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Pedro Gonçalves

Hillary Is Wrong About the Settlements - WSJ.com - 0 views

online.wsj.com/...SB124588743827950599.html

US Israel Israeli Settlements Elliot Abrams

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 26 Jun 09 - Cached
  • Despite fervent denials by Obama administration officials, there were indeed agreements between Israel and the United States regarding the growth of Israeli settlements on the West Bank.
  • In the spring of 2003, U.S. officials (including me) held wide-ranging discussions with then Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in Jerusalem. The "Roadmap for Peace" between Israel and the Palestinians had been written.
  • In June 2003, Mr. Sharon stood alongside Mr. Bush, King Abdullah II of Jordan, and Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas at Aqaba, Jordan, and endorsed Palestinian statehood publicly: "It is in Israel's interest not to govern the Palestinians but for the Palestinians to govern themselves in their own state. A democratic Palestinian state fully at peace with Israel will promote the long-term security and well-being of Israel as a Jewish state."
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  • The U.S. government supported all this, but asked Mr. Sharon for two more things. First, that he remove some West Bank settlements; we wanted Israel to show that removing them was not impossible. Second, we wanted him to pull out of Gaza totally -- including every single settlement and the "Philadelphi Strip" separating Gaza from Egypt, even though holding on to this strip would have prevented the smuggling of weapons to Hamas that was feared and has now come to pass. Mr. Sharon agreed on both counts.
  • On April 14, 2004, Mr. Bush handed Mr. Sharon a letter saying that there would be no "right of return" for Palestinian refugees. Instead, the president said, "a solution to the Palestinian refugee issue as part of any final status agreement will need to be found through the establishment of a Palestinian state, and the settling of Palestinian refugees there, rather than in Israel."
  • On the major settlement blocs, Mr. Bush said, "In light of new realities on the ground, including already existing major Israeli populations centers, it is unrealistic to expect that the outcome of final status negotiations will be a full and complete return to the armistice lines of 1949." Several previous administrations had declared all Israeli settlements beyond the "1967 borders" to be illegal. Here Mr. Bush dropped such language, referring to the 1967 borders -- correctly -- as merely the lines where the fighting stopped in 1949, and saying that in any realistic peace agreement Israel would be able to negotiate keeping those major settlements.
  • On settlements we also agreed on principles that would permit some continuing growth. Mr. Sharon stated these clearly in a major policy speech in December 2003: "Israel will meet all its obligations with regard to construction in the settlements. There will be no construction beyond the existing construction line, no expropriation of land for construction, no special economic incentives and no construction of new settlements."
  • Ariel Sharon did not invent those four principles. They emerged from discussions with American officials and were discussed by Messrs. Sharon and Bush at their Aqaba meeting in June 2003.
  • They were not secret, either. Four days after the president's letter, Mr. Sharon's Chief of Staff Dov Weissglas wrote to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that "I wish to reconfirm the following understanding, which had been reached between us: 1. Restrictions on settlement growth: within the agreed principles of settlement activities, an effort will be made in the next few days to have a better definition of the construction line of settlements in Judea & Samaria."
  • Stories in the press also made it clear that there were indeed "agreed principles." On Aug. 21, 2004 the New York Times reported that "the Bush administration . . . now supports construction of new apartments in areas already built up in some settlements, as long as the expansion does not extend outward."
  • n recent weeks, American officials have denied that any agreement on settlements existed. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stated on June 17 that "in looking at the history of the Bush administration, there were no informal or oral enforceable agreements. That has been verified by the official record of the administration and by the personnel in the positions of responsibility." These statements are incorrect. Not only were there agreements, but the prime minister of Israel relied on them in undertaking a wrenching political reorientation -- the dissolution of his government, the removal of every single Israeli citizen, settlement and military position in Gaza, and the removal of four small settlements in the West Bank. This was the first time Israel had ever removed settlements outside the context of a peace treaty, and it was a major step.
  • It is true that there was no U.S.-Israel "memorandum of understanding," which is presumably what Mrs. Clinton means when she suggests that the "official record of the administration" contains none. But she would do well to consult documents like the Weissglas letter, or the notes of the Aqaba meeting, before suggesting that there was no meeting of the minds.
Pedro Gonçalves

Israelis Say Bush Agreed to West Bank Growth - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...04israel.html

Israel Israeli Settlements Elliot Abrams Bush Benjamin Netanyahu Stephen J. Hadley Hillary Clinton

