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Ed Webb

William Hague intervenes over West Bank barrier - Assawra - 0 views

www.assawra.info/spip.php

Israel Palestine israelpalestine MEPP minorities Christians

shared by Ed Webb on 06 Oct 12 - No Cached
  • The British foreign secretary and the Archbishop of Westminster have joined forces in opposing the route of Israel’s vast barrier along the West Bank, which adversely affects a community of monks, nuns and Christian families near Bethlehem.
  • In addition to Hague’s personal intervention, the British consulate in East Jerusalem is supporting the community and the Department for International Development (Dfid) is providing indirect funding for the legal challenge.
  • a symbolic example of the impact of the separation barrier on Palestinian communities and the loss of Palestinian land. Around 85% of the barrier is inside the West Bank.
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • British government policy is that Israel is entitled to build a barrier but it should lie on the internationally recognised 1967 Green Line, not on confiscated Palestinian land. It is concerned that the route is harming the prospects of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
  • In 2004, the International Court of Justice ruled that the route of Israel’s barrier on Palestinian territory breached international law and was "tantamount to de facto annexation".
  • Many Palestinian Christians have emigrated as a result of the economic impact of the separation barrier which has already been built around the city of Bethlehem and its nearby villages. Residents have difficulty in accessing their land and exporting their produce. The hurdles in reaching Christian holy sites in Jerusalem is another factor encouraging them to leave.
  • Under the current Israeli plan, the barrier will run between the monastery and convent, separating the two establishments and cutting off the monks from the local Christian community. It will also separate the convent and more than 50 families from land they own.
  • Under the present proposal, the convent’s premises will abut the barrier. The playground of a kindergarten and school, run by the sisters for more than 50 years and catering for almost 400 Christian and Muslim children, will be overlooked by military watchtowers, and 75% of land owned by the convent will be on the other side of the barrier.
  • Yigal Palmor, spokesman for Israel’s foreign ministry, said the involvement of a foreign government in a legal battle against another government was "very odd".
Ed Webb

Turkey Arrests Two After Killing of U.S. Ambassador: TV - Bloomberg - 0 views

www.bloomberg.com/...ling-of-u-s-ambassador-tv.html

Libya Turkey US USA diplomacy radicals

shared by Ed Webb on 04 Oct 12 - No Cached
  • suspects, identified as Tunisians,
  • fake passports
  • not clear whether the suspects might be extradited to Libya or the U.S.
Ed Webb

BBC News - Hezbollah military commander 'killed in Syria' - 0 views

www.bbc.co.uk/...world-middle-east-19801884

Syria Lebanon hezbollah refugees

shared by Ed Webb on 02 Oct 12 - No Cached
  • Hezbollah said Ali Hussein Nassif was buried in the Bekaa valley on Monday and had been killed "performing his jihadist duty", but did not say where. Rebels said Nassif and several of his men had been killed in an ambush by the Free Syrian Army. Other reports said they had died in clashes on the border. There has been no confirmation that he was Hezbollah's commander in Syria.
  • Lebanese officials also believe members of Hezbollah's military wing, the Islamic Resistance, are fighting in the Syrian conflict, citing as evidence a number of quiet burials of "martyrs" in Hezbollah-dominated areas.
  • after another senior Hezbollah military commander, Musa Ali Shahimi, was reportedly killed fighting in Syria in August, there was a public funeral attended by two Hezbollah MPs in the capital, Beirut
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  • Syrian refugees in neighbouring countries had reached 311,500
  • Hezbollah's al-Manar TV, and the pro-Syrian regime Lebanese newspaper al-Diyar, have both reported that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has ordered thousands more troops sent to the northern city of Aleppo to finish the battle against rebels there
  • Last week, the UN and other humanitarian agencies launched an appeal for $487m (£301m) to help up to 710,000 Syrians who they estimate will have fled to Turkey, Jordan, Lebanon and Iraq by the end of the year
Ed Webb

