerusalem, be included in upcoming talks.
The three conditions, set by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in a 43-minute telephone call to Netanyahu on Friday, have not been publicized by the U.S. – but Israel is expected to provide a formal answer on Tuesday, the Post reported.
Israeli officials told Haaretz on Tuesday that despite the growing diplomatic storm, Netanyahu had no plans to cancel a scheduled trip to Washington on Sunday, where he will address a meeting of pro-Israel lobby group AIPAC.
Ahead of the trip, Israeli diplomats were making concerted effort to arrange a “reconciliation” meeting between the prime minister and U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, who was angered when his arrival in Israel last week coincided with the government’s announcement of building expansion in Ramat Shlomo.
According to the Washington Post, American officials see a resolution to the current crisis as a test of Netanyahu’s commitment to ties with the U.S.
“We have to have guarantees that these kinds of things will not happen again,” a senior U.S. official told the paper, speaking on condition of anonymity.
“If he is unwilling to make that kind of commitment, it raises the question of how committed he is to negotiations – and it raises the question of how committed he is to the relationship between Israel and the United States.”
The United States, which over the past year has pushed unsuccessfully for a total construction freeze across the West Bank, including in east Jerusalem, has until now accepted unofficial assurances that Israel is restricting settlement building.
But following Israel’s latest declaration of plans to build in Ramat Shlomo, the U.S. changed tack, demanding that Netanyahu commit publicly to a building freeze in Jerusalem.
“He has to take a firm stand to prevent similar kinds of announcements that will have a negative effect on negotiations,” the official said.
By Moshe Arens
So sorry! Very sorry! Very, very sorry! We apologize! This will never happen again! The prime minister, cabinet members and senior bureaucrats repeated this over and over again last week in an attempt to set right what seemed to them to have been a major blunder, one they thought had spoiled what should have been a dramatic goodwill visit by the vice president of the United States, Joe Biden. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu might have been humming “I’m just a soul whose intentions are good, Oh Lord, please don’t let me be misunderstood,” while he sat waiting for the arrival of Biden, who vented his anger over what he considered an insult by being deliberately late for dinner.
The government’s critics in the media had a field day. According to them the decision by the Jerusalem District Planning and Building Committee to approve plans for putting up additional houses in the Ramat Shlomo neighborhood, just as Biden was arriving in the country, was ruining relations between the United States and Israel and causing irreparable damage to strategic cooperation between the two countries. Listening to them, one might have thought that if some years from now historians try to determine why the U.S. administration did not take any effective action to prevent the Iranians from acquiring nuclear weapons, they will find that the responsibility lay on the shoulders of a minor Israeli civil servant who set the agenda of a local planning committee for that fateful day.
Since it was well known in Washington that the Netanyahu government had not frozen building activity in Jerusalem, and that therefore not only construction there was continuing but also the routine planning activities that precede construction, the blame was now being put on the “timing.” Presumably, if the planning committee had held its session a few days before Biden’s arrival there would not have been a problem. Or, had it met a few days after Biden’s departure and he left here under the impression that planning activities had been suspended in Jerusalem, only to find out differently on his arrival in Washington, there would have been nothing to get excited about.
“Timing” is important when investing in the stock market, but it is of little relevance here. There is no substitute for the truth when dealing with friends and allies. And the truth in this case is that while the Israeli government has frozen construction in Judea and Samaria for 10 months, there has been no such freeze in any part of Jerusalem, and certainly no holdup of planning procedures. There was no need for all this groveling by Israeli spokesmen. On the subject of Jerusalem, the government of Israel and the administration in Washington simply disagree.
Throughout the U.S.-Israeli relationship there have been disagreements on certain issues. They are inevitable, even among the best of friends. But generally, the disagreements have not been taken public, but have been discussed in confidential exchanges between representatives of the two governments. U.S. President Barack Obama, however, has taken a new approach, which he signaled at his speech last June in Cairo, where he publicly called on Israel to stop settlement activity.
The rationale of this approach was presumably to accelerate the negotiations between Israel and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. But what the Americans must be finding out to their chagrin is that this approach is actually making it more difficult, if not impossible, for Abbas to come to the negotiating table. Whereas in the past he negotiated with Israel while settlement activity continued, without setting prior conditions, Obama’s Cairo speech left Abbas no choice but to demand the cessation of settlement activity in Judea and Samaria as a condition for entering negotiations. After all, he cannot be less Palestinian than Obama.
Now, after the statements made by Biden in Israel, followed by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s public rebuke of Netanyahu, he will demand the cessation of construction in Jerusalem, and possibly even the freezing of all planning activity regarding future construction as a condition for beginning negotiations with Israel. As the saying goes, “why make it difficult, when with a little effort you can make it impossible?” This is hardly the way to advance the peace process.
United States determined to persuade Israel into substantive peace talks with Palestinians, Obama administration source says
Palestinian boys play soccer in the Arab neighbourhood of east Jerusalem, where Netanyahu supports the building of 1,600 Jewish homes. Photograph: Ammar Awad/REUTERS
President Barack Obama and the Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, are on a collision course today in a row described by a senior Israeli diplomat as the worst crisis between the two countries for more than three decades.
An Obama administration source told the Guardian that the White House and US state department are intent on pushing Israel into substantive peace talks with the Palestinians and will not shy away this time as they did when the last effort ended in embarrassing failure in September.
“No one gets anywhere by accusing each other. We are hoping to lay the foundations for negotiations,” the source said. In order to get negotiations under way, the US is demanding that Netanyahu cancel or freeze plans to build 1,600 planned Jewish homes in Palestinian East Jerusalem. But Netanyahu, speaking at a meeting of his own Likud party, showed no signs of backing down. “The building in Jerusalem, and in all other places, will continue in the same way as has been customary over the last 42 years,” he said.
The Israeli ambassador to the US, Michael Oren, in a weekend telephone call to other Israeli diplomats, expressed alarm about the extent of the confrontation.
The Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth quoted the normally cool Oren, an academic-turned diplomat, as saying: “Israel’s ties with the United States are in their worst crisis since 1975 … a crisis of historic proportions.”
Oren was called to the state department last week in a rare rebuke for a diplomat from a country the US normally regards as one of its strongest allies.
The crisis began last week when the US vice-president, Joe Biden, travelled to Israel in the hope of securing a start to the long-stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. But his hopes were dashed when Israel announced the new construction in East Jerusalem.
The Palestinian cabinet reiterated today that it will not enter into talks while such construction is planned.
The White House has steadily built up the heat on Israel over the last few days, with the US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, berating Netanyahu in a 45-minute call on Friday and David Axelrod, the chief White House adviser, describing Israeli behaviour as an insult yesterday.
The US wants Israel not only to backtrack on the East Jerusalem building plans but to enter into talks with the Palestinians on substantive issues and not just talks about talks, as Israel wants. Washington also wants Israel to make gestures towards the Palestinians, such as releasing Palestinian prisoners and withdrawing more Israeli forces from Palestinian territory. The US special envoy to Israel and the Palestinian territories, the former senator George Mitchell, is to visit Israel this week in the hope of hearing that Israel will bow to at least some of the US demands.
Netanyahu is scheduled to address a meeting in Washington early next week of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac), the powerful Israeli lobbying group. The US does not yet know whether he will attend in person or make a televised address.
The Israeli prime minister faces the problem of whether to offer the US a concession, such as a short freeze on house-building in East Jerusalem, a move that might lead to the break-up of his coalition government. Clinton will address the Aipac conference in person, a potentially dramatic occasion if she opts to repeat her calls for Netanyahu to back down.
Yesterday Aipac issued a statement critical of the Obama administration and today embarked on an intensive lobbying exercise to secure the backing of Jewish or strong Israeli-supporting members of Congress.
The more liberal Jewish lobbying organisation, J Street, said the US should use the crisis to push for peace talks. Its executive director, Jeremy Ben-Ami, said: “Too much time has already been lost in getting the two sides into negotiations. We must not lose further time allowing a single development, as objectionable as it may be, to derail progress.”
The US magazine Foreign Policy posted a report on its website yesterdaythat in January top US commanders briefed the chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, that US failure to stop Israel continuing with settlement building on the West Bank damaged US relations with the Arab world. Judith Kipper, a Middle East specialist at the Washington-based Institute of World Affairs, said there had long been a divergence between the US and Israel over various issues and a recognition of this fact was overdue.
She did not expect the US to threaten to withhold financial or military aid or intelligence and that going public was sufficient as a big stick.
Paul Scham, an academic at Washington’s Middle East Institute, said: “What is interesting is that US has chosen to make a big deal of it. The reason for doing this is, it seems, to be ready to pull out some version of the peace offensive Obama has been promising for a year. Hopefully, it will not die down as it did last year.”
Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, has rejected calls from the US to halt settlement plans in occupied East Jerusalem, saying plans for building new homes would go ahead.
In a speech to Israel’s parliament on Monday, Netanyahu said construction “will continue in Jerusalem as this has been the case for the past 42 years” in reference to the 1967 occupation of the mainly Arab territory.
He said that the plans would not hurt Palestinians, who have said peace negotiations cannot go ahead until the project is cancelled.
His comments come after Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, condemned the plans as “insulting” to peace efforts and reportedly called on Netanyahu to reverse the decision.
Israel’s announcement to build 1,600 new homes in East Jerusalem came during a visit to the region by Joe Biden, the US vice-president, sparking a diplomatic row between the two countries.
Israeli newspaper Haaretz said Clinton, in a phone call with Netanyahu on Friday, asked him to make a “substantial gesture” towards Palestinians to help restart peace talks.
She called for an official declaration that talks would deal with core issues, including borders, the status of Jerusalem, refugees, and settlements, the paper reported.
Response requested
Clinton was also said to have requested an official response on whether Tuesday’s announcement was a “bureaucratic mistake, or a deliberate act, carried out for political reasons”.
Netanyahu has apologised for what he called the bad timing and ordered an investigation into how government officials unveiled the plans during Biden’s visit.
The announcement embarrassed Biden, who was visiting Israel in a bid to revive Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations.
Amid the dispute, officials said on Monday that George Mitchell, the US envoy to the Middle East, had delayed a planned visit to the region, during which he had been scheduled to meet Israel and Palestinian leaders separately.
Michael Oren, Israel’s ambassador to Washington, said the spat had brought relations to a 35-year low and had created a “crisis of historic proportions”.
A major pro-Israel US lobbying group also said that the stern US remarks were “of serious concern.”
“Aipac calls on the administration to take immediate steps to defuse the tension with the Jewish state,” the American Israel Public Affairs Committee said on Sunday.
Al Jazeera’s Patty Culhane, reporting from Washington, said there are steps the US could take to pressure Israel over the settlement issue.
“There’s a lot of financial aid that the US gives Israel,” she said.
“One programme that the US has used in the past is reducing loan guarantees. The amount that the settlements cost Israel, that is the amount by which the US can reduce the loan guarantees to Israel.
“We’ve seen that in the 1990s and then again in 2003.”
Catherine Ashton, the EU foreign policy chief, who is currently on her first official visit to the region, has joined the chorus of criticism of Israel’s settlement plans.
Indirect talks
Speaking in the Egyptian capital, Cairo, on Monday, Ashton said that the Israeli decision “endangers” indirect talks between the country and the Palestinians.
“Recent Israeli decisions to build new housing units in East Jerusalem have endangered and undermined the tentative agreement to begin proximity talks,” she said.
“The EU position on settlements is clear. Settlements are illegal, constitute an obstacle to peace and threaten to make a two state-solution impossible.”
Besides Ashton, Luiz Ignacio “Lula” da Silva, the Brazilian president, is also touring the region. He met Shimon Peres, his Israeli counterpart, on Monday, marking the start of a three-day visit.
Media reports suggest Lula is aiming to carve out a role for Brazil in mediating the peace process.
EDITOR: Polar Bears rise from Hibernation in this early spring…
The giant of corporate news, the NY Times, has risen from its long sleep on the Israeli front. It was marked by Thomas Friedman’s searing attack on Satyeday, when he described Netanyahu as a ‘drunk driver in Jerusalem’. Since then, the NY Times has taken the cadjel and stsrted reporting ptoperly, as if Israel was just another country; well, almost… the main problem was the timing, it is clear – Israel can go on building, as long as it does not rub the American nose in the dirt.
WASHINGTON — An ill-timed municipal housing announcement in Jerusalem has mutated into one of the most serious conflicts between the United States and Israel in two decades, leaving a politically embarrassed Israeli government scrambling to respond to a tough list of demands by the Obama administration.
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, right, listened to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, on Monday.
The Obama administration has put Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a difficult political spot at home by insisting that the Israeli government halt a plan to build housing units in East Jerusalem. The administration also wants Mr. Netanyahu to commit to substantive negotiations with the Palestinians, after more than a year in which the peace process has been moribund.
With the administration’s special envoy, George J. Mitchell, suddenly delaying his planned trip to Israel, the administration was expecting a call from Mr. Netanyahu, after a tense exchange last week with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.
On Monday, however, Mr. Netanyahu sounded a defiant note, telling the Israeli Parliament that construction of Jewish housing in Jerusalem was not a matter for negotiation.
He is struggling to balance an increasingly unhappy ally in Washington with the restive right wing of his coalition government.
The prospects for peace in the Middle East seemed murkier than ever, as a year’s worth of frustration on the part of President Obama and his aides seemed to boil over in its furious response to the housing announcement, which spoiled a visit to Israel by Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.