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 04 Jun 09 - Cached
  • Senior Israeli officials accused President Obama on Wednesday of failing to acknowledge what they called clear understandings with the Bush administration that allowed Israel to build West Bank settlement housing within certain guidelines while still publicly claiming to honor a settlement “freeze.”
  • The Israeli officials said that repeated discussions with Bush officials starting in late 2002 resulted in agreement that housing could be built within the boundaries of certain settlement blocks as long as no new land was expropriated, no special economic incentives were offered to move to settlements and no new settlements were built.
  • When Israel signed on to the so-called road map for a two-state solution in 2003, with a provision that says its government “freezes all settlement activity (including natural growth of settlements),” the officials said, it did so after a detailed discussion with Bush administration officials that laid out those explicit exceptions.“Not everything is written down,” one of the officials said.
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  • He and others said that Israel agreed to the road map and to move ahead with the removal of settlements and soldiers from Gaza in 2005 on the understanding that settlement growth could continue. But a former senior official in the Bush administration disagreed, calling the Israeli characterization “an overstatement.”“There was never an agreement to accept natural growth,” the official said Tuesday, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the delicacy of the matter. “There was an effort to explore what natural growth would mean, but we weren’t able to reach agreement on that.”
  • The former official said that Bush administration officials had been working with their Israeli counterparts to clarify several issues, including natural growth, government subsidies to settlers, and the cessation of appropriation of Palestinian land. The United States and Israel never reached an agreement, though, either public or private, the official said.
  • A second senior Bush administration official, also speaking anonymously, said Wednesday: “We talked about a settlement freeze with four elements. One was no new settlements, a second was no new confiscation of Palestinian land, one was no new subsidies and finally, no construction outside the settlements.” He described that fourth condition, which applied to natural growth, as similar to taking a string and tying it around a settlement, and prohibiting any construction outside that string. But, he added, “We had a tentative agreement, but that was contingent on drawing up lines, and this is a process that never got done, therefore the settlement freeze was never formalized and never done.”A third former Bush administration official, Elliott Abrams, who was on the National Security Council staff, wrote an opinion article in The Washington Post in April that seemed to endorse the Israeli argument.
  • But the Israeli officials complained that Mr. Obama had not accepted that the previous understandings existed. Instead, they lamented, Israel now stood accused of having cheated and dissembled in its settlement activity whereas, in fact, it had largely lived within the guidelines to which both governments had agreed.
  • On Monday, Mr. Netanyahu said Israel “cannot freeze life in the settlements,” calling the American demand “unreasonable.”
  • Dov Weissglas, who was a senior aide to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, wrote an opinion article that appeared Tuesday in Yediot Aharonot, a mass-selling newspaper, laying out the agreements that he said had been reached with officials in the Bush administration.
  • He said that in May 2003 he and Mr. Sharon met with Mr. Abrams and Stephen J. Hadley of the National Security Council and came up with the definition of settlement freeze: “no new communities were to be built; no Palestinian lands were to be appropriated for settlement purposes; building will not take place beyond the existing community outline; and no ‘settlement encouraging’ budgets were to be allocated.”He said that Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser at the time, signed off on that definition later that month
  • In April 2004, President Bush presented Mr. Sharon with a letter stating, “In light of new realities on the ground, including already existing major Israeli population centers, it is unrealistic to expect that the outcome of final status negotiations will be a full and complete return to the armistice lines of 1949.” That letter, Mr. Weissglas said, was a result of his earlier negotiations with Bush administration officials acknowledging that certain settlement blocks would remain Israeli and open to continued growth.
  • The Israeli officials said that no Bush administration official had ever publicly insisted that Israel was obliged to stop all building in the areas it captured in 1967. They said it was important to know that major oral understandings reached between an Israeli prime minister and an American president would not simply be tossed aside when a new administration came into the White House.Of course, Mr. Netanyahu has yet to endorse the two-state solution or even the road map agreed to by previous Israeli governments, which were not oral commitments, but actual signed and public agreements.
  • Mr. Abrams acknowledged that even within those guidelines, Israel had not fully complied. He wrote: “There has been physical expansion in some places, and the Palestinian Authority is right to object to it. Israeli settlement expansion beyond the security fence, in areas Israel will ultimately evacuate, is a mistake.”
Argos Media

Human Rights Watch accuses Hamas of killing Palestinians in Gaza | World news | guardian.co.uk - 0 views

www.guardian.co.uk/...mas-killings-gaza-human-rights

HRW Hamas Fatah Palestine Israel Gaza West Bank Joe Stork

shared by Argos Media on 21 Apr 09 - Cached
  • Human Rights Watch today accused the Islamist movement Hamas of a campaign of killing and attacks against Palestinians in Gaza that has left at least 32 dead and dozens more seriously injured.
  • The attacks came over the past three months, beginning during Israel's three-week war in Gaza. "Hamas authorities there took extraordinary steps to control, intimidate, punish and at times eliminate their internal political rivals as well as persons suspected of collaboration with Israel," Human Rights Watch said in a report released today.
  • "The unlawful arrests, torture and killings in detention continued even after the fighting stopped, mocking Hamas's claims to uphold the law," said Joe Stork, deputy director of Human Rights Watch's Middle East division.
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  • Palestinian human rights groups in Gaza also found 49 Palestinians were shot in the legs in punishment attacks and around 73 were severely beaten, suffering broken arms and legs, from the start of the war in late December until the end of January. Some of the attackers were not identified, but many appeared to be from Hamas.
  • The accounts corroborate witness testimony reported by the Guardian at the time and appear to show Hamas took advantage of the chaos of the war to exert control over its political and security rivals in Gaza. Other Palestinians have also spoken of a campaign of intimidation against secular and moderate groups in Gaza.
  • During the Gaza war 18 Palestinians, many suspected of collaborating with Israel, were killed. Most had escaped from Gaza's main prison after it was bombed by Israeli aircraft at the start of the war. A further 14, at least four of whom were in jail at the time, have been killed since the end of the war.
  • Human Rights Watch said Fatah, the rival, western-supported Palestinian faction that controls the West Bank, had also used "repressive measures" against its Hamas opponents. It said Palestinian human rights groups recorded 31 complaints of torture by the Fatah-led security forces, as well as one death in custody and the arbitrary arrest of two Palestinian television journalists.
  • "Western governments that support and finance the Fatah authorities in the West Bank have remained publicly silent about the arbitrary arrests and torture against Hamas members and others," said Stork.
  • Human Rights Watch has also accused Israel of violating international law during the Gaza war, including by what it said was indiscriminate use of weapons such as white phosphorus in densely populated civilian areas.
Argos Media

