Israel Kills Six in West Bank

NABLUS, West Bank (Reuters) – Israeli soldiers shot and killed six Palestinians in two separate incidents on Saturday in the occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip, in one of the deadliest outbreaks of violence in months.

Three of those who were killed belonged to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah movement, and his top aide accused Israel of inflaming tensions and seeking to torpedo U.S.-backed efforts to renew stalled peace talks.

The violence came a day before the anniversary of a three-week Gaza war that killed some 1,400 Palestinians and 13 Israelis. Peace talks have been frozen since.

An Israeli military spokeswoman said soldiers shot and killed three Palestinians suspected of trying to infiltrate from Hamas-ruled coastal Gaza, and three West Bank militants accused of killing a Jewish settler in a roadside shooting on Thursday.

A Hamas security source said the three shot in Gaza at daybreak were apparently civilians collecting scrap metal in an industrial zone near the Israeli border.

In the West Bank, Palestinian medics and witnesses said soldiers surrounded the homes of three members of the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, a militant group of Abbas’s Fatah group, and then killed all three.

The shootings infuriated Palestinian leaders.

“This grave Israeli escalation shows Israel is not interested in peace and is trying to explode the situation,” Nabil Abu Rdainah, a top aide to Abbas, told Reuters.

“Israel is torpedoing international and American efforts to restart peace talks,” Rdainah said.

An Israeli military spokeswoman said troops had launched a “pinpointed raid to capture the perpetrators of the shooting attack and during the operation three who were involved in carrying out that attack were killed.”

At least one of the militants was armed during the raid and four rifles and ammunition were found at the scene, the spokeswoman said.

The settler had been the first Israeli killed in a Palestinian attack in about eight months in the West Bank, territory Israel captured in a 1967 war and which Palestinians seek for a state.

Sources in Fatah said those who were killed in the West Bank raid belonged to their group. At least one had been on an Israeli wanted list, the sources said.

Abbas has demanded a halt to Jewish settlement building before peace talks delayed since a Gaza war in January may resume, and has rejected a temporary building freeze announced last month by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as insufficient.

Continue reading: NEW YORK TIMES

Clashes ignite over Al-Aqsa mosque

sraeli forces have clashed with Palestinians at Haram Al Sharif, or Temple Mount compound in Jerusalem.

Several Palestinians were arrested and dozens more were lcoked inside the Al-Aqsa mosque.

Al Jazeera’s Jacky Rowland reports from East Jerusalem.

Charlie Rose – Roger Cohen

New York Times columnist Roger Cohen

How Israel silenced its Gaza war protesters

A new report from Adalah shows how the courts and police attempted to stamp out opposition to Operation Cast Lead “This is a time of war, and every incident harms the people’s morale.”

This was not a sentence in a right-wing journal, but rather a statement by an Israel Police representative during Operation Cast Lead seeking to persuade the Tel Aviv District Court to block anti-war protesters from the city.

Around the same time, in a Haifa Magistrate’s Court hearing on extending the remand of minors, Judge Moshe Gilad stated: “Anyone who enables remarks denouncing the state and backing its enemies, even as they rain missiles upon its citizens, must obey its laws, and certainly is prohibited from attacking police who come to impose order. It is similar to a person spitting in the well from which he drinks.”

Here are some of the pearls in Adalah’s new report: “Prohibited protest – how the law enforcement authorities limit the freedom of expression of opponents of the Gaza military attack.” The document, being published for the first time here, was written by attorneys Abeer Baker and Rana Asali. They reviewed and analyzed hundreds of rulings and detention requests, interviewed dozens of human rights activists who were arrested and threatened during the Gaza attack, and documented the behavior of Israeli academia during the moments of truth last winter.

Continue reading: HAARETZ

Mosaic News – 9/18/09: World News From The Middle East

Israel rejects war crimes findings of UN Gaza inquiry

Prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s spokesman denounces ‘propaganda and bias’

Link to ‘The Guardian’ video

Israel refused to accept the findings of a highly critical UN inquiry into the Gaza war and said today it would launch a diplomatic offensive to prevent any risk of prosecutions.

No independent inquiry into the military’s conduct during the war last January would be held, a clear rejection of one primary recommendation from the UN report.

The inquiry, headed by a former South African judge, Richard Goldstone, delivered a detailed and damning criticism of the war, accusing both Israel and armed Palestinian groups, notably Hamas, of war crimes and possible crimes against humanity. It was by far the most serious international inquiry into the three-week war, which left 1,400 Palestinians and 13 Israelis dead and which triggered a wave of criticism across the world.

“This report was conceived in sin and is the product of a union between propaganda and bias,” said Mark Regev, spokesman for the Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu. “Israel is a country with a fiercely independent judiciary … Everything done by the military in Israel is open to judicial review by the independent judiciary.”

Israel had refused to co-operate with the inquiry, not letting the team enter Israel or the occupied West Bank. It said the UN human rights council, which commissioned the inquiry, was biased against Israel.

“The mandate was biased from the beginning and it would have been a mistake to give credibility to a mission that has more in common with a kangaroo court than it does with a serious investigation,” Regev said.