“What happened to the vice president in Israel was unprecedented,” said a senior administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “Where it goes from here depends on the Israelis.”
But the diplomatic standoff also has repercussions for the Obama administration. Its blunt criticism of Israel — delivered publicly by Mrs. Clinton in two television interviews on Friday and reiterated Sunday by Mr. Obama’s political adviser, David Axelrod — has set off a storm in Washington, with pro-Israel groups and several prominent lawmakers criticizing the administration for unfairly singling out a staunch American ally.
“Let’s cut the family fighting,” said Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, independent of Connecticut. “It’s unnecessary; it’s destructive of our shared national interest. It’s time to lower voices, to get over the family feud between the U.S. and Israel. It just doesn’t serve anybody’s interests but our enemies’.”
Relations between Israel and the United States have been uneasy ever since Mr. Obama took office with a plan to rekindle the peace process by coupling a demand for a full freeze in Jewish settlement construction with reciprocal confidence-building gestures by Arab countries.
Neither happened, and Mr. Obama, who is not as popular in Israel as he is elsewhere around the world, was forced last September to make do with Mr. Netanyahu’s offer of a 10-month partial moratorium on settlements in the West Bank. But the president was outraged by the announcement of 1,600 housing units in an ultra-Orthodox neighborhood in East Jerusalem during Mr. Biden’s visit, administration officials said.
Mr. Obama was deeply involved in the strategy and planning for Mr. Biden’s visit and orchestrated the response from Mr. Biden and Mrs. Clinton after it went awry, these officials said.
The administration has used language intended to telegraph anger, defining the dispute not only in terms of the damage it could cause to the peace process but to the American relationship with Israel.
“That is a whole different order of magnitude of importance,” said Daniel Levy, a former peace negotiator who is senior fellow and head of the Middle East Initiative at the New America Foundation, a research group.
The last time relations between the United States and Israel became this strained, analysts said, was when James A. Baker, then secretary of state, clashed with the Israeli government in the early 1990s, also over settlement policy. The United States ended up withholding loan guarantees from Israel for a time.
Mr. Netanyahu said the announcement of the housing development had surprised even him, and he apologized for its timing. But Mr. Obama feels that Mr. Netanyahu should have been in clearer control of the construction process and that he should have done what was needed to stop it, according to officials in Jerusalem and Washington.
There is a feeling among officials in Washington that the Netanyahu government does not fully grasp how angry Obama officials have grown. But there are signs that it is sinking in.
The Israeli ambassador in Washington, Michael B. Oren, used the word “crisis” about his country’s relations with Washington for the first time since taking up his job last year, in a telephone briefing to colleagues over the weekend, according to an Israeli official.
Still, American and Israeli officials also made clear that the core security issues binding the two countries were not in jeopardy, and that what was happening was closer to a married couple having a bad fight rather than seeking a divorce.
In the murky vocabulary of diplomacy, the scheduled talks due to start under American supervision are viewed by the Israelis mostly as “proximity” discussions, in other words procedural talks rather than substantive negotiations. But the Palestinians want the discussions to be as substantive as possible, an approach Mrs. Clinton demanded in her call to Mr. Netanyahu on Friday.
The Israeli leader has said he is open to direct negotiations with the Palestinians. But the chief Palestinian negotiator, Saeb Erekat, said in an interview in his Ramallah office that the Palestinians and Israelis had exhausted direct negotiations and that it was time for America to take a more direct role. “We have a trust level below zero between the two sides,” he said.
The settlement episode has enabled the administration to turn the tables on Mr. Netanyahu, some analysts say. But the question is whether it will be able to extract more concessions from him now.
“The heart of the matter is whether the proximity talks are going to be productive, in the sense of opening a corridor to direct negotiations that will lead to a peace agreement,” said Martin Indyk, a former American ambassador to Israel.
The timing of the dispute could not be more awkward for the administration, coming a week before the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the most influential pro-Israel lobbying group, meets in Washington. Mr. Netanyahu and Mrs. Clinton are both scheduled to speak to the group, which has condemned the White House’s tough stance.
Mr. Biden may meet with Mr. Netanyahu while he is here, officials said. But there is no meeting planned between Mr. Obama and Mr. Netanyahu because the president will be traveling in Indonesia and Australia, a conflict which one official joked suits the administration well right now. “This may not be the best time for a face-to-face,” he said.
Mark Landler reported from Washington, and Ethan Bronner from Jerusalem. Helene Cooper contributed reporting from Washington.
Riots broke out in several areas
Palestinians have clashed with Israeli police in East Jerusalem amid increased tension over settlement building and the rededication of a synagogue.
Palestinians burned tyres and threw rocks and police fired stun grenades as rioting broke out in a number of areas.
The rioting follows Israel’s plan to build 1,600 new East Jerusalem homes, angering the US. Its Mid-East envoy, George Mitchell, has delayed his visit.
The reopening of a synagogue in the Old City also drew Palestinian protests.
The clashes broke out in a number of areas, including Qalandia, the Shu’fat refugee camp, Wadi al-Jouz, al-Eisaweyah, Silwan, Ras al-Amoud and near the al-Aqsa mosque.
The Israeli police said they had deployed 3,000 officers across the city.
‘Day of rage’
The clashes come amid a lingering US-Israel row over the settlement announcement.
The announcement came during Vice-President Joe Biden’s high-profile Middle East visit last week, aimed at trying to kick-start stalled peace talks.
The reopening of the Hurva synagogue angered Palestinians
The US says it is still awaiting a “formal” response from Israel to the row and has urged Israel to show it is committed to Middle East peace efforts.
Mr Mitchell, who was to leave for the region on Monday, has now delayed his departure.
The US Embassy in Israel has informed President Shimon Peres that Mr Mitchell will not be in Israel for the planned Tuesday afternoon meeting with Mr Peres.
Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu has stood by Israel’s settlements policy, saying there can be “no curbs” on Jewish building in Jerusalem.
The BBC’s Paul Wood in Jerusalem says there seems to be an impasse – if Mr Netanyahu caves in and cancels the new settlements, the stability of his government may be in doubt; if he does not, it is hard to see how the peace talks can take place.
The reopening of the twice-destroyed Hurva synagogue close to the al-Aqsa mosque – Islam’s third holiest site – has also inflamed tension.
Hatem Abdel Qader, Jerusalem affairs spokesman for the Fatah movement of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, said: “This synagogue will be a prelude to violence and religious fanaticism and extremism.”
Militant group Hamas had declared Tuesday a “day of rage” against the move.
Thousands of people turned out in Gaza on Tuesday to protest against the rededication of the synagogue, Agence France-Presse news agency reports.
Our correspondent says the call by some Palestinian officials for people to defend the Haram al-Sharif or Temple Mount, site of the al-Aqsa mosque, comes amid rumours of plans by Jewish extremists to take control of the area.
Tuesday, 16 March 2010
Masked Palestinians have hurled rocks at Israeli police and burned tires in disputed east Jerusalem.
Jerusalem police spokesman Shmuel Ben-Ruby says police fired stun grenades to disperse dozens of protesters at one site. He said village elders helped end protests at another site.
No injuries were reported.
Tensions are high in east Jerusalem, fueled in part by a feud between Israel and Washington over continued Israeli construction in the disputed sector of the holy city.
Police presence is high after Hamas militants called for a “day of rage” against Israel following its rededication of a synagogue in east Jerusalem.
Masked rioters torch tires, stone Border Guard officers in Shuafat, Isawiya neighborhoods; Three police, 11 rioters lightly wounded. Police set up roadblock on Route 6, inspect all buses traveling to capital; Arab bus from western Galilee turned back
The day dubbed “the day of rage” by Hamas and extremist Islamic groups opened with riots – both in the holy city and on the way to it. Hundreds of Arabs burned tires and hurled stones at Border Guard officers at several locations throughout the city Tuesday morning. At least three officers and 11 rioters were lightly injured, and eight were detained. Meanwhile, in the North, a bus full of Muslim passengers on their way to al-Aqsa Mosque was stopped and turned back. Police said the bus was inspected following tip-offs of possible plans to riot in Jerusalem.
Danger Signs
Arab MKs and members of the Higher Arab Monitoring Committee also arrived at the al-Aqsa Mosque Tuesday morning. “The Netanyahu government is dangerous and irresponsible, and is leading the region to a third intifada,” said MK Talab El-Sana (United Arab List – Ta’al).MK Ahmad Tibi told Ynet he was inside the mosque: “There is a renewed occupation of east Jerusalem and the al-Aqsa Mosque, gunshots can be heard in every direction.”
Dozens of masked rioters hurled stones at Border Guard officers near the Shuafat refugee camp in Jerusalem, and set fire to tires. The force dispersed the rioters using stun grenades. Two policemen were lightly injured and seven Palestinians were arrested.
In another incident, at the northern entrance to the Isawiya neighborhood in Jerusalem, masked protesters also burned tires and hurled stones at Border Guard officers. The rioters were calmed and dispersed by the village’s elders. Security forces also dispersed masked rioters hurling stones near the Temple Mount’s Majlis Gate.
In Abu Dis, some 50 Palestinians hurled stones at security forces. Police and Border Guard officers responded with teargas and stun grenades. One of the rioters was detained and taken in for questioning. Riots were also noted at the Qalandiya checkpoint.
Meanwhile, dozens of Palestinian youths threw stones in Maale Mota Gur in the Old City and near the wholesale market. Similar riots ensued in Wadi Joz and Silwan. In total, thousands of police officer were deployed throughout the city.
Buses to capital inspected
Meanwhile, at the Achihod junction in the western Galilee, police stopped a bus containing Arab Muslims who were making their way from Majdal Krum in the north, to Jerusalem. The Bus driver was forced to turn back. During an inspection of the bus, a 38-year-old passenger allegedly assaulted a Traffic Police officer and was detained.
Heavy traffic jams were felt on Highway 6 due to a police checkpoint set up to inspect buses traveling to al-Aqsa. Balad Chairman MK Jamal Zahalka, who was also on his way to Jerusalem in his private vehicle, told Ynet, “I suggest they stop with these checkpoints, which only create provocations.”
Police said that since Tuesday was considered a very sensitive day, and in light of information obtained on possible riots in Jerusalem by civilians arriving in buses, every bus on its way to the capital will be inspected. Police added that the decision was backed and approved by the attorney general.
Sources from the Islamic Movement’s northern branch said police stopped two buses. The movement’s spokesman, Attorney Zahi Nujeidat, told Ynet, “Those who are preventing worshippers from traveling to al-Aqsa are the ones who are fermenting the situation. It is natural that a Muslim would visit and pray at the al-Aqsa Mosque. Those that are preventing us from getting there will ultimately carry the blame for any possible scenario.”
On Monday, during the inauguration of the Hurva Synagogue in the Old City, more than 3,000 police and border guards gathered in the Temple Mount area. The event passed in tense calm.
The “day of rage” follows the reopening of the Hurva synagogue for the first time in 62 years [AFP]
Palestinians have clashed with Israeli police in two areas of occupied east Jerusalem after the Hamas movement called for a “day of rage” over the reopening of a synagogue in the Old City.
Palestinians threw rocks at Israeli police who responded with stun grenades in the Shu-afat and Essawiyya neighbourhoods early on Tuesday.
At least 15 Palestinians were arrested by Israeli police.
About 3,000 police officers had been deployed in east Jerusalem and nearby villages after Hamas called for action in response to the reopening of the Hurva synagogue.
‘Extremely tense’
Al Jazeera’s Sherine Tadros, in Essawiyya, said: “Palestinian protesters have been hurling stones at the border guards and they have responded using stun grenades. It is an extremely tense standoff.
“Police want to patrol the situation using as little force as possible, they told us, but they are wearing full riot gear.
“From our vantage point we can only see about 20 Palestinian protesters, hurling stones, which they have been doing throughout the night and into the morning.
“It seems a few amount of protesters against a large amount of border guards.”
The synagogue, considered by some people to to be one of Judaism’s most sacred sites, reopened for the first time in 62 years a day earlier in the Jewish quarter of Jerusalem’s Old City.
Khaled Meshaal, Hamas’ political chief who is exiled in Syria, warned against the reopening on Monday.
“We warn against this action by the Zionist enemy to rebuild and dedicate the Hurva synagogue. It signifies the destruction of the al-Aqsa mosque and the building of the temple,” he said at a meeting of Palestinian groups’ leaders.
He urged Palestinians in Jerusalem to “take serious measures to protect al-Aqsa mosque from destruction and Judaisation”.
Meshaal also said that Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and occupied West Bank need to “launch a campaign to protect Jerusalem and Islamic and Christian holy sites there”.
Holy sites
The walled Old City is at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which makes the reopening of the synagogue controversial.Israeli officials have also limited access to al-Aqsa mosque, Islam’s third holiest site, for the fifth consecutive day for security reasons.
Palestinian men under the age of 50 have not been allowed to enter the mosque.
Al-Aqsa, Islam’s third holiest site, and the Hurva synagogue are about 700 metres apart.
The synagogue, first built in 1694, was first destroyed in 1721 and then demolished during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war.
The al-Aqsa site is revered by Muslims as al-Haram al-Sharif (the Noble Sanctuary), comprising al-Aqsa mosque and the Dome of the Rock. It is known to Jews as the Temple Mount.
An Israeli government decision to include two occupied West Bank religious sites in a Jewish national heritage plan has already angered Palestinians and raised tensions in recent weeks.
The announcement last week of Israeli plans for new settler homes near occupied East Jerusalem has also contributed to the unrest.