BBC NEWS | Middle East | Israeli child killed in West Bank - 0 views

news.bbc.co.uk/...7978699.stm

Israel Palestine West Bank

shared by Argos Media on 03 Apr 09 - Cached
  • A Palestinian attacker wielding an axe has killed an Israeli boy and wounded another in a Jewish settlement in the West Bank, police say.
Argos Media

Israeli military occupation 'severely compromises Bethlehem' | World news | The Guardian - 0 views

www.guardian.co.uk/...israel-army-bethlehem-un

UN Israel Palestine Bethlehem Israeli Settlements Avigdor Lieberman

shared by Argos Media on 07 May 09 - Cached
  • The Israeli military occupation around Bethlehem is severely restricting its growth, undermining its economy and compromising its future, according to a UN report.The combined effect of Israeli annexation, the West Bank barrier, settlements, settler bypass roads, closed military zones and Israeli nature reserves, has left only 13% of the 660 sq km Bethlehem governorate available for Palestinian use, the UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs says.
  • While there are about 175,000 Palestinians living in the Bethlehem area, there are now at least 86,000 Israelis also living there in 19 settlements, and their number is growing, even though settlements on occupied land are illegal under international law. Two-thirds of the governorate is under full Israeli security and administrative control.
  • The barrier around the Bethlehem area, part concrete, part steel, is still being built, but when finished will seal off the city itself from east Jerusalem and prevent growth to the north and west. On the western side of the barrier about 64 sq km will be isolated, home to 21,000 Palestinians living in some of the most fertile agricultural land in the area. The Palestinians there will face reduced access to trading markets and health and education services.
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  • In Nu'man, one of the villages the UN says is "living in limbo", the situation is particularly dire. The village is surrounded on three sides by Israel's West Bank barrier and on another by the Israeli settlement of Har Homa. The village entrance is blocked by an Israeli checkpoint to anyone other than Nu'man residents. Permits are not given for new homes in the village, and the younger generation is being forced out. Israel annexed Nu'man to Jerusalem after the 1967 war, but never gave its people Jerusalem residency.
  • Israel's hardline foreign minister, ­Avigdor Lieberman, lives in Nokdim, one of the Jewish settlements in the Beth­lehem area, some way to the east of Israel's barrier.
Argos Media

The Waiting Game: How Will Iran Respond to Obama's Overtures? - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News - International - 0 views