For its part, Hamas also rejected the criticism. “The Palestinian people and the Palestinian resistance were in a position of self-defence and not of attack. One cannot compare the simple capabilities of the resistance with the great strength of the occupation,” said Ismail Haniyeh, a Hamas leader and former Palestinian prime minister.

After the inquiry was published yesterday evening, a legal team from Israel’s foreign ministry met with other government officials to prepare an analysis of the UN report. Netanyahu reportedly held meetings into the night on the impact of the findings.

Israel is concerned that, when the UN human rights council discusses the report later this month, it could agree to pass it to the UN security council. The security council could then decide to pass the findings on to the international criminal court, where arrest warrants could be issued ahead of prosecutions.

Israel’s deputy foreign minister, Danny Ayalon, who is on a visit to Washington, said he would meet the US ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice, to minimise the impact of the report before it reaches the UN security council. Other senior figures from the Israeli government are expected to begin a round of telephone calls with ministers from other governments, particularly the five permanent members of the security council, to head off any decision that might lead to prosecutions. The Ha’aretz newspaper said priority calls would go out to EU nations, in the hope of influencing the debate at the UN human rights council in Geneva.

Continue reading: THE GUARDIAN

Israel Wants More Land

Israel’s Self-Destruction as a Jewish State

By William Pfaff

The laws of physics say that actions produce equivalent counteractions, and in international relations these may not be what’s expected.

American policy in the Middle East under George Bush and Condoleezza Rice has sought to polarize the region’s forces in the belief that it benefits by promoting a clear confrontation between those, as President George W. Bush said in 2001, “who are with us and those who are against us.” Washington reckons that it wins because it is, in conventional terms, the more powerful.

But suppose the situation is not a conventional one, and the application of power produces ricochet, indirect or asymmetrical reactions. Take the case of Lebanon, whose modern history is one of compromise among the communities that make up the country, which are not automatically hostile to one another but have distinct and divergent interests, and historically have also been the object of foreign intervention and attempts to set the communities against one another.

American policy has never acknowledged the fact that, to exist as a nation, the divided Lebanese have to compromise. Washington and Israel have both consistently seen Lebanon as a country that could be divided, polarized and toppled into their camp, or made to serve their interests inside the Arab camp.

Both have promoted policies intended to put the Christians in power over the Muslims, and if that proved impossible (as it has), to promote an alliance of Sunni Muslims, Druze and Christians against the Syrian- and Iranian-supported Hezbollah.

Take what has just happened. Hezbollah, the movement that has mobilized what historically has been the poorest and least powerful Lebanese community, that of the Shiite population, has seen its power and prestige vastly increased by recent Israeli actions. Israel’s bombardment and invasion of Lebanon in 2006, provoked by Hezbollah, intended by Israel to destroy or decisively weaken Hezbollah by causing the other communities to hold it responsible for the war, was a failure.

This did not happen. Hezbollah was hailed as the victor over Israel. Lebanon nonetheless has since been in a political stalemate between what usually has been described as the “American-backed” prime minister and the hostile Shiite sympathizers of Hezbollah, over nomination of a new president.

In May, the prime minister ordered dismantlement of a secret Hezbollah-controlled communications network, clearly built to improve Hezbollah’s military performance in another war. Another crisis ensued, during which Hezbollah and allied Amal armed militants displayed their military strength by occupying western Beirut, and their political sophistication by going no further. They accepted a proposal by the secretary-general of the Arab League and the emir of Qatar for talks to settle the crisis.

This Arab intervention was an unpleasant surprise to Washington, but produced agreement for a new government under a new president, the former head of the carefully neutral Lebanese army. He has been sworn into office.

(Continue reading: Truthdig)

Bush’s Commitment Problem

George Bush has a commitment problem. On his recent Middle East trip, he had to figure out how to demonstrate his loyalty to Israel and appear committed to peace and the Palestinians, all while rattling his saber at Iran for the sake of Israeli and American hawks. A good start to achieving one of those objectives, of course, was likening Barack Obama to the appeasers of Hitler and the Nazis in front of the Israeli Knesset.

According to the White House, Bush was in the region to “reaffirm efforts toward peace and prosperity and our close work with regional allies to combat terrorism and promote freedom.” For many who have watched as the administration has ratcheted up the aggressive rhetoric toward Iran, it is understood that the Bush administration is looking to “regional allies” for complicity on their plans for Iran.

Naturally, Bush was also there to celebrate Israel’s 60th anniversary and to note that “[e]leven minutes later [after independence], on the orders of President Harry Truman, the United States was proud to be the first nation to recognize Israel’s independence.” He went on to say, “And on this landmark anniversary, America is proud to be Israel’s closest ally and best friend in the world.”

During this trip the president once again attempted to convince Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas that Israel’s closest ally and best friend in the world is also the perfect third party to deliver an honest peace agreement between the two.

However, the Bush administration stacking the deck in favor of Israel isn’t exactly news to the Palestinians.