The new US administration has not shied away from criticising Israel’s illegal settlement expansion in the occupied Palestinian territorities.
And when Israel announced plans to build 1,600 new settler homes in East Jerusalem while Joe Biden, the US vice-president, was visiting the country last week as part of a Middle East peace inititative – the US was not happy.
A senior US official has called the timing of the announcement an “insult”.
And Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, had earlier told Binyamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, that his government was putting “US ties at risk” by failing to take action towards renewed Middle East peace talks.
Although Netanyahu has apologised for the timing of the announcement, Israel is not showing any signs of stopping the settlement expansion and the US is not backing down from its tough criticism.
Al Jazeera’s John Terret reports.
Sleepless in Jerusalem and Gaza
12 Sleepless Gaza Jerusalem.mpg
13 Sleepless Gaza Jerusalem.mpg
13 b Film made by Ashira in episode 13, uploaded at request of viewers.mpg
By Uri Avnery
It’s all a matter of timing. The Government of Israel has insulted the Vice President of the United States, Joe Biden, one of the greatest “friends” of Israel (meaning: somebody totally subservient to AIPAC) and spat in the face of President Barack Obama. So what? It’s all a matter of timing.
If the government had announced the building of 1600 new housing units in East Jerusalem a day earlier, it would have been OK. If it had announced it three days later, it would have been wonderful. But doing it exactly when Joe Biden was about to have dinner with Bibi and Sarah’le – that was really bad timing.
The matter itself is not important. Another thousand housing units in East Jerusalem, or 10 thousand, or 100 thousand – what different does it make? The only thing that matters is the timing.
As the Frenchman said: It’s worse than criminal, it’s stupid.
THE WORD “stupid” also figured prominently this week, second only to “timing”.
Stupidity is an accepted phenomenon in politics. I would almost say: to succeed in politics, one needs a measure of stupidity. Voters don’t like politicians who are too intelligent. They make them feel inferior. A foolish politician, on the other hand, appears to be “one of the folks”.
History is full of acts of folly by politicians. Many books have been written about this. To my mind, the epitome of foolishness was achieved by the events that led to World War I, with its millions of victims, which broke out because of the accumulated stupidity of (in ascending order) Austrian, Russian, German, French and British politicians.
But even stupidity in politics has its limits. I have pondered this question for decades, and who knows, one day, when I grow up, I might write a doctoral thesis about it.
My thesis goes like this: In politics (as in other fields) foolish things happen regularly. But some of them are stopped in time, before they can lead to disaster, while others are not. It this accidental, or is there a rule?
My answer is: there certainly is a rule. It works like this: when somebody sets in motion an act of folly that runs counter to the spirit of the regime, it is stopped in its tracks. While it moves from one bureaucrat to another, somebody starts to wonder. Just a moment, this cannot be right! It is referred to higher authority, and soon enough somebody decides that it is a mistake.
On the other hand, when the act of folly is in line with the spirit of the regime, there are no brakes. When it moves from one bureaucrat to the next, it looks quite natural to both. No red light. No alarm bell. And so the folly rolls on to the bitter end.
I remember how this rule came to my mind the first time. In 1965, Habib Bourguiba, the president of Tunisia, took a bold step: he made a speech in the biggest refugee camp in Jericho, then under Jordanian rule, and called upon the Arabs to recognize Israel. This caused a huge scandal all over the Arab world.
Some time later, the correspondent of an Israeli paper reported that in a press conference at the UN headquarters, Bourguiba had called for the destruction of Israel. This sounded strange to me. I made inquiries, checked the protocol and found out that the opposite was true: the reporter had mistakenly turned a no into a yes.
How did this happen? If the journalist had erred in the opposite direction and reported, for example, that Gamal Abd-el-Nasser had called for the acceptance of Israel into the Arab League, the news would have been stopped at once. Every red light would have lit up. Someone would have called out: Hey, something strange here! Check again! But in the Bourguiba case nobody noticed the mistake, for what is more natural than an Arab leader calling for the destruction of Israel? No verification needed.
That’s what happened this week in Jerusalem. Every government official knows that the nationalist Prime Minister is pushing for the Judaization of East Jerusalem, that the extreme nationalist Minister of the Interior is even more eager, and that the super-nationalist Mayor of Jerusalem practically salivates when he imagines a Jewish quarter on the Temple Mount. So why should a bureaucrat postpone the confirmation of a new Jewish neighborhood in East Jerusalem? Just because of the visit of some American windbag?
Therefore, the timing is not important. It’s the matter itself that’s important.
DURING HIS last days in office, President Bill Clinton published a peace plan, in which he tried to make up for eight years of failure in this region and kowtowing to successive Israeli governments. The plan was comparatively reasonable, but included a ticking bomb.
About East Jerusalem, Clinton proposed that what is Jewish should be joined to the State of Israel and what is Arab should be joined to the state of Palestine. He assumed (rightly, I believe) that Yasser Arafat was ready for such a compromise, which would have joined some new Jewish neighborhoods in East Jerusalem to Israel. But Clinton was not wise enough to foresee the consequences of his proposal.
In practice, it was an open invitation to the Israeli government to speed up the establishment of new settlements in East Jerusalem, expecting them to become part of Israel. And indeed, since then successive Israeli governments have invested all available resources in this endeavor. Since money has no smell, every Jewish casino-owner in America and every Jewish brothel-keeper in Europe was invited to join the effort. The Biblical injunction – “Thou shalt not bring the hire of a whore, or the price of a dog, into the house of the Lord thy God, for any vow; for even both these are abomination unto the Lord thy God” (Deuteronomy 23:18) – was suspended for this holy cause.
Now the pace is speeded up even more. Because there is no more effective means of obstructing peace than building new settlements in East Jerusalem.
THAT IS clear to anyone who has dealings with this region. No peace without an independent Palestinian state, no Palestinian state without East Jerusalem. About this there is total unanimity among all Palestinians, from Fatah to Hamas, and between all Arabs, from Morocco to Iraq, and between all Muslims, from Nigeria to Iran.
There will be no peace without the Palestinian flag waving above the Haram al-Sharif, the holy shrines of Islam which we call the Temple Mount. That is an iron-clad rule. Arabs can compromise about the refugee problem, painful as it may be, and about the borders, also with much pain, and about security matters. But they cannot compromise about East Jerusalem becoming the capital of Palestine. All national and religious passions converge here.
Anyone who wants to wreck any chance for peace – it is here that he has to act. The settlers and their supporters, who know that any peace agreement would include the elimination of (at least) most settlements, have planned in the past (and probably are planning now) to blow up the mosques on the Temple Mount, hoping that this would cause a worldwide conflagration which would reduce to ashes the chances of peace once and for all. Less extreme people dream about the creeping ethnic cleansing of East Jerusalem by administrative chicanery, demolition of houses, denying means of livelihood and just making life in general miserable for Arabs. Moderate rightists just want to cover every empty square inch in East Jerusalem with Jewish neighborhoods. The aim is always the same.
THIS REALITY is, of course, well known to Obama and his advisors. In the beginning they believed, in their innocence, that they could sweet talk Netanyahu and Co. into stopping the building activity to facilitate the start of negotiations for the two-state solution. Very soon they learned that this was impossible without exerting massive pressure – and they were not prepared to do that.
After putting up a short and pitiful struggle, Obama gave in. He agreed to the deception of a “settlement freeze” in the West Bank. Now building is going on there with great enthusiasm, and the settlers are satisfied. They have completely stopped their demonstrations.
In Jerusalem there was not even a farcical attempt – Netanyahu just told Obama that he would go on building there (“as in Tel Aviv”), and Obama bowed his head. When Israeli officials announced a grandiose plan for building in “Ramat Shlomo” this week, they did not violate any undertaking. Only the matter of “timing” remained.
FOR JOE BIDEN, it was a matter of honor. For Mahmoud Abbas, it is a matter of survival.
Under intense pressure from the Americans and their agents, the rulers of the Arab countries, Abbas was obliged to agree to negotiations with the Netanyahu government – though only “proximity talks”, a euphemism for “distance talks”.
Clearly, nothing will come out of these talks except more humiliation for the Palestinians. Quite simply: anyone building in East Jerusalem and the West Bank is announcing in advance that there is no chance for an agreement. After all, no sane Israeli would invest billions in a territory he intends to turn over to the Palestinian state. A person who is eating a pizza is not negotiating about it in good faith.
Even at this late stage, Abbas and his people still hope that something good will come out of all this: the US will acknowledge that they are right and exert, at long last, real pressure on Israel to implement the two-state solution.
But Biden and Obama did not give much cause for hope. They wiped the spit off their faces and smiled politely.
As the saying goes: when you spit in the face of a weakling, he pretends that it is raining. Does this apply to the president of the most powerful country in the world?
By Daud Abdullah
In a move that appears to be a celebration of the 16th anniversary of the massacre of 29 worshippers by the terrorist Baruch Goldstein, the Israeli government has proclaimed that the Ibrahimi Mosque in Khalil (Hebron) and Masjid Bilal ibn Rabah (mosque) in Bethlehem are “Jewish Heritage sites”.
Goldstein, an American-born Israeli settler who served as a medic in the military, opened fire on worshippers at a mosque in Hebron on February 25, 1994, killing 29 and wounding more than 150, before being subdued and beaten to death.
The announcement by the government of Binyamin Netanyahu, though not surprising, is the latest in a series of Israeli attacks on Islamic historical and religious sites in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
It is consistent with the Israelis’ long-standing ambition to dispose of all non-Jewish religious symbols and presence in Palestine.
While the Israeli government was announcing the annexation of the Islamic sites, dozens of settlers attempted to storm into Jericho on the pretext that they were visiting an ancient synagogue.
Under the Gaza-Jericho Agreement of May 1994, Israel agreed to dissolve its civil administration and “transferred its powers and responsibilities to the Palestinian Authority”.
Israel disinterested in peace
In his first reaction to the annexation of the Ibrahimi Mosque, Amr Moussa, the secretary-general of the Arab League, said: “This proves that Israel is not interested in peace and negotiations.”
The question is: when was Israel ever interested in such? When has it ever recognised the rights of the Palestinians? Israel’s founding fathers made no secret of the fact that they wanted all of historic Palestine, but without the Palestinians and all that is associated with their history.
Hence, Menachem Begin, the late Israeli prime minister, recorded in his memoirs, The Revolt: “The partition of the Homeland [Israel] is illegal. It will never be recognised. The signature by institutions and individuals of the partition agreement is invalid. It will not bind the Jewish people. Jerusalem was and will for ever be our capital. Eretz Israel will be restored to the people of Israel. All of it. And forever.”
Everything that has happened in Palestine since 1948, and in Jerusalem and Hebron in particular over the past year, can be explained in the context of this statement.
Those who ignore it, not least the Arab and Muslim leadership, do so at their peril.
That having been said, the timing of these latest provocations against the Ibrahimi Mosque has not gone unnoticed.
The Israeli moves come at a time of huge embarrassment for the European patrons of the Zionist project, who saw their passports, among them diplomatic documents, being used illegally to carry out the murder of a Palestinian figure in Dubai, a “moderate” and thus by definition a friendly country.
Crude distraction?
Is Israel trying to divert global attention from the Mabhouh assassination? [AFP]
In as much as the announcement of the new “heritage sites” coincides with the anniversary of the Goldstein massacre, it has been pointedly described as a crude distraction away from the issue of the criminal responsibility for the Dubai murder and the discomfort it has caused many in Europe.
Observers have rightly noted that while the European Union maintains its proscription of Hamas as a “terrorist organisation”, they are yet to produce any evidence that the organisation has carried out a single military operation outside Occupied Palestine.
This is in stark contrast to the Israeli government, which threatens, attacks and occupies the lands of neighbouring countries, and assassinates its opponents in other sovereign nations.
Nevertheless, Israel continues to receive the patronage and support of the European Union.
If nothing else, the Zionists have surely perfected the art of gradualism, taking Palestinian territory inch by inch and brick by brick. Thus, when the Israeli government partitioned the Ibrahimi Mosque in 1994 and took two-thirds of it for Jews, it was safe to assume that was not the end of the affair.
PA surrender
While many Palestinians hold the occupation authorities responsible for the escalating tensions and damage to the mosque, they are embittered equally with the Palestinian Authority (PA) for having surrendered the area adjoining the second most important mosque in all of historic Palestine, as part of the “Hebron Protocol” of 1996.
Today, the security agencies loyal to US General Keith Dayton, the US security coordinator between Israel and the Palestinians, and the PA prevent young people living in Hebron from going to the Ibrahimi Mosque to defend it against Jewish settlers.
With the greatest sense of foreboding they point out that today it is the Ibrahimi Mosque but tomorrow it could be Al Aqsa Mosque, the third holiest mosque in Islam, which is under serious threat.
Salih al-Razim, the imam of the Ibrahimi Mosque, recalls that during the last five years the occupation authorities have prevented systematically the call to prayer in the mosque, particularly the daily maghrib (sunset) prayer, and all prayers on Saturdays.
Typically, the occupiers’’claim that the mosque was being annexed because it was in a state of disrepair is disingenuous because they themselves have deliberately obstructed more than 90% of maintenance efforts by the mosque authorities. In effect, theirs is only a device to intervene and seize control of the mosque.
“Second Temple”
Since the Palestinians have maintained the Ibrahimi Mosque for more than one thousand years there is nothing preventing them from doing so today apart from the occupation authorities.