www.spiegel.de/...0,1518,618764-2,00.html

Iran Israel Mir Hossein Mousavi Nuclear Proliferation Politics US

shared by Argos Media on 14 Apr 09 - Cached
  • Israel's new right-leaning government, with its Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman and his warmongering outbursts, is more or less openly threatening a strike -- even without American consent. The Israelis, who have their own nuclear weapons, cite the Iranian president's irrationality as justification. They assume that Ahmadinejad is planning a nuclear attack on the Jewish state, without consideration for Israel's certain vehement retaliation.
  • In fact, Ahmadinejad has made no secret of his desire to see Israel wiped off the map of the Middle East. But he has also repeatedly stressed that he has no intention to attack "the Zionist entity" with armed force.
  • The conservative Arab nations, with their Sunni majorities, are now just as concerned about Iran's nuclear ambitions as the fact that the Iraqi government now enjoys the best of relations with its fellow Shiites in Tehran. Tehran's increasing power also strengthens its militant clients in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict: Hamas and Hezbollah.
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  • Iran is not simply a medium-sized regional power that can be ordered around at will. Ironically, America's disastrous war in Iraq has allowed its fierce adversaries in Tehran to benefit from a massive shift of power in the Middle East.
  • Before his ascent to the office of president, not even diplomats stationed in Tehran and familiar with all of the ins and outs of Iranian politics were familiar with this short man with the sparse beard and piercing eyes. The fiery revolutionary, hardworking to the point of exhaustion and filled with contempt for earthly wealth, rose to power from humble beginnings and became the hope of all "Mostasafin," the disenfranchised millions without whom the Islamic Republic probably would not exist today and for whom Ahmadinejad has fashioned himself into an Iranian Robin Hood.
  • This places the Americans before the virtually impossible task of joining forces with Iran to resolve the classic Middle East conflict and its 30-year conflict with Tehran itself. For this reason, the Iraq question is also becoming increasingly urgent for Washington.
  • Obama knows that the United States could derive substantial benefits from cooperation with Tehran. Without Iran, for example, it will be almost impossible to bring peace to Afghanistan in the long term. In Afghanistan and Pakistan -- the center of conflict that Washington describes in its new strategic concept as a single unit known as "AfPak" -- the Americans and Shiite Iran have many interests in common. Tehran's rulers battled the Sunni Taliban radicals, whom they have always seen as dangerous neighbors and ideological foes, before the Americans did.
  • And Tehran, with the world's second-largest natural gas reserves and its third-largest oil reserves, has the capacity to do a great deal of damage to the international economy -- or help it overcome the global economic crisis.
  • Conversely, rapprochement with the United States and Europe would also bring enormous benefits to the Iranians. Without know-how from the West, the country will hardly manage to achieve the modernization it needs so urgently. With inflation approaching 30 percent and real unemployment exceeding 20 percent (12 percent, according to official figures), and more than a million drug addicts -- a distressing world record of addiction -- the country faces practically insurmountable problems.
  • Whether the internally divided Palestinians will manage to come to terms and form a unified government for the Gaza Strip and the West Bank is no longer in the hands of the inconsequential negotiators in Cairo, but will be decided instead by Hamas's patrons in Tehran. Tehran also decides whether the Lebanese Hezbollah or Hamas's extremists use primarily words to express their hostility toward Israel or, as is currently the case, resume their bloody terrorist attacks instead.
  • Ahmadinejad feels obligated to the permanently downtrodden members of society. As if he were one of them, he campaigned for president four years ago in Tehran's massive poor neighborhoods, traveled to the country's most remote places and promised the underprivileged their share of Iran's riches. He told them that he would fill their empty plates with the proceeds from the sale of oil, and that he would declare war on corruption and nepotism. The "era of oppression, hegemonic regimes, tyranny and injustice has reached its end," Ahmadinejad told supporters after his election.
  • But the political achievements of President Ahmadinejad have been more miserable than stellar. In addition to isolating his country even further in the world, he has ruined its economy with his chaotic economic policies. In the devastating assessment of Ali Larijani, the president of the Iranian parliament and Ahmadinejad's biggest domestic rival, whom he previously removed from his position as Iran's chief nuclear negotiator with the West: "The confusion is the result of the government arbitrarily dissolving offices and dismissing experts, ignoring parliamentary resolutions and stubbornly going its own way."
  • Nevertheless, it is quite possible that this man, who has probably done more damage to his country than any other president in the 30-year history of the Islamic Republic, will enter a second term this summer -- simply because he lacks a convincing and courageous opponent.
  • Moussavi is of a significantly more robust nature than Khatami. As prime minister during the years of the Iraq war, he successfully managed the country's wartime economy. Critics note, however, that Moussavi's tenure was marked by a sharp rise in arrests and repression. He has not held any public office in 20 years and is virtually unknown among younger Iranians, who make up about 60 percent of the population.
  • On the surface, the elegant Moussavi would undoubtedly represent Iran more effectively on the international stage than Ahmadinejad. He appears to be more open to negotiations with the Americans. And yet, when it comes to the central nuclear conflict, the new candidate is just as obstinate as the current president. At a press conference in Tehran just last Monday, he noted that he too would not back down on the issue.
  • Which candidate the powerful religious leader Khamenei ends up supporting will likely be the decisive question. When Ahmadinejad came into office, he kissed Khamenei's hand. The two men were long considered extremely close ideologically, although since then Khamenei has more or less openly criticized Ahmadinejad's economic policies. Only recently, however, the religious leader spoke so positively about the president that many interpreted his words as an endorsement of his candidacy. Many observers of Iranian politics believe Ahmadinejad, because of his lasting popularity in rural areas, will be elected to a second term.
  • There are no questions that the Iranian president does not answer with questions of his own. He insists, most of all, on a few core concepts. One of them is justice, but he defines what justice is. Another is respect. He claims that he and his country are not afforded sufficient respect. This desire for recognition seems almost insatiable.
  • In Ahmadinejad's view, "hagh chordan," or the act of trampling on the rights of the Iranians, is a pattern that constantly repeats itself and comes from all sides, leading to a potentially dangerous mix of a superiority and an inferiority complex -- but not the irrationality of which the president is so often accused, especially by the Israelis.
Pedro Gonçalves

UN security council's EU members to condemn Israeli settlements expansion | World news | guardian.co.uk - 0 views

www.guardian.co.uk/...il-condemn-israeli-settlements

Israel Israeli Settlements Palestine Jerusalem UN US

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 19 Dec 12 - No Cached
  • blunt criticism from the US of Israel's announcement on Monday of plans to build an extra 1,500 homes in the settlement of Ramat Shlomo.US state department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said: "We are deeply disappointed that Israel insists on continuing this pattern of provocative action. These repeated announcements and plans of new construction run counter to the cause of peace. Israel's leaders continually say that they support a path towards a two-state solution, yet these actions only put that goal further at risk."
  • William Hague, the British foreign secretary, urged Israel to revoke the decision, saying that if it was implemented, "it would make a negotiated two-state solution, with Jerusalem as a shared capital, very difficult to achieve". All Israeli settlements were "illegal under international law", he added.
  • French officials also sharply condemned the move, describing it as illegal colonisation.
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  • On Tuesday, the general assembly passed a non-binding resolution condemning settlement activity by 196 votes to six.
  • The approval of the next stage in the construction of hundreds of apartments in Ramat Shlomo, across the pre-1967 Green Line, follows Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu's authorisation last month for the development of a controversial expanse of land near Jerusalem, known as E1.
  • The Ramat Shlomo plan caused a major diplomatic row between Israel and the US when it was first announced during a visit to Jerusalem by US vice-president Joe Biden in the spring of 2010.
  • Construction on E1 has been opposed by the US for many years as it would effectively close off East Jerusalem – intended to be the future capital of Palestine – from the West Bank, and further divide the West Bank into northern and southern spheres.
  • some Israeli analysts believe it is also being driven by next month's general election in Israel, in a bid to consolidate the rightwing vote for the ruling Likud party in coalition with hardliner Avigdor Lieberman's Yisrael Beiteinu."This is our campaign," a Likud source told the Israeli daily Ma'ariv. "Until now, it has worked excellently. The timing is deliberate."
Pedro Gonçalves