Our revolution has been stolen, say Libya's jihadists | Reuters - 0 views

www.reuters.com/...ihadists-idUSBRE8910K620121002

Libya Salafists jihad radicals regionalism identities sharia colonialism

shared by Ed Webb on 02 Oct 12 - No Cached
  • One effect of hostile reactions at home and abroad has been that some Islamist groups, part of a patchwork of militias which fill a vacuum left by Gaddafi, have made a tactical retreat from view, in some declaring their brigades to have disbanded.
  • Islamist fighters in Derna make clear they will seek redress for grievances, many with little to do with religion, some dating to colonial times, others rooted in a sense that victory in the fight against Gaddafi they began years ago has been "stolen" by his former henchmen and stooges of the West
  • "The state is making up this conspiracy. The state deliberately ignores the fact that there is an Islamic renaissance," said Dirbi, whose brother was among more that 1,200 Islamist inmates machine-gunned by guards in a Tripoli prison in 1996."I want to see Gaddafi's men on trial, not being rewarded and honored,"
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • The town's radical reputation has lately been burnished by the presence of several former Guantanamo prisoners, including Sufyan bin Qumo, who heads the Ansar al-Shariah Islamist group blamed by the American for the U.S. embassy attack.
  • "In Libya it's only been a year and the idea of democracy and political parties is difficult for people to absorb. The people have not responded to this imported, packaged democracy. We don't accept it. We have a religion that needs to be taken into account," said Azouz, an English teacher who belongs to one of Derna's most prominent families.
  • For the Islamist groups, which are part of a Salafi movement whose members try to model their lives on the early followers of the Prophet Mohammad, the legitimacy of the newborn Libyan state is highly questionable."It's the revolution that made the state and some of the opportunists who did not participate in the revolution or shed any blood for the revolution are the ones who are forcing their orders on us," Azouz said.
  • "The solution is to draft an Islamic constitution ... and set up Sharia courts so that people can trust that this state is a true Islamic state,"
  • Some jihadists are already preparing for what they see is an inevitable showdown with those who seek to turn Libya into an "apostate" nation. They can see no compromise with an infidel West bent on changing Libya's Islamic identity.
  • The deep streak of radicalism in eastern Libya that fed on the neglect of towns such as Derna during the Gaddafi era is still strong these days. Many jihadists say the country's new rulers are favoring Tripoli just as the former dictator did.
  • Ed Webb on 02 Oct 12
     
    Complicated dynamics
Ed Webb

U.S. Embassy Attack In Yemen Makes West Uneasy Over Ali Abdullah Saleh's Role In Transi... - 0 views

www.huffingtonpost.com/...-abdullah-saleh_n_1928358.html

shared by Ed Webb on 02 Oct 12 - No Cached
  • Restoring stability in Yemen has become an international priority for fear that Islamist militants will further entrench themselves in a country neighbouring top oil exporter Saudi Arabia and lying on major world shipping lanes.
    • Ed Webb
      Ed Webb on 02 Oct 12
       
      It's not clear that this is a very high priority, though. What resources are being committed? Drone strikes are cheap compared to stability-building.
  • Of all the complications to reestablishing state control, including southern secessionists, a Zaydi Shi'ite revival movement tussling with Sunni Islamists and a covert U.S. missile war on militants, the role of Washington's former strongman in Sanaa has emerged as perhaps the most pressing
  • Saleh still wields influence through his control of the General People's Congress (GPC) party, a ruling coalition partner, and through powerful relatives who run elite military and security units
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  • "Revenge dominates in Yemeni society. If people feel wronged and no one gives them justice they will try to get it themselves in any way," said Human Rights Minister Hooria Mashhour.
  • Political analyst Abdulghani al-Iryani said there was little chance of the old order reestablishing itself, though Saleh and the north Yemeni tribal and religious elites would try to resist the shift to decentralisation. "It's impossible. If you look at the historical patterns, his regime survived for so long against the law of gravity," Iryani said.
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