Meanwhile, in April 2009 the same authorities took a huge stone from the Khatouniyah Palace and embedded it in the square in front of the Knesset, claiming that this was a stone from the “Second Temple”.
Fakhri Abu Diyab, a member of the Council for the Defence of Real Estate in Silwan, reported that the Israeli operation was monitored and documented even though some of it took place in the early hours of the morning.
Several months later, in late December 2009, the Al-Aqsa Foundation for Endowment and Heritage reported the theft of archaeological artifacts of historical importance from the Umayyad palaces in Al-Khatouniyah.
The stones in question were transported to the Ma’ale Adumim colony-settlement where some were off-loaded in a dump; other items were taken to warehouses run by the Israeli antiquities department in the Rockefeller Museum, ironically the former Palestine Archaeological Museum.
It is believed that the Islamic relics will be given cosmetic treatment and then reappear, miraculously, as “Jewish” relics. We know this because it’s not the first time that this has been done.
Mosque destruction
Scores of mosques were destroyed across Palestine in 1948 (as reported inter alia in Haaretz on July 6, 2009) and in the succeeding years as part of the deliberate policy to obliterate the Islamic identity of the country. Many were converted into museums, night clubs and restaurants.
The Great Mosque (Jaame’a al-Kabir) in Bir al-Saba’a (Beersheba) was used as a detention centre and subsequently as a court before it was abandoned.
The Afula Mosque was converted into a synagogue and Al-Qaysayrieh Mosque became a restaurant.
None of these acts will give legitimacy to the claims of the Zionist Occupation. The presence of the Palestinian population in Hebron and Jerusalem represent the greatest obstacle to the process of annexation and Judaisation.
This latest outrage could well signal the beginning of a new phase in the conflict – one that has the potential to resonate well beyond Palestine.
Daud Abdullah is the director of the Middle East Monitor- an independent media research institution founded in the United Kingdom to foster a fair and accurate coverage in the Western media of Middle Eastern issues and in particular the Palestine Question.
EDITOR: The Show deteriorates into soap Act 3 Scene 3
You have to cry, really, when reading this text, one of many, about the moving love story gone so wrong… Is there nothing that can be done, to bring back those two lovies together? To read the reports, you would think they are bound for the divorce court, to say the least. Please do not get unduly worried – it is all part of the play.
In a week or two, who would even remember this buildup of consternation between such loving partners. It is just part of the great scheme of things. And the love will be ever greater, as the elections in November get nearer. So, good people, do relax, there is a happy end coming up.
Ambassador Michael Oren reportedly made the remark to Israeli diplomats
Israel’s ambassador to the US has said that relations between the two countries are at their lowest point for 35 years, Israeli media have reported.
Last week Israeli officials announced the building of 1,600 new homes in occupied East Jerusalem while US Vice-President Joe Biden was visiting.
The move was seen as an insult to the US. Palestinian leaders say indirect talks with Israel are now “doubtful”.
But Israel’s PM said Jewish settlements did “not hurt” Arabs in East Jerusalem.
Addressing Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, Benjamin Netanyahu said he wanted peace negotiations, and hoped the Palestinians would not present “new preconditions” for talks.
Israel and US: A bruised friendship
“No government in the past 40 years has limited construction in neighbourhoods of Jerusalem,” he said.
“Building these Jewish neighbourhoods in Jerusalem does not hurt the Arabs of East Jerusalem or come at their expense.”
Meanwhile, EU foreign policy head Baroness Ashton, who is on a Middle East tour, said Israel’s decision had put the prospect of indirect talks with the Palestinians in jeopardy.
‘Difficult period’
Previously the Israeli government had played down the strain in relations with the US.
But Israel’s ambassador to the US, Michael Oren, told a conference call with Israeli consuls general in the US that “the crisis was very serious and we are facing a very difficult period in relations”, the Israeli media reported on Monday.
ANALYSIS
Paul Wood, BBC News, Jerusalem
Mr Netanyahu has been presented with a choice: a breach with right-wing members of his coalition – or with the Americans. With his speech to the Knesset, he seems to have chosen to put the needs of domestic politics first.
It seems the Americans are so angry because they believe that Mr Netanyahu went back on an understanding. This was, apparently, that Israel would not to push forward with any big new settlement building projects in East Jerusalem.
This was necessary if the Palestinians were to be persuaded to join the long-delayed negotiations so painstakingly put together by the US mediators. The decision to go ahead with new building has left the Americans affronted and Mr Netanyahu, while apologetic, is unbending.
The question is now what the US is prepared to do to rescue peace talks in which it has invested so much of its power and prestige.
On Friday, Mr Oren was summoned to the state department and was reprimanded about the affair, the Israeli Ynet News website reported.
Ynet quoted the ambassador as saying “Israel’s ties with the US are in the most serious crisis since 1975”.
In 1975, US-Israeli relations were strained by a demand from then US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger that Israel’s Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin partially withdraw its troops from the Sinai Peninsula, where they had been since the 1967 Six-Day War.
The Haaretz newspaper said the ambassador’s quote had been reported to it by four of the Israeli consuls general following the conference call on Saturday.
Mr Oren had appeared “tense and pessimistic”, the consuls general told the newspaper.
They were instructed to lobby members of congress and Jewish community leaders and tell them Israel had not intended to cause offence.
“These instructions come from the highest level in Jerusalem,” Haaretz quoted Mr Oren as saying.
The Israeli embassy in Washington has not yet commented publicly on the story.
The EU, as part of the Middle East Quartet, has already condemned Israel’s decision to build new homes in East Jerusalem.
Speaking to members of the Arab League in Cairo on Monday, Lady Ashton said the move had “endangered and undermined the tentative agreement to begin proximity talks”.
She added: “The EU position on settlements is clear. Settlements are illegal, constitute an obstacle to peace and threaten to make a two state-solution impossible.”
‘Insult’
On Sunday, a top aide to US President Barack Obama said Israel’s announcement of plans to build 1,600 homes for Jews in East Jerusalem was “destructive” to peace efforts.
David Axelrod said the move, which overshadowed Mr Biden’s visit to Israel, was also an “insult” to the United States.
Just hours before the announcement Mr Biden had emphasised how close relations were, saying there was “no space” between Israel and the US.
Mr Netanyahu has tried to play down the unusually bitter diplomatic row between the two allies.
He said the announcement was a “bureaucratic mix-up” and that he “deeply regretted” its timing.
Under the Israeli plans, the new homes will be built in Ramat Shlomo in East Jerusalem.
The Palestinians are threatening to boycott newly agreed, indirect talks unless the Ramat Shlomo project is cancelled.
Close to 500,000 Jews live in more than 100 settlements built since Israel’s 1967 occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem. The settlements are considered illegal under international law, although Israel disputes this.
EDITOR: Bibi and Juliet, a Love Story
Well, how could anyone not love this man? He is tough, he is not afraid of anyone, he can even face little Palestinian boys – he is the Macho Man of the Orient, and the US and the EU are both wooing with gusto. Now he tells it like it is – “We will continue to build in Jerusalem, whatever you Lovey-doveys say, so there”. You can tell they will only love him more for it in the end…
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday said that Israel would continue to build in Jerusalem in the same way that it has over the last 42 years.
“The building in Jerusalem – and in all other places – will continue in the same way as has been customary over the last 42 years,” said Netanyahu at a Likud party meeting.
Israel drew angry reactions from the U.S. and the Palestinians by announcing last week the construction of 1,600 new housing units in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Ramat Shlomo during a visit by U.S. Vice President Joe Biden last week.
Netanyahu did not specifically address the diplomatic crisis with the U.S.over Israel’s announcement about the East Jerusalem construction.
However, when asked by MK Tzipi Hotovely what would happen in September, when the 10-month settlement freeze ends, Netanyahu responded that construction would continue unabated.
Under U.S. pressure, Netanyahu imposed a limited moratorium on new housing starts in West Bank settlements in November but excluded Jerusalem from the 10-month partial freeze.
Also on Monday, in a speech to the Knesset to welcome Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Netanyahu said the construction of homes for Israelis in the city’s eastern sector in no way hurts Palestinians.
In his speech, Netanyahu gave no indication he would cancel the project or limit construction in East Jerusalem.
“For the past 40 years, no Israeli government ever limited construction in the neighborhoods of Jerusalem,” he said in a speech to the Knesset, citing areas in the West Bank that Israel captured during the 1967 Six-Day War and annexed to the city.
Netanyahu called on the Palestinians, who have said they would not restart peace negotiations unless the project was scrapped, not to place new preconditions on the revival of the talks.
He added that there was nearly total consensus among Israeli political parties that what he called Jewish neighborhoods in and around Jerusalem would remain “part of the state of Israel” in any future peace agreement.
Palestinians say Israeli settlement in the West Bank will deny them a viable state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. They claim East Jerusalem to be the capital of a future state.
Meanwhile, Defense Minister Ehud Barak earlier on Monday urged the government to work toward defusing the diplomatic crisis over Israeli construction in East Jerusalem and getting peace talks with the Palestinians back on track.
The government must make an effort in order “for this crisis to be forgotten and for the proximity talks, and later direct talks, to return to the right path,” said Barak at a Labor party meeting.
Barak said he met with American officials about the necessary steps to move forward.
“Peace talks are a first priority for Israel and for the entire region,” said Barak. “The political process is in the interest of the state and it is a subject in which the Labor party believes. It is one of the things that anchors us in the government and drives us to work within it.”
Monday, 15 March 2010 Israel’s Prime Minister has often tried, and succeeded, in having it both ways on the question of a peace deal – talking to the US, in vague but emollient tones, about a two-state solution while palming off his right-wing allies with pledges of more Jewish settlements on the West Bank.
The escalating row between Benjamin Netanyahu and the US suggests this strategy is now starting to unravel. Hillary Clinton’s heated discussions with Mr Netanyahu at the weekend showed that the Obama administration feels that Israel has crossed a red line by announcing plans to build thousands more Jewish homes in East Jerusalem, and by releasing that inflammatory information when the US Vice-President, Joe Biden, was in town to restart stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. Mr Netanyahu’s latest contribution, a suggestion that everyone should “calm down”, has not helped matters, by sounding patronising. There is no disputing the virtue of calmness, but the real obstacle to fresh talks between Israelis and Palestinians is not excess emotion; it is the Israeli’s leader’s reluctance to alienate his right-wing coalition allies by spelling out exactly what he is prepared to pay for peace.
Like many in Israel, and on the political right in the US, Mr Netanyahu may be banking on Mr Obama turning out to be a one-term president; a leader to be endured until a more ardently pro-Israeli Republican takes back the White House. That offers one explanation for Israel’s almost deliberate-looking humiliation of the President. But if this is the strategy – to appeal over Mr Obama’s head to a right-wing audience in America – it is fraught with risk.
The strength of Israel’s alliance with the US has depended on its bipartisan character, which meant Israel not taking sides between Democrats and Republicans. The danger of Mr Netanyahu’s approach is that Democrats may start to see Israel not as the great friend of America but as the great friend of the Republicans, which will change the entire dynamics of the alliance. It may be that in a few years’ time the US will have another Republican president, in which case Israel can presumably restart settlement activity without any apology. But it should not bank on such an outcome at this stage.
The savage “exemplary” sentences handed out to young Muslims (Sent to jail for throwing a single bottle, 13 March) need to be viewed in the broader context of the “war on terror”, which itself has turned out to be a euphemism for a more shadowy war on Islam. While the government’s huge assault on our basic civil liberties has affected a wide range of citizens (prayers for the fallen at the Cenotaph, calling out “rubbish” at a party conference, silent prayer in Trafalgar Square), it has impacted mainly on the Muslim community.
The absurdly high-profile assaults on Muslim households are designed to send a clear message to a vulnerable group. They should be seen within the context of the illegal attack on Iraq, the government’s acquiescence in the incarceration of over a million Gazans, and the calamitous neglect of Afghanistan post-2002. The attitudes inherent in all these actions seem designed to create a climate of contempt that can only oil the wheels of extremism, defeating the very object the government proclaims – at the expense of the daily loss of young lives and the huge waste of economic resources.
Future historians may well trace the dramatic decline of this country in economic, political, social and democratic terms to this disastrous failure to relate these repressive attitudes to the ongoing creation of a negative climate that can only be self-destructive.
Roger Iredale
Yeovil, Somerset
• On reading the report on the arrest and conviction of many young Muslims over the January 2009 demonstrations against the massacre in Gaza, a number of uncanny similarities strike one with the situation in Palestine. The first is the reported police brutality in response to low-level violence, where the Israeli security forces use similar methods.
The second parallel is the behaviour of the legal systems. Israel’s overlooks the war crimes in Gaza reported by Judge Goldstone, but is keen on arresting and holding without charge boys of 10, and treating boys of 12 who throw stones as terrorists. Meanwhile, the London courts seem as keen to throw young Muslims in jail, as Gordon Brown is prepared to bend the legal system after the election so as to not inconvenience those responsible for ordering and managing the massacres in Gaza. Certainly, if Britain set out to create Muslim radicalism, it could do no better.
Professor Haim Bresheeth
University of East London
• After acknowledging Mosab al-Ani’s excellent character, Judge John Denniss is quoted as saying: “I’m going to give you this [prison] sentence to deter other people.”. I thought fair sentencing was supposed to work on the “punishment fits the crime” principle. If so, Judge Denniss badly needs reminding of this, or better, early retirement. I was at the demo and that bottle never got near the Israeli embassy.