Israeli elections set to amplify religious voice in Knesset | World news | guardian.co.uk - 0 views

www.guardian.co.uk/...li-elections-religious-knesset

Israel Jewish Home Palestine

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 22 Jan 13 - No Cached
  • "There will be an over-representation of the religious and ultra-orthodox – around one in three members of the Knesset, according to the latest polls," said Ofer Kenig, of the Israel Democracy Institute. About one in five members of the last Knesset were religious or ultra-orthodox, he said."This is a very significant change. The explanation is not necessarily the demographic growth of this sector but the success of religious parties in attracting support from secular and traditional voters."
  • He said there would be "a very high representation of Jewish settlers", up to 20 of the 120 members of the Knesset. Less than 5% of Israel's population lives in West Bank settlements.
  • the new political elite was a coalition of West Bank settlers, ultra-orthodox, national-religious and rightwing city dwellers.
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  • Another Jewish Home candidate, Jeremy Gimpel, was the subject of a furore when a video revealed that he suggested in 2011 that the Dome of the Rock, the revered mosque in Jerusalem's Old City, could be "blown up" to allow the building of a third Jewish temple on the site, which is also sacred to Judaism."Imagine today if the golden dome, I'm being recorded so I can't say blown up, but let's say it was blown up, right, and we laid the cornerstone of the temple in Jerusalem … it would be incredible," he said. Following calls to disqualify him as a candidate, Gimpel said the remarks had been "a joke".
Argos Media

Palestinian attack suspected after two Israeli policemen shot dead | World news | guardian.co.uk - 0 views

www.guardian.co.uk/...-israel-hamas-prisoner-release

Gilad Shalit Hamas Israel Ofer Dekel Palestine Yuval Diskin

shared by Argos Media on 16 Mar 09 - Cached
  • Palestinian attack suspected after two Israeli policemen shot dead • Prisoner-swap deadline on eve of PM's departure• Gazan militants captured 22-year-old three years ago Rory McCarthy in Jerusalem guardian.co.uk, Monday 16 March 2009 01.42 GMT Article history Two Israeli policemen were shot dead in the West Bank yesterday in what Israeli police said they suspected was a Palestinian attack.No Palestinian group claimed responsibility for the shooting, which took place near the mainly agricultural settlement of Massuah, in an area of the West Bank close to the border with Jordan that is under Israeli security control. "The main suspicion points to a nationalistic motive," police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said.The attack came as the Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, sent two senior negotiators to Cairo yesterday in a final attempt to secure the release of an Israeli soldier captured by Gazan militants nearly three years ago.
  • the Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, sent two senior negotiators to Cairo yesterday in a final attempt to secure the release of an Israeli soldier captured by Gazan militants nearly three years ago.
  • He sent Yuval Diskin, head of Israel's domestic security agency, Shin Bet, and Ofer Dekel, a long-time negotiator and former security official, with a reported offer that would have seen the release of some but not all the prisoners Hamas has demanded be freed in return for the Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit.
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  • Reports suggest Hamas has demanded the release of more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails. Of those , around 450 are considered most important and Israeli reports said the Israeli security officials opposed the release of some and wanted certain others released only if they were immediately deported to another country, probably Syria. Around 10,000 Palestinians are held in Israeli jails.
Argos Media

Barak freezes move to raze settlement homes built on Palestinian land - Haaretz - Israel News - 0 views

haaretz.com/...1072968.html

Israel Israeli Settlements West Bank B'Tselem Ofra

shared by Argos Media on 25 Mar 09 - Cached
  • Defense Minister Ehud Barak on Sunday issued an order against demolishing Israeli homes built on Palestinian land in the West Bank settlement of Ofra, saying that the matter must be investigated before such action is taken.
  • Barak's order was made in response to a petition submitted last June by five residents of the nearby Palestinian village of Ein Yabrud and the Israeli rights group Yesh Din and B'Tselem, demanding that the High Court of Justice instruct the state to evacuate the settlement.
  • The petition referred to nine settlement structures built in an area apparently been constructed on private Palestinian land. The houses were built without permits and in violation of the settlement's master plan. Work continued despite injunctions to halt it that were issued almost two years ago, and demolition orders that were issued subsequently were also ignored. Advertisement In a response submitted to the court on Sunday, Barak said he recently decided to refrain from demolishing the houses "at this time," for three reasons. First, the issues raised by these houses are also relevant to other houses in Ofra aside from the nine in question. Second, people have been living in these houses for many months. Third, the houses are located deep inside the settlement, not on its outskirts. Therefore, a comprehensive policy relating to the entire settlement is needed, and it would be wrong to set a special policy that applies to these houses only, said Barak.
Argos Media