Though few tickets were sold for this piece of hamming, and even fewer came to witness it, it still drags on like an aligator through thick molasses. Now Netanyahu, shedding crocodile tears, is regretting the whole affair, like a burglar who, having been caught, saying the whole thing wasn’t his idea, he did not know, he is just the PM, how can he possible know what was, according to Akiva Eldar, agreed between Israel and the US in advance of Biden’s visit?
On the other side of the Pond, Mrs Clinton is all steel. She will not allow this, she will not accept that, and couldn’t Israel wait few days before advertising the fact that they will continue to build, and intensify the building? Are you asking why thee is nothing here from the NY Times? Well, they have nothing to say… again.
You have to hand it to the cast: though not experienced in this kind of acting, they are certainly doing the very best to persuade each other, and maybe also Brown and Berlusconi. The rest of us will have to resist the temptation to retch at such performance. Still, this show will close this week, and you will never hear of it again, same as the Dubai murder (what murder? In Dubai? Never heard about it.) After all, we now have to prepare for the attack on Gaza and Lebanon, the Iran war, and the 3rd Intifada…
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday referred to Israel’s recent approval of a plan to build 1,600 new housing units in East Jerusalem, announced during U.S. Vice President Joe Biden’s visit, as a “harmful” incident that “should not have happened.”
In his first public remarks on what Israeli commentators called his most serious crisis with Washington since taking office a year ago, he gave no sign he would meet Palestinian demands to cancel a project for 1,600 new settler homes.
“There was a regrettable incident here, that occurred innocently,” Netanyahu told his cabinet at its weekly meeting, though he urged ministers to stay calm amid the tensions.
“We opened the newspapers this morning and read all kinds of commentary and assumptions regarding the crisis with the U.S. I recommend not to get carried away and to calm down,” Netanyahu said.
Netanyahu reiterated that he had appointed a committee to investigate the events leading up to the decision to ensure that such a thing not happen again.
The prime minister stressed the importance of Israel’s relations with the United States, which were strained as a result of the incident.
The U.S. has waged harsh criticism of Israel’s announcement on Tuesday about new settlement construction – a move that deeply embarrassed Biden and imperiled U.S. plans to launch indirect negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians.
The investigative team will be headed by Director-General of the Prime Minister’s Office, Eyal Gabai, and will include members of the Interior Ministry, Housing Ministry and the Jerusalem Municipality.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Friday called Israel’s announcement “insulting” to the United States.
“I mean, it was just really a very unfortunate and difficult moment for everyone – the United States, our vice president who had gone to reassert our strong support for Israeli security – and I regret deeply that that occurred and made that known,” Clinton told CNN.
Clinton did not blame Netanyahu personally for the announcement, but she said: “He is the prime minister. Like the president or secretary of state…ultimately, you are responsible.”
Sources in the Prime Minister’s Office said over the weekend that the ensuing crisis appeared to be orchestrated by the U.S. administration, as Netanyahu apologized to Biden and believed that the crisis was behind the two allies.
EDITOR: The Settlements Show, Act 2, Scene 4
So now the discussion is clearing up. Neither the US, nor the EU are much worried about Israel stealing the whole of Palestine, or building settlements. After all, if they were, they had 43 years to say so, and also do something about it. The opposite is true. Now they are discussing the main issue: the Timing of the announcement! As we all know, all good theatre is a matter of perfect timing. So the advice to the cast in Jerusalem is simple: ‘improve your timing!’. First allow American and EU politicians to prattle on peace, then allow them to return home, and only then announce more building. That way, the Palestinians can be blamed for the debacle, and we can get to Act 3, at last.
In Israel, they are picking up the message loud and clear. Delaying the discussions in Jerusalem until the EU representative, the esteemed Baroness Munchhausen has been and left make a lot of sense.She is also singing the 2-State song, with the same old tune. Nice. Isn’t it good to know that the fate of the Middle East, Europe, the world, is in the hands of capable actors, who know their lines by heart? Enjoy the Show!
The Jerusalem District Planning and Building committee has canceled two meetings planned for this week, apparently out of concern that any more decisions on construction might result in further tensions with the United States.
As reported in Haaretz last week, the committee had already pulled from its agenda discussion of all Israeli construction over the Green Line.
The Interior Ministry has said that the meetings were canceled due to technical reasons, as the director of the committee Ruth Yosef had been invited to overlapping Knesset sessions.
Settlements by Carlos Latuff
Interior Minister Eli Yishai denied last week having ordered the committee to change its agenda following the recent crisis with the U.S. ? but committee members nevertheless have received a new schedule, on which all meetings pertaining to controversial construction areas were erased.
Yishai last week gave the city approval of a plan to build 1,600 new housing units in East Jerusalem, a decision which led to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s most serious crisis with Washington since taking office a year ago.
Members of the building and planning committee were instructed last week not to hold any more discussions or approve any more announcements regarding construction in East Jerusalem.
Sources close to the matter have said that the meetings in question were to have dealt with minor construction plans.
Likud faction whip Ze’ev Elkin earlier Sunday urged Netanyahu not to deviate from his policy on East Jerusalem construction, saying Israel must keep the capital undivided and under its sovereignty.
Netanyahu had not included East Jerusalem in his declaration of a 10-month construction freeze, but Israel’s recent approval of 1,600 new housing units during U.S. Vice President Joe Biden’s visit has raised tensions between the two allies.
The timing of the disclosure deeply embarrassed Biden, whose visit coincided with Palestinian agreement to restart peace talks suspended since December 2008 in the form of indirect, U.S.-mediated negotiations with Israel.
Opposition leader and Kadima chairwoman Tzipi Livni on Sunday cast her own criticism of Netanyahu regarding the recent row, saying his weakness to his coalition partners was costing the government its stability.
“The coalition agreement is not a substitute for a set path and a vision,” Livni said, adding that “we have a prime minister who does not know what he wants and this weakness is leading to a political landslide.”
“Israel is paying the price for the fact that her government is not making decisions and it will continue to pay for it,” Livni added.
“It is not God’s decree for the world to be against us,” said the opposition leader. “We can change the reality, but for this we need a prime minister who has a clear policy and strategic path, who doesn’t place national security in the hands of [Interior Minister] Eli Yishai.
2 States, by Carlos Latuff
EDITOR: Dénouement – Act 3 Scene 2 of the Great Show in Jerusalem
Now it seems that they all started reading this blog… How else could they have worked it out? Not by themselves, surely?…
On stage we see the main culprits now sticking knives into each other’s back – The band of robbers fighting each other after a failed job – Barak gets Netanyahu while he can, and Axelrod spills the beans about the real task of the announcement. I feel they are starting real competition with the blog, and I wonder how I can stop them from stealing my lines…
Obama aide Axelrod says approval of 1,600 new East Jerusalem homes seemed meant to thwart talks.
Defense Minister Ehud Barak on Sunday joined widespread condemnation of the Israeli government’s recent announcement to build 1,600 new housing units in East Jerusalem.
“The mishap that took place while the U.S. Vice President Joe Biden was visiting was unintentional, but it was, without a doubt, unnecessary and damaging,” said Barak.
Earlier Sunday, President Barack Obama’s chief political adviser David Axelrod slammed the Israeli construction plan in East Jerusalem and said that the move, which was announced during Biden’s visit, looked like a deliberate attempt to frustrate upcoming proximity talks between Israel and the Palestinians.
Barak, speaking during an event celebrating the upcoming Passover holiday, emphasized the importance of the Israel-United States friendship.
“Even though we are the ones ultimately responsible for our fate, the friendship of the United States is important to both the security and the peace of the region, and this friendship commits us to mutual respect and responsibility,” Barak said.
“I am convinced that we must carry on the renewal of peace talks, and we must also invest thought and effort into it.”
Referring to Israel’s announcement of the plan to build 1,600 more housing units in the ultra-Orthodox neighborhood of Ramat Shlomo during a visit by Vice President Joe Biden, Axelrod told ABC’s This Week that “what happened there was an affront.”
Earlier Sunday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu referred to the announcement as a “harmful” incident that “should not have happened.”
In his interview with ABC, Axelrod hinted that Israel’s announcement was a deliberate attempt to thwart indirect talks with the Palestinians.
“It was an insult, but that’s not the most important thing,” Axelrod added, saying that the move was disruptive to upcoming proximity talks with the Palestinians and that the approval during Biden’s visit “seemed calculated to undermine that, and that was – that was distressing to everyone who is promoting the idea of peace and security in the region.”
Axelrod said that the bond between Israel and the United States was “strong,” but adding that “for just that very reason, this was not the right way to behave.”
“That was expressed by the secretary of state, as well as the vice president. I am not going to discuss what diplomatic talks we’ve had underneath that, but I think the Israelis understand clearly why we were upset and what, you know, what we want moving forward,” Axelrod added.
Responding to the possibility that Israel’s move could have any effect on U.S. soldiers in the region, Axelrod said that he believed “that that region and that issue is a flare point throughout the region, and so I’m not going to put it in those terms.”
However, the top Obama aide added that he did “believe that it is absolutely imperative, not just for the security of Israel and the Palestinian people, who were, remember, at war just a year ago, but it is important for our own security that we move forward and resolve this very difficult issue.”
In his first public remarks on what Israeli commentators called his most serious crisis with Washington since taking office a year ago, Netanyahu gave no sign earlier that he would meet Palestinian demands to cancel a project for 1,600 new settler homes.
“There was a regrettable incident here, that occurred innocently,” Netanyahu told his cabinet at its weekly meeting, though he urged ministers to stay calm amid the tensions.
“We opened the newspapers this morning and read all kinds of commentary and assumptions regarding the crisis with the U.S. I recommend not to get carried away and to calm down,” Netanyahu said.
Netanyahu reiterated that he had appointed a committee to investigate the events leading up to the decision to ensure that such a thing not happen again.
The prime minister stressed the importance of Israel’s relations with the United States, which were strained as a result of the incident.
The U.S. has waged harsh criticism of Israel’s announcement on Tuesday about new settlement construction – a move that deeply embarrassed Biden and imperiled U.S. plans to launch indirect negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians.
The investigative team will be headed by Director-General of the Prime Minister’s Office, Eyal Gabai, and will include members of the Interior Ministry, Housing Ministry and the Jerusalem Municipality.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Friday called Israel’s announcement “insulting” to the United States.
“I mean, it was just really a very unfortunate and difficult moment for everyone – the United States, our vice president who had gone to reassert our strong support for Israeli security – and I regret deeply that that occurred and made that known,” Clinton told CNN.
Clinton did not blame Netanyahu personally for the announcement, but she said: “He is the prime minister. Like the president or secretary of state…ultimately, you are responsible.”
Sources in the Prime Minister’s Office said over the weekend that the ensuing crisis appeared to be orchestrated by the U.S. administration, as Netanyahu apologized to Biden and believed that the crisis was behind the two allies.
The compound contains sites holy to both Jews and Muslims
Israeli police say they have entered a compound in Jerusalem containing the al-Aqsa mosque, one of Islam’s holiest sites.
Police said they entered the compound to disperse at least 20 Palestinians who were throwing stones at visitors.
The site also contains the Western Wall, a sacred site for Jews.
Tensions have been high in recent days following clashes in the West Bank town of Hebron over Israel listing two disputed shrines as heritage sites. Contested site
A Palestinian official said the group of youths had spent the night in the al-Aqsa mosque to prevent what they believed to be Jewish extremists from praying at the sensitive site.
An Israeli police spokesman said calm had been restored to the compound and visits resumed.
The spokesman, Micky Rosenfeld, said Muslim men under the age of 50 had been barred from the site, while older men, women of all ages and children had been permitted to enter.
The Jerusalem complex, known to Muslims as Haram al-Sharif and to Jews as Temple Mount, has long been contested.
Clashes erupted at the site last September after Muslims threw stones at people they believed to be Jewish extremists trying to pray at the al-Aqsa mosque.
A visit to the compound in 2000 by then-opposition leader Ariel Sharon, later prime minister, led to clashes that escalated into years of violence in Israel and the Palestinian territories.
The compound containing the mosque lies in Jerusalem’s Old City, which has been controlled by Israel since they captured it in the 1967 war.
Muslims believe the Prophet Muhammad ascended to heaven from the spot in the complex marked by the Dome of the Rock.
The site is holy to Jews because it is where the First and Second Temples were built according to the Old Testament, with the Western Wall still remaining.
Four Israeli policemen were wounded by Palestinian stone hurlers on Sunday, as clashes continued after Muslim worshippers barricaded themselves in a mosque on Jerusalem’s Temple Mount compound.
So far, 7 Palestinians have been arrested in the violent riots.
Israel police broke into the Temple Mount compound in Jerusalem’s Old City, after Palestinian worshippers hurled stones at non-Muslim visitors of the holy site.
Police spokesman Shmuel Ben-Ruby said police entered the compound when about 20 Palestinians threw stones, but that the protesters had quickly taken cover inside the mosque.
The incident was over quickly, but the area remained tense. In the past, violence at the site – known to Jews as the Temple Mount and to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary – has erupted into deadly battles.
Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said police dispersed the 20 masked protesters, saying “calm was quickly restored,” and that “about a thousand tourists have since visited the site.”
However, small groups of masked Palestinians continued to clash with police elsewhere in Jerusalem’s Old City and in a nearby neighborhood just outside the walled area.
Police overnight restricted the entrance to the Mosque to a minimum age of 50, and holders of blue (Israeli) identity certificates as a precaution.
Israeli police do not usually enter the area, other than in response to incidents. Police did not enter the mosque.
One protester was arrested as the rock-throwing protests spread to the alleyways of the old walled city, Ben-Ruby added.
Adnan al-Husseini, a Palestinian official in charge of Jerusalem, said Palestinian youths had spent the night at the mosque saying Jewish hardliners had threatened to enter the site.
The holy site has been a frequent flashpoint of violence in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
Tensions have been on the rise in Jerusalem and Israeli-occupied Palestinian territory over stalled peace talks which haven’t convened since before a Gaza war in December 2008.
The incident comes after more than 300 Palestinians in Hebron clashed with Israeli security forces on Thursday, while commemorating the 29 Muslims killed in an attack by Jewish extremist Baruch Goldstein at the Ibrahimi Mosque 16-years ago.
Hadash chairman Mohammed Barakeh who joined the Palestinian protestors alongside some 30 more Israelis, criticized Israel Defense Forces soldiers for attacking the peaceful demonstrators, as well as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for his recent move to add the Tomb of the Patriarchs to the list of National Heritage sites.
“Netanyahu is an expert at lighting fires, and is turning the wheel backwards by repeating his mistakes from his first cadency as Prime Minister,” Barakeh said following the demonstration.
“The Netanyahu-Barak government is pushing towards a regional explosion in order to damage any chance of progress,” he added.
IDF soldiers attempted to disband the protest by hurling smoke grenades. Barakeh said that they all suffered from smoke inhalation.
Following an outburst of violence in Hebron, where the tomb is located, Khaled Esseleh, the mayor of Hebron, said: “I’m hoping there won’t be more clashes but this is a very sensitive religious issue, and Netanyahu just lit the fire.”
Earlier, the Obama administration criticized Israel for designating two shrines in the West Bank as Israeli national heritage sites.
The criticism came as Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said she hopes long-stalled peace talks between Israelis and the Palestinians will resume.
Clinton told a congressional committee that groundwork is being laid to restart the talks with the help of U.S. envoy George Mitchell.
She did not say exactly when the negotiations might resume, but her remarks come amid a flurry of U.S. diplomatic activity in the region
After years of aggression towards the Gaza residents, in order to make the Israeli illegal blockade mosre efficient, and building the steel wall, to stop the importation of food and fuel into the starved strip with more than 1.5 million inhabitants, so punished for exercising their democratic right to vote, now Egypt is to assist Israel crucially by exporting gas to it, rather than deny Israel this crucial resource which it denies the gazans. How depressing.
The supreme court in Egypt has overturned an earlier ruling by a lower court that banned gas sales to Israel.
The new ruling requires that the government should make clear the quantity of gas it exports to Israel and how much it charges.
Lawyers had argued that the gas was being sold at preferential rates.
Egypt’s gas trade with Israel is controversial, as many Egyptians are opposed to links between the two countries – despite a 1979 peace deal.
Some opposition figures in Egypt are against the sale of gas to Israel because they disagree with its policies towards the Palestinians.
This ruling ends a legal battle which stirred up public controversy.
Over a year ago, lawyers had successfully argued for a ban on natural gas exports to Israel, claiming the price was below the international market level.
The supreme administrative court has said that the lower court which made that ruling has no jurisdiction in cases of this kind because they involved state sovereignty.
Pipeline flow
It did add, however, that Egypt should take steps to monitor the price and quantity of its exports ensuring domestic needs are met before selling gas abroad.
Gas started flowing to Israel from Egypt through a pipeline in 2008, under an agreement contracted to last for 20 years.
In reality, supplies were never cut off when there was a court ruling banning sales.
It was ignored by the government, pending a review.
The final legal decision is unlikely to enjoy wide support in Egypt.
Although the country has had a peace treaty with Israel since 1979, Israeli policies in the Palestinians territories make it unpopular with many Egyptians.
During the conflict in Gaza, there were increased calls to stop gas exports.
The Dubai murder is a story which runs and runs again; the more time passes, the more complexities and incongruities are unravelled. More than a month after the murder in Dubai, the BBC publishes a proper report, for the first time. Until now, they contended themselves with being fed by the other sources: Al Jazeera, Haaretz and the Guardian, in the main. Now at last they have conducted some research on the operation, and the report is comprehensive; it gives one the impression that they were not overkeen to properly discuss the events before – a position closely reflecting that of the UK goverment, at least not on the editorial level.
In 1973, a Moroccan waiter working in the Norwegian town of Lillehammer was shot dead by agents of the Israeli foreign intelligence service, Mossad, who mistook him for Ali Hassan Salameh, a Palestinian behind an attack during the previous year’s Munich Olympics in which 11 Israeli athletes died.
Two members of the hit squad were arrested the next day as they reused a getaway car to travel to the airport.
One of them, an inexperienced Danish-born volunteer, provided police with a paper trail that led to the capture and imprisonment of several of his comrades, and sparked a diplomatic incident.
Wanting to recoup the expenses he had incurred during the operation from his Mossad handlers, he had kept his receipts.
Twenty-seven years later, a paper trail – though this time electronic – has once again exposed the work of a group of assassins, pointed the finger of suspicion at Israel, and raised questions about the future of covert operations in foreign countries.
On Wednesday, the police in Dubai identified a further 15 suspects in the killing last month of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, a leader of the Palestinian Islamist militant group Hamas, raising the number believed to have taken part to at least 26.
As with the previous 11, investigators were able to give the names, nationalities and passport numbers the suspects had used, the photographs inside their fraudulent passports, and provide high-resolution CCTV footage showing what they had done.
Using immigration records and receipts from the credit cards used by 14 of the suspects, the authorities were also able to discover the movements of all 26 into and out of Dubai both during an earlier mission last year and around the time of Mr Mabhouh’s death.
According to officials, the suspects flew into Dubai on board separate flights from Europe on 18 and 19 January. Five of them left after less than 24 hours on 19 January – when the killing took place – while the others departed the next day.
Though the paper trail then appears to end, the names and details on the UK passports used by eight of the 12 suspects have so far turned out to belong to British-Israeli citizens living in Israel. All of them have denied involvement.
Even before the apparent link to Israel emerged, Hamas had blamed Mossad for Mr Mabhouh’s death.
Then on 15 February, Dubai police chief Lt Gen Dhahi Khalfan announced that he was nearly “100%” certain that Israeli agents had masterminded the killing.
The five Western countries whose passports were faked – the UK, Ireland, France, Germany and Australia – also reacted angrily and immediately demanded explanations from Israeli diplomats.
The Israeli diplomats replied that there was no proof of Mossad involvement, although they did not deny it, in line with their government’s policy of “ambiguity”.
‘Couldn’t be Israel’
Israel’s media and former Mossad agents initially praised the agency for carrying out another successful assassination abroad, but soon Dubai revealed unprecedented information about the operation and it emerged that Israeli citizens had had their identities stolen.
Some commentators have since gone so far as to question whether it was even a Mossad hit, citing contradictions in the initial reports of Mr Mabhouh’s death, the large number of suspects, their inability to evade detection, and the apparent decision by two of them to travel by boat to Iran last year.
“Twenty-six agents, perhaps even 30, sent to assassinate one person? Granted if they could flee the scene by sea, how could one think that Mossad agents would take cover in Iran? I ask myself. Even if they have unprecedented self-confidence the likes of which are unknown?” wrote Yossi Melman in Haaretz.
A former Mossad agent, Rami Igra, also dismissed its involvement due to the assassins’ failure to disable CCTV cameras at key moments and their use of passports belonging to foreign nationals living in Israel.
“It was so stupid, it couldn’t be Israel,” he said. “You don’t go over the speed limit in a place where there are going to be cameras, because you are going to be photographed.”
“The whole thing shows that whoever did it was very unprofessional.”
‘Long-term operation’
Some details about Mr Mabhouh’s killing do, however, tally with past statements by retired Mossad agents with knowledge of the reprisals for the Munich attack.
They say the assassinations were carried out by large numbers of people, in stages. For instance, an investigation by the Norwegian government found 14 people had been involved in Lillehammer.
Once they knew where the mission would take place, the teams would go through practice runs in Israel and arrive at the location no more than a few days in advance, withdrawing as soon as it was over, they add.
Bruce Riedel, a former CIA officer who is now a senior fellow at the Washington-based Brookings Institution, says Wednesday’s revelations did not change his opinion that Israel was behind the assassination in Dubai.
“This most likely was a Mossad operation. All the signatures – European passports, the way the team moved quickly to leave the country – cumulatively paint a pretty convincing case,” he told the BBC News website.
Mr Riedel says it would have been highly unusual for the hit squad to have visited Dubai using the stolen identities last year just for reconnaissance, as the police claim, and that this may have been an attempt to eliminate the Hamas leader that had failed.
He also doubted that all of the suspects had been in the Gulf just for one mission.
“What the Dubai authorities are uncovering now is not just the assassination team, but probably the entire Mossad station,” he explains. “Dubai would be a perfect place to carry out not just a one-off operation, but a long-term one against Iran.”
A retired officer for Mossad’s covert-operations division, who writes under the pseudonym Michael Ross, agrees that there may have been more than one operation in motion in Dubai.
“If this is a Mossad operation, this is an unprecedented number of combatants deployed for an operation of any kind,” he told the BBC News website.
“Given the relatively scant operational manpower resources available to Mossad, the general rule of thumb has always been, ‘never send two when one is enough and never send three when two is enough’.”
Mr Ross says the use of a mix of cloned, manufactured and authentic passports by the assassins “do not follow any document protocols that I recall”. The use of credit cards from US bank is also “very odd”, he says, given the co-operation between Israel and the US.
“It would be disingenuous to say Israel wasn’t involved in some fashion, but I think there are more aspects and international players involved in this case than are visible to the naked eye,” he adds.
‘Authentic’ documents
The Dubai killing has also raised questions about the future of covert operations.
With the widespread introduction of CCTV, biometric identification data and interconnected immigration control centres, will agents be able to continue to fake passports and work abroad undetected as they could a decade ago?
Many countries’ new passports have chips that hold easily verified data such as retina scans, which are both unique and unfakeable – though the chips may be faked. The data generated when someone takes a flight, crosses a border, uses a credit card or makes a call makes it increasingly easy to find them even if they change their identity.
“Biometrics pose a real problem for the use of alias identities by intelligence services. Officers travelling and operating under cover will have to make sure their documents are ‘authentic’,” says Mr Ross.
He believes the assassins did not anticipate that the Dubai authorities would be so comprehensive in their investigation or generate so much attention.
Many countries’ new passports have chips that hold easily verified data
“We live in the surveillance era and this is now an integral component of planning for modern intelligence-gathering and covert operations. No top-tier intelligence service conducts operational activity without first gathering all the necessary operational intelligence required – especially concerning existing security measures in place.
“In my view, there was a gross underestimation of the reaction of the Dubai authorities given the UAE’s close relationship with the West and the rather odious past activities of Mr Mabhouh, who used no less than five alias identities himself.”
Mr Riedel says Israel will not necessarily mind the adverse coverage, however, as it sends a clear message to militants that Mossad can target them wherever they are.
Intelligence agencies will simply find something to counter every technological advance, as they have in the past, he adds.
“The game of espionage is not about to go out of business because of CCTV.”
An Arab political source said Friday that special U.S. Mideast envoy George Mitchell has requested to resign due to his frustration with the way the Obama administration has been handling the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, according to a Nazareth-based daily.
Hadith a-Nass reported that Mitchell’s request stemmed partly from to his own failure to advance the resumption of peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians and also from his perception that certain elements within the State Department hold biased favor toward Israel.
The White House turned down Mitchell’s request, according to Hadith a-Nass.
No verification of the report was available.
Peace talks were halted more than a year ago over the war in the Gaza Strip and have not resumed, due largely to a Palestinian demand that Israel first impose a complete freeze on building in the West Bank and East Jerusalem and Israel’s refusal to do so.
A new working paper released by the Palestinian indicates that the Palestinian Authority has warned it may abandon its support of the 1993 Oslo Accords, which outlines a two-state solution to the conflict with Israel.
The Palestinians are instead intending to pursue the creation of a binational state between the Jordan River and Mediterranean Sea, according to a document drafted by the PA’s veteran chief negotiator.
EDITOR: The NYT position on Palestine/Israel
I have pointed out more than once or twice that the NYT is takinga clear position on Palestine: they report good news stories from Israel, but when the news is less auspicious, it seems to be absent from their pages altogether. Jonathan Cook deals here with the NYT Jerusalem bureau chief, and has a unique relationship to Israeli Jewish society, as has been widely reported. The reporting of his son serving in the Israeli army was brushed away by the NYT as some irrelevant pest; let us consider the possibility of a reporter for any of the western media, whose son is a Hamas fighter, for example? Are you joking? Surely, such a person could not be trusted to be objective, with his son in Hamas?
What people do not see or hear can hardly disturb them…
A recent assignment of mine covering Israel’s presumed links to the assassination of Hamas leader Mahmoud al-Mabhouh provoked some more thoughts about the New York Times reporter Ethan Bronner. He is the Jerusalem bureau chief who has been at the centre of a controversy since it was revealed last month that his son is serving in the Israeli army. Despite mounting pressure to replace Bronner, the NYT’s editors have so far refused to consider that he might be facing a conflict of interest or that it would be wiser to post him elsewhere.