BBC NEWS | Middle East | Barak 'agrees to Likud coalition' - 0 views

news.bbc.co.uk/...7960599.stm

Israel Politics Israeli Labour Party Likud Benjamin Netanyahu Yuli-Yoel Edelstein

shared by Argos Media on 24 Mar 09 - Cached
  • Israel's Labour leader Ehud Barak has reached a provisional deal with PM-designate Benjamin Netanyahu on forming a coalition, Israeli army radio says. The centre-left Labour party is divided over whether to join a government with Mr Netanyahu's Likud and will vote on the agreement shortly. The right-wing Yisrael Beiteinu and Orthodox Jewish Shas parties have already agreed to join a coalition.
  • Mr Barak is defence minister in the current government and would retain the post in the next government, Israeli army radio reported. Under the draft agreement, Labour would also get five cabinet posts and the government would commit to continuing negotiations with the Palestinians and to respecting previous deals made with them.
  • A Likud member of the Knesset, Yuli-Yoel Edelstein, said there was general agreement between Likud and Labour on the main international challenges facing the incoming government. "In terms of other issues like the peace process with the Palestinians, and probably other day-to-day issues, there will be an argument, but this is not what's going to bring the government down," he told the BBC. "Because in practical terms, I don't think that either side really believes that it's possible to reach an agreement with the present Palestinian leadership in the near future."
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  • Army radio also said the government would commit to working against unauthorised Jewish settlements in the West Bank. With Labour's support, Mr Netanyahu would have 66 seats in the 120-member Knesset, or parliament.
  • Israel's centre-left Labour party has narrowly voted to join a coalition government led by Benjamin Netanyahu of the right-wing Likud.
  • The far right Yisrael Beiteinu and ultra-Orthodox Jewish party Shas have already agreed to join the coalition. The centrist Kadima has so far refused to join over policy differences.
  • If he won support from all of Labour's MPs, he would command 66 seats in the 120-member Knesset, or parliament.
  • He wants to have Labour on board in order to calm widespread fears that a narrowly right-wing Israeli government could jeopardise renewed peace efforts with the Palestinians.
  • About half of the party's 13 lawmakers objected to Mr Netanyahu because of his long-standing opposition to peace efforts which Labour has backed, Haaretz newspaper reports. Mr Netanyahu has refused to sign up to the two-state formula which has underpinned more than 15 years of Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts.
  • Some delegates chanted "disgrace" as the result came in. Mr Barak is defence minister in the current government and would retain the post in the next government, reports suggest.
  • Under the draft coalition agreement, Labour would get five cabinet posts and the government would commit to continuing negotiations with the Palestinians and to respecting previous deals made with them. Army radio said the government would commit to working against unauthorised Jewish settlements in the West Bank.
  • A Likud member of the Knesset, Yuli-Yoel Edelstein, said there was general agreement between Likud and Labour on the main international challenges facing the incoming government.
  • "Because in practical terms, I don't think that either side really believes that it's possible to reach an agreement with the present Palestinian leadership in the near future."
Argos Media

Israelis 'firing live rounds' at West Bank protesters | World news | The Observer - 0 views

www.guardian.co.uk/...israel-hamas-gaza-weapons

Israel Palestine

shared by Argos Media on 15 Mar 09 - Cached
  • Israeli armed forces and border police used the cover of the war against Hamas in Gaza to reintroduce the firing of .22 rifle bullets - as well as the extensive use of a new model of tear-gas canister - against unarmed demonstrators in the Occupied West Bank protesting at the building of Israel's "separation wall".
  • The Israeli military says stone-throwing "poses a threat to troops", and several officers have been injured by rocks.It said troops used the permitted means of riot dispersal in Friday's incident, including tear gas, rubber-coated steel pellets and stun grenades.
  • According to witnesses, soldiers have been firing the canisters directly at protesters, sometimes from a few dozen metres, using the hard plastic-coated metal tubes as a weapon.
Pedro Gonçalves

BBC News - EU: Goods made at Jewish settlements are not Israeli - 0 views

news.bbc.co.uk/...8538251.stm

Israel EU

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 26 Feb 10 - Cached
  • The European Court of Justice has ruled that Israeli goods made in Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank cannot be considered Israeli.This means goods made by Israelis or Jews in the West Bank cannot benefit from a trade deal giving Israel preferential access to EU markets. EU import duties on Israeli goods from the settlements may now be imposed, making them less competitive.
  • The EU has agreements with both Israel and the Palestinians that end customs duties.
Argos Media

U.S., Israel Leaders Discuss Strategies for Mideast - WSJ.com - 0 views

online.wsj.com/...SB124264225788930101.html

US Israel Palestine Iran Obama Benjamin Netanyahu

shared by Argos Media on 19 May 09 - Cached
  • Mr. Obama for the first time set out a rough timeline for talks with Iran, saying that by the end of the year the U.S. should have a "fairly good sense ... whether there is a good-faith effort to resolve differences" with Iran.
  • he two remained divided on issues such as the future of Jewish settlements in the West Bank, Palestinians' right to statehood, and whether the Palestinian issue should take priority over concerns about Iran developing nuclear weapons.
  • Mr. Netanyahu said he would engage in peace talks with the Palestinians immediately, though he refused to come out in favor of a Palestinian state, in contrast to past government agreements. But he said any peace agreement would have to include Palestinian recognition of a Jewish state. A two-state solution is a centerpiece of Mr. Obama's Mideast peace strategy.
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  • Mr. Netanyahu says he wants to give Palestinians freedom to govern themselves, but won't grant them all the powers of statehood, such as an independent army that could pose a threat to Israel. "We do not want to govern the Palestinians," he said. "We want them to live in peace and govern themselves absent a handful of powers."
  • Mr. Netanyahu has said he is ready to resume negotiations immediately on three parallel tracks dealing with political, economic and security issues, but the Palestinians have said they won't resume negotiations until Mr. Netanyahu accepts their right to statehood.
  • "By failing to endorse the two-state solution, Benjamin Netanyahu missed yet another opportunity to show himself to be a genuine partner for peace," Mr. Erekat said after the meeting. "Calling for negotiations without a clearly defined end-goal offers only the promise of more process, not progress."
  • Mr. Obama spoke out against Israel's expansion of Jewish settlements. Construction of settlements in the West Bank has continued despite pledges to halt such building by former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. "Settlements have to be stopped in order for us to move forward," Mr. Obama said.
  • Mr. Netanyahu said after the meeting that Israel would halt settlement expansion as part of a mutual process in which the Palestinians also made concessions, such as cracking down on militants.
  • Though Israel has shown little interest in the Arab peace initiative, Mr. Netanyahu appears to share the belief that, in the face of an ascendant Iran, there is a new window of opportunity. "In the life of the Jewish state there's never been a time when Arabs and Israelis see a common threat like we see today," he said.
  • On Iran, Mr. Obama said the U.S. will give talks more time, but that there must be a "clear timetable at which point we say, these talks aren't making any progress."
  • Mr. Netanyahu has been seeking clear timetables for U.S. diplomatic outreach toward Tehran, and assurances that sanctions would follow if negotiations fail. Israel fears Iran is within months of producing enough fissile material to produce an atomic bomb, though Israeli and U.S. intelligence officials believe it could take Iran years to assemble one.
Pedro Gonçalves

Israel expected to propose a temporary and partial freeze on the construction of new homes in the West Bank | World news | The Guardian - 0 views

www.guardian.co.uk/...settlements-israel-palestine

Israel Israeli Settlements US Palestine Ehud Barak Dan Meridor

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 30 Jun 09 - Cached
  • Barak is expected to propose a temporary and partial freeze on the construction of homes for Jews in the West Bank. That falls far short of Barack Obama's demand made to the Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, at a difficult meeting in Washington last month for a complete halt to building as evidence of a commitment to the creation of a Palestinian state
  • Tel Aviv newspapers reported Israeli officials as saying that Barak would meet Obama's Middle East envoy, George Mitchell, in New York tomorrow to propose a three-month freeze on construction in settlements outside Jerusalem.
  • Israel is using its rapid construction programme to surround Jerusalem with Jewish housing and separate Arab districts from the rest of the occupied territories.If construction work continues it is not only likely to surround Jerusalem with Israeli housing but result in a Jewish majority in the east of the city which Israel would use to buttress its claim over all of Jerusalem at peace talks.
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  • Relations have also soured over Israel's insistence that it had an "understanding" with George Bush's administration that allowed what it calls "natural growth" of the settlements to build housing for the children of settlers. Israel's intelligence minister, Dan Meridor, said today that the oral commitment qualified a written agreement with the Americans that required a complete halt to construction. "These understandings were a part of the agreement. Its written part and its oral part complement each other," he said.
  • Israel says it is free to build as it wants in Jerusalem because it has sovereignty over the entire city.
  • Barak is also expected to tell the Americans that the limited construction freeze must be tied to Palestinian peace efforts and moves by the rest of the Arab world to recognise Israel.Even while proposing a partial construction freeze, Barak is also authorising new building.Last week he acknowledged retroactively legalising 60 flats built without government approval near the Jewish settlement of Talmon.He has also given the go-ahead for the construction of scores of new homes in another settlement.
  • Barak told the New York Times that the settlement issue should not be treated in isolation and made the most important issue, but must be considered in the context of wider peace negotiations.Sources close to the US administration say that some Obama officials are also concerned at getting bogged down in a dispute over the settlements but for different reasons.They fear that the Israelis will use a protracted disagreement to slow down movement on a broader peace initiative. For that reason, some Obama advisers are pressing for several tracks to be pursued at once, including direct negotiationsnot dependent on each other at this stage.
Pedro Gonçalves

Hamas: Netanyahu speech 'racist' bid to deny Palestinian rights - Haaretz - Israel News - 0 views

www.haaretz.com/...1093063.html

Israel Palestine US Obama Hamas Palestinian Authority Saeb Erekat Benjamin Netanyahu

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 15 Jun 09 - Cached
  • Hamas has dismissed a speech delivered by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Sunday, in which he declared support for a demilitarized Palestinian state, as a "racist" attempt deny Palestinian national rights.
  • "[Netanyahu wants] to recognize Palestine as pure Jewish land, denying the Palestinian people any rights in their land," the Palestinian news agency Ma'an on Monday quoted the Islamist group as saying in a statement.
  • In the speech, Netanyahu conditioned the establishment of a Palestinian state on recognition by the Palestinians of Israel as the state of the Jewish people. He also vowed that Israel would not build any new West Bank settlements, or expand existing ones, but refused to stop accommodating for their natural growth.
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  • An aide to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, meanwhile, said Sundaythat the speech "sabotages" regional peace efforts, due to Netanyahu's refusal to accept an influx of Palestinian refugees into Israel and his unwillingness to compromise on the status of Jerusalem.
  • "Netanyahu's remarks have sabotaged all initiatives, paralyzed all efforts being made and challenges the Palestinian, Arab and American positions," said Nabil Abu Rudeinah.
  • Netanyahu pledged in the address that Jerusalem be the undivided capital of Israel and that Palestinian refugees not be allowed into Israel
  • A senior Palestinian negotiator, meanwhile, called on U.S. President Barack Obama to intervene to force Israel to abide by previous interim agreements that include freezing settlement activity in the West Bank. The alternative, he said, was violence. "President Obama, the ball is in your court tonight," Saeb Erekat said. "You have the choice tonight. You can treat Netanyahu as a prime minister above the law and ... close off the path of peace tonight and set the whole region on the path of violence, chaos, extremism and bloodletting.
  • "The alternative is to make Netanyahu abide by the road map," he said, referring to a U.S.-sponsored document under which Israel agreed to freeze settlement activity and Palestinians agreed to rein in militants hostile to Israel. "The peace process has been moving at the speed of a tortoise," Erekat added. "Tonight, Netanyahu has flipped it over on its back."
Pedro Gonçalves