Last week, when suspicion for the assassination in Dubai started to fall on the Mossad, a newspaper editor emailed to ask if I could ring up my “Israeli security contacts” for fresh leads. It was a reminder that Western correspondents in Israel are expected to have such contacts. The point was underlined later the same day when I spoke with a leftwing Israeli academic to get his take on Mabhouh’s killing. I had turned to this Ashkenazi professor because he counts many veterans of the security services as friends. At the end of the interview, I asked him if he had any suggestions for people in the security services I might speak with. He replied: “Talk to Eitan Bronner. He has excellent contacts.” Naively, I asked how I could reach this expert on the veiled world of the Israeli security establishment. Was he employed at the professor’s university? “No, ring the New York Times bureau,” he responded increduously. Oh, that “Eitan”!
A more interesting question than whether Bronner is now facing a conflict of interest over his son serving in the Israeli army is whether the NYT reporter was facing such a conflict long before the latest revelations surfaced. Could it be that it is actually incumbent on Bronner, as the NYT’s bureau chief, to have such a conflict of interest?
Consider this. The NYT has form when it comes to turning a blind eye to reporters with conflicts of interest in Israel — aside, I mean, from the issue of the reporters’ ethnic identification or nationality. For example, I am reminded of a recent predecessor of Bronner’s at the Jerusalem bureau — an Israeli Jew — who managed to do regular service in the Israeli army reserves even while he was covering the second intifada. I am pretty sure his bosses knew of this but, as with Bronner, did not think there were grounds for taking action.
Shortly after I wrote an earlier piece on Bronner, pointing out that most Western coverage of the Israel-Palestine conflict is shaped by Jewish and Israeli journalists, and that Palestinian voices are almost entirely excluded, a Jerusalem-based bureau chief asked to meet. Over a coffee he congratulated me, adding: “I’d be fired if I wrote something like that.”
This reporter, who, unlike me, spends lots of time with the main press corps in Jerusalem, then made some interesting points. He wishes to remain anonymous but has agreed to my passing on his observations. He calls Bronner’s situation “the rule, not the exception”, adding: “I can think of a dozen foreign bureau chiefs, responsible for covering both Israel and the Palestinians, who have served in the Israeli army, and another dozen who like Bronner have kids in the Israeli army.”
He added that it is very common to hear Western reporters boasting to one another about their “Zionist” credentials, their service in the Israeli army or the loyal service of their children. “Comments like that are very common at Foreign Press Association gatherings [in Israel] among the senior, agenda-setting, elite journalists.”
My informant is highly critical of what is going on among the Jerusalem press corps, even though he admits the same charges could be levelled against him. “I’m Jewish, married to an Israeli and like almost all Western journalists live in Jewish West Jerusalem. In my free time I hang out in cafes and bars with Jewish Israelis chatting in Hebrew. For the Jewish sabbath and Jewish holidays I often get together with a bunch of Western journalists. While it would be convenient to think otherwise, there is no question that this deep personal integration into Israeli society informs our overall understanding and coverage of the place in a way quite different from a journalist who lived in Ramallah or Gaza and whose personal life was more embedded in Palestinian society.”
And now he gets to the crunch: “The degree to which Bronner’s personal life, like that of most lead journalists here, is integrated into Israeli society, makes him an excellent candidate to cover Israeli political life, cultural shifts and intellectual life. The problem is that Bronner is also expected to be his paper’s lead voice on Palestinian political life, cultural shifts and intellectual life, all in a society he has almost no connection to, deep knowledge of or even the ability to directly communicate with … The presumption that this is possible is neither fair to Bronner nor to his readers, and it’s really a shame that Western media executives don’t see the value in an Arabic-speaking bureau chief living in Ramallah and setting the agenda for the news coming out of the Palestinian territories.”
All true. But I think there is a deeper lesson from the Bronner affair. Editors who prefer to appoint Jews and Israelis to cover the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are probably making a rational choice in news terms — even if they would never dare admit their reasoning. The media assign someone to the Jerusalem bureau because they want as much access as possible to the inner sanctums of power in a self-declared Jewish state. They believe – and they are right – that doors open if their reporter is a Jew, or better still an Israeli Jew, who has proved his or her commitment to Israel by marrying an Israeli, by serving in the army or having a child in the army, and by speaking fluent Hebrew, a language all but useless outside this small state.
Yes, Ethan Bronner is “the rule”, as my informant notes, because any other kind of journalist — the goyim, as many Israelis dismiss non-Jews — will only ever be able to scratch at the surface of Israel’s military-political-industrial edifice. The Bronners have access to power, they can talk to the officials who matter, because those same officials trust that high-powered Jewish and Israeli reporters belong in the Israeli consensus. They may be critical of the occupation, but they can be trusted to pull their punches. If they ever failed to do so, they would be ejected from the inner sanctum and a paper like the NYT would be forced to replace them with someone more cooperative.
When in later years, these Jerusalem bureau chiefs retire from the field of battle and are promoted to the rank of armchair general back at media HQ – when they become a Thomas Friedman paid to pontificate regularly on the conflict — they can be trusted to talk to those same high-placed officials, explaining their viewpoint and defending it. That is why you will not read anything in the NYT questioning the idea that Israel is a democratic state or see coverage suggesting that Israel is acting in bad faith in the peace process.
I do not want here to suggest there is anything unique about this relationship of almost utter dependence. To a degree, this is how most specialists in the mainstream media operate. Think of the local crime reporter. How effective would he be (and it is invariably a he) if he alienated the senior police officers who provide the inside information he needs for his regular supply of stories? Might he not prefer to turn a blind eye to a scoop revealing that one of his main informants is taking bribes, if publishing such a story would lose him his “access” and his posting? This is a simple cost-benefit analysis made both by the reporter and the editors who assign him that almost always favours the powerful over the weak, the interests of the journalist over the reader.
And so it is with Israel. Like the crime reporter, our Jerusalem bureau chief needs his “access” more than he needs the occasional scoop that would sabotage his relationship with official sources. But more so than the crime reporter, many of these bureau chiefs also identify with Israel and its goals because they have an Israeli spouse and children. They not only live on one side of a bitter national conflict but actively participate in defending that side through service in its military.
This is a conflict of interest of the highest order. It is also the reason why they are there in the first place.
It seems that most of the Mossad agents have had a role in this operation… now, before any new addition, already 26 agents were identified on this murder job. It seems they were quite concerned with the followup movie which Spielberg must be already working on – there is a broad canvas for many characters; indeed, there might be a musical there! What with their tennis shorts and hockey sticks, it will definitely be a hit. Question: How many Israelis do you need to kill a Palestinian? Answer: as many as possible, but more if they hold UK passports.
Six new suspects in killing of Hamas official were carrying British passports
Dubai police today identified 15 more suspects wanted over the murder of a senior Hamas official in the Gulf emirate last month, including another six who used British passports.
The announcement brings to 26 the total number of people suspected of involvement in Mahmoud al-Mabhouh’s assassination, which is widely believed to have been the work of Israel’s secret service, the Mossad. Israel has refused to comment on the accusation.
The six new British names are Mark Daniel Sklar, Roy Alan Cannon, Daniel Mark Schnur, Phillip Carr, Stephen Keith Drake and Gabriella Barney.
A Foreign Office spokesman said the government believed their passport details had been fraudulently used in connection with the assassination.
“We can confirm that six more UK passports have been identified. We will seek to make contact with these individuals and offer consular assistance as we have the previous individuals. We continue to work closely with the Emirati authorities. The foreign secretary and others have made clear we expect full Israeli co-operation.”
It was not immediately clear whether the six new individuals were also resident in Israel.
Dubai police say the newly named suspects provided “logistical support” for the operation.
At least three women were involved in the hit, one of whom used a UK passport. Other suspects were travelling on passports issued by Australia and New Zealand.
The total number of UK passports linked to the case has risen to 12, and French passports to five. The suspected hit squad flew in from Munich, Paris, Rome, Milan and Hong Kong.
David Miliband, the foreign secretary, has described as an outrage the alleged abuse of British passports and an investigation is under way by the serious organised crime agency, Soca. The EU has also condemned passport abuse, without mentioning Israel.
The Dubai authorities said some of those named today were believed to have played preparatory roles in the killing. Many of the suspects had credit cards that were issued by the same US bank.
The authorities have been using immigration records and CCTV images of the suspects to try to piece together what happened in the hours before Mabhouh’s murder.
Israel has said Mabhouh played a key role in smuggling Iranian-supplied rockets into the Gaza Strip and was involved in the abduction and killing of two soldiers 20 years ago.
The son of one of the founders of the Hamas militant group was exposed today as a top Israeli informant who helped prevent dozens of suicide bombings and other attacks.
Mosab Hassan Yousef, codenamed “the Green Prince” by his handlers, was one of the Shin Bet security service’s most valuable sources, Israel’s Haaretz newspaper said.
His reports led to the arrests of several high-ranking Palestinian figures during the violent uprising that began in 2000, the newspaper said.
Yousef’s father, Sheik Hassan Yousef, was a founding member of the Islamic militant group Hamas in the 1980s. He is currently serving a six-year sentence in an Israeli prison for his political activities.
The younger Yousef converted to Christianity and moved to California in 2007.
The revelation deals another setback to Hamas, which is reeling from the assassination of a leading member in Dubai last month. There have been reports that an insider assisted the killers.
Yousef’s memoir, “Son of Hamas,” is being published next week in the US.
Yousef could not be contacted for comment, but an excerpt from the book on his Facebook page plugs it as “a gripping account of terror, betrayal, political intrigue, and unthinkable choices.” It describes Yousef’s journey as one that “jeopardised Hamas, endangered his family, and threatened his life.”
It also says Yousef’s relationship with the Shin Bet helped thwart an Israeli plan to assassinate his father.
Yousef told the paper Shin Bet agents first approached him in prison in 1996 and proposed he infiltrate the upper echelons of Hamas. He did so successfully and is credited by Israel with saving hundreds of Israeli lives.
Yousef said he hoped to send a message of peace to Israelis, though he remained pessimistic about the prospects for ending the Israel-Palestinian conflict. He had particularly sharp comments for Hamas, the Iranian-backed movement that seized control of the Gaza Strip in 2007 and has been branded a terrorist organisation by Israel and the West.
“Hamas cannot make peace with the Israelis. That is against what their God tells them. It is impossible to make peace with infidels,” he said.
Parents want case to highlight events that led to American activist’s death under Israeli army bulldozer
Peace activist Rachel Corrie died while protesting in front of a bulldozer trying to destroy a Palestinian home in Rafah in March 2003. Photograph: Denny Sternstein/AP
The family of the American activist Rachel Corrie, who was killed by an Israeli army bulldozer in Gaza seven years ago, is to bring a civil suit over her death against the Israeli defence ministry.
The case, which begins on 10 March in Haifa, northern Israel, is seen by her parents as an opportunity to put on public record the events that led to their daughter’s death in March 2003. Four key witnesses – three Britons and an American – who were at the scene in Rafah when Corrie was killed will give evidence, according the family lawyer, Hussein Abu Hussein.
The four were all with the International Solidarity Movement, the activist group to which Corrie belonged. They have since been denied entry to Israel, and the group’s offices in Ramallah have been raided several times in recent weeks by the Israeli military.
Now, under apparent US pressure, the Israeli government has agreed to allow them entry so they can testify. Corrie’s parents, Cindy and Craig, will also fly to Israel for the hearing.
A Palestinian doctor from Gaza, Ahmed Abu Nakira, who treated Corrie after she was injured and later confirmed her death, has not been given permission by the Israeli authorities to leave Gaza to attend.
Abu Hussein, a leading human rights lawyer in Israel, said there was evidence from witnesses that soldiers saw Corrie at the scene, with other activists, well before the incident and could have arrested or removed her from the area before there was any risk of her being killed.
“After her death the military began an investigation but unfortunately, as in most of these cases, it found the activity of the army was legal and there was no intentional killing,” he said. “We would like the court to decide her killing was due to wrong-doing or was intentional.” If the Israeli state is found responsible, the family will press for damages.
Corrie, who was born in Olympia, Washington, travelled to Gaza to act as a human shield at a moment of intense conflict between the Israeli military and the Palestinians. On the day she died, when she was 23, she was dressed in a fluorescent orange vest and was trying to stop the demolition of a Palestinian home. She was crushed under a military Caterpillar bulldozer and died shortly afterwards.
A month after her death the Israeli military said an investigation had determined its troops were not to blame and said the driver of the bulldozer had not seen her and did not intentionally run her over. Instead, it accused her and the International Solidarity Movement of behaviour that was “illegal, irresponsible and dangerous.”
The army report, obtained by the Guardian in April 2003, said she “was struck as she stood behind a mound of earth that was created by an engineering vehicle operating in the area and she was hidden from the view of the vehicle’s operator who continued with his work. Corrie was struck by dirt and a slab of concrete resulting in her death.”
Witnesses presented a strikingly different version of events. Tom Dale, a British activist who was 10m away when Corrie was killed, wrote an account of the incident two days later.
He described how she first knelt in the path of an approaching bulldozer and then stood as it reached her. She climbed on a mound of earth and the crowd nearby shouted at the bulldozer to stop. He said the bulldozer pushed her down and drove over her.
“They pushed Rachel, first beneath the scoop, then beneath the blade, then continued till her body was beneath the cockpit,” Dale wrote.
“They waited over her for a few seconds, before reversing. They reversed with the blade pressed down, so it scraped over her body a second time. Every second I believed they would stop but they never did.”
While she was in the Palestinian territories, Corrie wrote vividly about her experiences. Her diaries were later turned into a play, My Name is Rachel Corrie, which has toured internationally, including to Israel and the West Bank.
Other foreigners killed by Israeli forces
Iain Hook, 54, a British UN official, was shot dead by an Israeli army sniper in Jenin in November 2002. A British inquest found he had been unlawfully killed. The Israeli government paid an undisclosed sum in compensation to Hook’s family.
Tom Hurndall, a 22-year-old British photography student, was shot in the head in Rafah, Gaza, in April 2003 while helping to pull Palestinian children to safety. In August 2005 an Israeli soldier was sentenced to eight years for manslaughter.
James Miller, 34, a British cameraman, was shot dead in Gaza in May 2003. He was leaving the home of a Palestinian family in Rafah refugee camp at night, waving a white flag. An inquest in Britain found Miller had been murdered. Last year Israel paid about £1.5m in damages to Miller’s family.
The United Arab Emirates has identified four more European passport-holders suspected in the Dubai killing of a Hamas commander last month, a source in the UAE familiar with the investigation said on Tuesday.
“The UAE has identified two British suspects holding British travel documents, and as part of the ongoing investigation has shared the information with the British government,” the source said.
Two more suspects holding Irish passports were also identified, the source added.
The Dubai authorities had already released the identities of 11 people who traveled on forged British, Irish, French and German passports to kill Hamas commander Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in a hotel on January 20.
European Union foreign ministers protested on Monday against the hit squad’s use of forged European passports, but stopped well short of blaming Israel for the undercover action.
“The EU strongly condemns the fact that those involved in this action have used fraudulent EU member states’ passports and credit cards acquired through the theft of EU citizens’ identities,” the bloc’s ministers said in a statement.
The bloc’s statement was approved as Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman was visiting the EU capital of Brussels. He met his British and Irish counterparts, David Miliband and Micheal Martin, and dined with the EU foreign policy supremo, Catherine Ashton.
Lieberman told his Irish counterpart that the Arabs nations blame Israel for anything that happens in the Middle East. He added that there are many other power struggles in the region which could have resulted in the operation.
“The Arabs have a tendency to blame Israel for anything that happens in the Middle East,” he said, adding that the region “has many internal struggles within groups and states which are not as democratic as Israel is.”
Asked whether she would question Lieberman over the Mossad’s alleged involvement in the killing, Ashton said she would “raise a number of things, including that.”
But she stressed that until the matter is cleared up by investigators, the EU would not jump to conclusions.
“We can’t move from a position where some press reports say that something has happened to a position saying: therefore we have to take action,” Ashton said.
She did acknowledge, however, that the member states concerned, which have launched investigations of their own, “have been extremely angry about what has happened.”
Miliband said his Israeli counterpart told him he “had no information at this stage.”
“It is very important that people know that we continue to take this issue very seriously indeed,” Miliband said after talks with Lieberman.
Meanwhile, French President Nicolas Sarkozy on Monday reiterated his condemnation of the assassination and insisted “nothing positive” comes of such killings. He added that France cannot accept such “executions.”
EDITOR: The following item is of great importance and is very comprehensive. Due to its great length, only the first part is included here. To read the whole article use the link below:
In just 60 years, Israel’s secret service has become a byword for ruthlessness and audacity. As the storm surrounding its Dubai operation intensifies, Gordon Thomas, author of the definitive history of Mossad, reveals the inside story of its most daring hit
Tuesday, 23 February 2010
On Saturday morning, 2 February 2008, a man emerged from the U-Bahn, the city’s railway system, and stood outside the subway exit on the Kurfürstendamm, Berlin’s elegant shopping quarter. He had started his journey in one of the eastern suburbs of the city and its purpose was contained in the briefcase he carried. A car pulled up, the driver opened the passenger door and together they drove off.
Who the man was and what he had been asked to do was known, apart from the driver, to only Meir Dagan and a handful of senior Mossad officers in Tel Aviv. They had patiently waited for the car’s passenger to obtain what they wanted.
Six months before, the driver introduced himself to the man as Reuben. It was not his real name: like all other details about his identity, it remained in a secure room where the names of all current katsas [field agents] were kept in Mossad headquarters. A few days ago, the man had left a message at one of the agreed dead letter-boxes, which Reuben regularly checked, to the effect that he was ready to deliver what he had been asked to provide in return for a substantial sum of euros, half as a down payment, the balance on delivery of what was now in his briefcase.
They were photos of Imad Mughniyeh. After Osama bin Laden, he was the world’s most-wanted terrorist.
Long before the al-Qa’ida leader had launched his pilots against New York’s Twin Towers and the Pentagon in Washington, Mughniyeh had introduced suicide bombers into the Middle East. The Hizbollah terrorist mastermind had read an account of the Second World War Japanese kamikaze pilots in Hizbollah’s own newspapers, Al Sabia and Al Abd, which had praised the pilots for their sacrifices. In the alleys and souks of Beirut, Mughniyeh had persuaded families it was a matter of honour to provide a son, or sometimes even a daughter, for similar sacrifices. They had remained the human weapons of choice against Israel and later in Iraq and Afghanistan. Down the years those who had chosen to die were remembered in Friday prayers in the shadowy coolness of the mosques, after the rhetoric of the muezzin calling for the destruction of all those who opposed Hizbollah.
The deaths of the young bombers were lauded and their memories kept alive. Mughniyeh told their families the souls of their children needed no more, that their suicide bombings would be remembered forever and assured them a place in Hizbollah’s version of Heaven.
Like Bin Laden, Mughniyeh had been hunted across the Middle East and beyond by Mossad, the CIA and every other Western intelligence service. But each time he came close to capture, he escaped, the trail gone cold. Until now. On that cold winter day in February 2008, with a bitterly harsh wind from the Polish steppes whistling through the streets of Berlin, Reuben drove along past the smoke-blackened ruins of the Gedächtnis-Kirche, the church that was a memorial to the Allied bombing raids of the Second World War, a grim contrast to all the other buildings that made the city look like any other European capital.
At some point the man produced a file from his briefcase and, in return, replaced it with an envelope Reuben handed over containing the balance of the fee for the images in the file.
The cover of the grey-coloured document bore the stamp of what was once one of the most powerful agencies in the German Democratic Republic, the GDR, itself at one time the most important satellite nation in the former Soviet Union. The stamp identified the file as once belonging to the Stasi, the security service of the GDR’s Ministry of State Security.
In the 40 years of its existence, the Stasi had employed 600,000 full-time spies and informers, roughly one secret policeman for every 320 East Germans. The Stasi had its own imposing headquarters in East Berlin, interrogation centres around the city, its own hotels and restaurants in the countryside and clinics where only Stasi staff and their families could be treated. One clinic, close to the River Spree, had facilities to perform plastic surgery including facial reconstruction for Stasi agents and sometimes carefully selected members of terror groups with which the Stasi had close connections.
The citizens of East Germany awoke in November 1988 to find the collapse of the Berlin Wall then, with bewildering speed, the resignation of the GDR’s Politburo and the official end of the Stasi’s reign of terror. But not everything had ended. The clinic near the Spree had remained in business, offering its skills to those with the funding to pay for plastic surgery.
The file now in Reuben’s possession contained photos of Imad Mughniyeh which had been taken at the clinic after his surgery. His face looked very different from the one that had last filled the pages of newspapers and magazines after a Hizbollah rally in September 1983 before once more disappearing in 1984, by which time he had established an even-more murderous reputation than any other terrorist of the 1980s.
This was the era when the Venezuelan-born Marxist Carlos the Jackal’s claim to notoriety had begun with the taking of 42 Opec oil ministers hostage in Vienna in 1975. Carlos had then embarked on a reign of terror before Mossad had tipped off French intelligence as to where they could grab him in Sudan and bring him to trial in Paris for his crimes on French soil, where he continues to serve a life sentence.
Like Carlos, Abu Nidal had become another headline-grabbing terrorist after he ordered the gunning down of innocent men and women as they waited to board their Christmas flights in Rome and Vienna airports in 1985. Nidal had finally been killed by a team from kidon, Mossad’s unique unit that conducted legally approved assassinations. But for a quarter of a century Imad Mughniyeh had avoided assassination.
Now, on that February morning, the file in Reuben’s possession could bring closer his death for some of the worst crimes committed on Israel’s doorstep – Lebanon. In 1983, he had plotted the attack against the American embassy in Beirut. Among the 63 dead were eight members of the CIA, including its station chief in the Middle East. A year later, Mughniyeh arranged for the kidnapping of William Buckley, the CIA replacement station chief in battered Beirut.
Next, he arranged the bombing of the US Marines’ barracks near the city’s airport, killing 241 people. In between, he had carried out hijackings and organised the kidnapping of Western hostages, including Terry Waite, who had gone to Beirut to try to negotiate with Hizbollah’s spiritual leader, Sheikh Muhammed Hussein Fadlallah, to free the hostages Hizbollah already held. Along with Buckley, Waite – the emissary of the Archbishop of Canterbury – had been incarcerated in what became known as the Beirut Hilton, the underground prison beneath the city.
Imad Mughniyeh had been responsible for the murder of over 400 people and the torture of even more. America had placed a bounty of $25m on his head. One by one Mossad’s menume, the Hebrew title by which each director general is known, plotted Mughniyeh’s downfall. Men like the cool Nahum Admoni (1982–1990), the quiet-voiced Shabtai Shavit (1990–1996), the relentless Danny Yatom (1996–1998) and Efraim Halevy (1998–2002), the menume his staff called the “grandfather of spies”, had all chaired endless secret meetings to plan the assassination of Imad Mughniyeh.
Their agents had tracked him to Paris only for him to once more slip away, as he had done in Rome and Madrid. For a while the trail led to Minsk in the Ukraine and then to the Islamic republics of the former Soviet Union. There were reports he was in Tehran, living under the protection of the fundamentalist regime. But each time the hunt had petered out. In 2002, Meir Dagan took over Mossad. He did what all his predecessors had done: he studied the growing number of files that listed how close Mossad agents had come to capturing Mughniyeh. At times they had been close, very close. But somehow he had still wriggled free. The suicide bombings had continued. For Dagan it became an article of faith that, as the 10th menume, he would finally terminate Mughniyeh’s reign of terror.
EDITOR: An interesting pr0posal from Harvard academic: Curb Palestinian births!
There is no end to the creativity of Zionist science and imagination, we all know… yet here Mr. Cramer of Harvard harks back to some historical parallels which need not be mentioned for the benefit of intelligent readers… The solution to the Middle East problems is to reduce the number of Palestinians, by curbing births! It can be greatly aided by reducing international aid, he also suggests, and that this would “happen faster if the West stops providing pro-natal subsidies to Palestinians with refugee status.” It will also happen faster if Israel continues to block food and medicines. What an ingenious solution! A blinding bolt of light from Harvard! Why didn’t they think about it earlier? It seems clear that some Zionist have already started planning a Final Solution.
Report, 22 February 2010
A fellow at Harvard University’s Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Martin Kramer, has called for “the West” to take measures to curb the births of Palestinians, a proposal that appears to meet the international legal definition of a call for genocide.
Kramer, who is also a fellow at the influential Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP), made the call early this month in a speech at Israel’s Herzliya conference, a video of which is posted on his blog (“Superfluous young men,” 7 February 2010).
In the speech Kramer rejected common views that Islamist “radicalization” is caused by US policies such as support for Israel, or propping up despotic dictatorships, and stated that it was inherent in the demography of Muslim societies such as Yemen, Iraq, Afghanistan and the Israeli-occupied Gaza Strip. Too many children, he argued, leads to too many “superfluous young men” who then become violent radicals.
Kramer proposed that the number of Palestinian children born in the Gaza Strip should be deliberately curbed, and alleged that this would “happen faster if the West stops providing pro-natal subsidies to Palestinians with refugee status.”
Due to the Israeli blockade, the vast majority of Palestinians in Gaza are now dependent on UN food aid. Neither the UN, nor any other agencies, provide Palestinians with specifically “pro-natal subsidies.” Kramer appeared to be equating any humanitarian assistance at all with inducement for Palestinians to reproduce.
He added, “Israel’s present sanctions on Gaza have a political aim — undermine the Hamas regime — but if they also break Gaza’s runaway population growth, and there is some evidence that they have, that might begin to crack the culture of martyrdom which demands a constant supply of superfluous young men.” This, he claimed, would be treating the issue of Islamic radicalization “at its root.”
The 1948 UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, created in the wake of the Nazi holocaust, defines genocide to include measures “intended to prevent births within” a specific “national, ethnic, racial or religious group.”
The Weatherhead Center at Harvard describes itself as “the largest international research center within Harvard University’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences.” In addition to his positions at Harvard and WINEP, Kramer is “president-designate” of Shalem College in Jerusalem, a far-right Zionist institution that aspires to be the “College of the Jewish People.”
Pro-Israel speakers from the United States often participate in the the Herzliya conference, an influential annual gathering of Israel’s political and military establishment. This year’s conference was also addressed by The New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman and, in a first for a Palestinian official, by Salam Fayyad, appointed prime minister of the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority.
Kramer’s call to prevent Palestinian births reflects a long-standing Israeli and Zionist concern about a so-called “demographic threat” to Israel, as Palestinians are on the verge of outnumbering Israeli Jews within Israel, and the occupied Palestinian territories combined.
Such extreme racist views have been aired at the Herzliya conference in the past. In 2003, for example, Dr. Yitzhak Ravid, an Israeli government armaments expert, called on Israel to “implement a stringent policy of family planning in relation to its Muslim population,” a reference to the 1.5 million Palestinian citizens of Israel.