Syria says no peace partner in Israel Asharq Alawsat Newspaper (English) - 0 views

www.aawsat.com/...news.asp

Syria Israel

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 08 Jul 09 - Cached
  • Syria's president said Tuesday that there is no "real partner" in Israel to make peace, stressing that a halt to Jewish settlements is essential to restart peace talks with the Jewish state.
  • Syria has said it is willing to resume indirect peace talks mediated by Turkey as long as they focus on a complete Israeli withdrawal from the Golan Heights, a strategic plateau captured by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war.
  • But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said he is not willing to cede the territory Syria wants. He has also refused U.S. demands to halt settlement construction in the West Bank, hampering efforts to resume peace negotiations.
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  • "What Syria is proposing for peace is not conditions but rather they are rights that cannot be negotiated or abandoned," Syria's official news agency SANA quoted President Bashar Assad as saying. "The problem is that there is no real Israeli partner to make peace."
  • Assad stressed that the lifting of Israel's siege of the Gaza Strip and a halt to building settlements in the West Bank are "first steps to discuss peace," SANA reported. Syria and Israel held four rounds of indirect peace negotiations through Turkish mediators last year. But Syria suspended them in December over Israel's military offensive against the Gaza Strip's militant Hamas rulers in December and January.
  • Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem said his country wanted to resume Turkish-mediated indirect peace talks with Israel before initiating direct negotiations with the Jewish state. But he questioned Israel's willingness for peace."Regarding resuming direct talks (with Israel), we still believe that resuming indirect talks through Turkey is the best way to move toward direct talks that can lead to results. But beforehand we want to be sure (if) there is a political decision in Israel to achieve peace," al-Moallem told a joint press conference with Steinmeier.
Pedro Gonçalves

Judenrein! Israel adopts Nazi term to back settlers | International | Reuters - 0 views

www.reuters.com/...idUSTRE5685LP20090709

Israel Israeli Settlements Benjamin Netanyahu Germany Frank-Walter Steinmeier

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 10 Jul 09 - Cached
  • Hosting the German foreign minister this week, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu used an especially tainted term to condemn the Palestinian demand that Israel's settlements in the occupied West Bank be removed. "Judea and Samaria cannot be Judenrein," a Netanyahu confidant quoted him as telling Frank-Walter Steinmeier. Asked how Germany's top diplomat responded to hearing the Nazi Holocaust term for areas "cleansed of Jews," the confidant said, "What could he do? He basically just nodded."
  • Asked how Germany's top diplomat responded to hearing the Nazi Holocaust term for areas "cleansed of Jews," the confidant said, "What could he do? He basically just nodded."
  • Hence the jaw-dropper defiance of "Judenrein," which the confidant said Netanyahu had encouraged cabinet colleagues to deploy in their defense of the settlements and of Israel's insistence that Palestinians recognize it as a Jewish state.
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  • Briefing foreign reporters last week, Deputy Prime Minister Dan Meridor, a stalwart of Netanyahu's Likud party, urged them to ask whether "Palestinians would accept that Jews will live among them, or whether it is going to be totally not allowed." "'Judenrein' is the term that was once used in other countries," Meridor said darkly, in remarks echoed the next day by another Likud minister who briefed journalists and diplomats.
  • "We believe that this is simply a new strategy by Israel to delay any real outcome," said Xavier Abu Eid, a Palestinian diplomat. "In past negotiations, I can assure you, Israel never tried to have Jews remain in the state of Palestine."
  • Challenged over the West Bank settlers' prospective status, Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad was quoted this week telling the Ideas Festival in Aspen that "Jews, to the extent they choose to stay and live in the state of Palestine, will enjoy those rights and certainly will not enjoy any less rights than Israeli Arabs enjoy now in the state of Israel."
  • Zalman Shoval, a former Israeli ambassador to Washington and veteran Likud member, voiced misgivings about the use of "Judenrein" in the Palestine context: "I don't like to transfer the trappings of Nazis to others, even if they are our enemies." What was being branded as the Palestinians' bigotry, he said, could also be prudence about steps that might pre-judge disputes such as those over Palestinian refugees from Israel.
Pedro Gonçalves

Aide: Netanyahu told German FM West Bank cannot be 'Judenrein` - Haaretz - Israel News - 0 views

www.haaretz.com/...1099048.html

Israel Israeli Settlements Benjamin Netanyahu Germany Frank-Walter Steinmeier

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 10 Jul 09 - Cached
  • Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu used the Nazi term 'Judenrein' in a recent meeting with the German foreign minister to condemn the Palestinian demand that West Bank settlements be removed, a confidant of the premier has said. "Judea and Samaria cannot be Judenrein," the confidant quoted the prime minister as telling Frank-Walter Steinmeier earlier this week. Asked how Germany's top diplomat responded to hearing the term used by the Nazis to refer to areas "cleansed of Jews", the confidant said, "What could he do? He basically just nodded."
  • According to the confidant, Netanyahu had encouraged cabinet colleagues to deploy the term in their defense of the settlements and of Israel's insistence that Palestinians recognize it as a Jewish state.
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