When Vice President Dick Cheney made an unexpected visit to Baghdad in March, that wasn’t the biggest surprise of his 10-day Middle East trip. More astounding was Cheney, arguably the sharpest-taloned hawk in the Bush administration’s war-hungry aerie, having been deployed to ostensibly do the work of diplomacy with Israelis and Palestinians. Cheney’s involvement in the so-called peace process is something of a cruel joke, despite White House claims that “he can certainly complement the kind of message that both the President and the Secretary [of State] have been consistently delivering to Israeli and Palestinian leaders about the depth of our commitment to try and make progress toward a Palestinian state.”

The real intentions of Cheney’s trip made the Palestinians the butt of the punch line. Although the vice president claimed that realizing a Palestinian state would require “painful concessions on both sides,” it was pretty clear Palestinians would have to endure the most pain when he told Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert at their March 22 meeting that “our two countries have been more than just strong allies. We’ve been friends—special friends—and our peoples bound together by unique ties of history, culture, religion, and memory. Today, both our nations share the ideals of liberty, equality, human dignity, and representative government.”

(Continue reading: Truthdig)

Barenboim: Conflict ‘eats at Jewish soul’

On the 60th anniversary of the birth of Israel, the pianist and conductor Daniel Barenboim considers the fate and the future of the country which he regards as his home – but where he is still an “outsider”.

There are photographs hanging on the walls of my dressing room in the Staatsoper Berlin, photographs that remind me of what I see when I look out the windows of my house in Jerusalem.

They are slightly faded, and here and there the paper is crumbling, but one can easily recognise the views: The Old City, the Dome of the Rock with its shining cupola, the walls, the gates.

Sometimes I sit in this room before a performance, looking at these pictures and thinking of Jerusalem, of Israel, my home.

Before 1989, this room was supposedly a refuge of the East German Stasi, the state police. If I happened to be a sentimental person, that fact would surely help me to become unsentimental, but I am not a sentimental person. The situation in the Middle East is much too close to me, much too personal for me to be sentimental about it.

Since 1952, I have owned an Israeli passport. Since I was 15 years old, I have travelled the world as a musician. I have lived in London and in Paris and I commuted for years between Chicago and Berlin.

(Continue reading: BBC News)

Sixty years on, Palestinians mourn loss of homeland

BURJ AL-BARAJNEH, Lebanon (Reuters) – While Israel celebrates its 60th birthday, Palestinian refugees mourn the 1948 Nakba (catastrophe) when they lost their homeland. Often ignored in Middle East peace talks, they cling to a “right of return”.

Alia Shabati was 12 when she fled Jewish attacks on her village of Kabri, captured a few days after Israel’s creation.

Now a matron of 72, wearing a flowery blue dress and white headscarf, her memories of Kabri in today’s northern Israel are vividly intact, unlike the village, which was wiped off the map.

“We had houses and land,” Shabati said in the living room of her modest dwelling in the alleys of Beirut’s Burj al-Barajneh refugee camp. “We had olives, grapes, prickly pears and dates. We had orchards and fields. Now what do we have? Nothing.”

Her life story encapsulates the bitterness of dispossession and exile familiar to about 4.5 million Palestinian refugees and their descendants in squalid camps in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and the occupied West Bank and Gaza, or in a wider diaspora.

For Shabati, who has lost three of her 11 children, her tale is unique. “What I tasted, no one has tasted,” she said.

Her father was killed by British forces during a Palestinian revolt in 1936, shortly after she was born.

Twelve years later, she fled Kabri with her mother, brother and grandmother, along with other women and children, after an attack by Jewish Haganah forces. Her uncle and several other relatives who stayed behind were among those killed.

(Continue reading: Reuters)

Carter answers questions from Haaretz Editor-in-Chief

Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter fields questions from Haaretz Editor-in-Chief David Landau during an international Internet conference hosted by TheMarker.  Carter, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, brokered a peace treaty in 1979 between Israel and Egypt – the first such deal between Israel and an Arab neighbor. Carter is currently on a visit to the region that will also take him to the West Bank, Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia and Jordan.  (Continue reading and hear the interview: Haaretz)

Carter: Hamas very important for peace

Former US president Jimmy Carter on Sunday defended his plan to meet with Hamas leaders for peace talks as he kicked off a trip to the Middle East, amid criticism from Washington and Israel.

Carter, who in his 2006 book likened Israeli policies to ‘a system of apartheid’, described the inclusion as ‘very important’ because it helps us hear the views of Hamas leaders.

“There’s no doubt in anyone’s mind that, if Israel is ever going to find peace with justice concerning the relationship with their next-door neighbors, the Palestinians, that Hamas will have to be included in the process,” he said in an interview with ABC, which was pre-recorded and aired on Sunday.

The former US president arrived in Israel on Sunday as part of a nine-day trip to the Middle East in order to study the situation for peace talks.

“We’ll be meeting with the Syrians, the Egyptians, the Jordanians, the Saudi Arabians, and with the whole gamut of people who might have to play a crucial role in any future peace agreement that involves the Middle East,” Carter said of his trip.

Carter is to be shunned in Israel by senior Israeli officials including premier Ehud Olmert, foreign minister Tzipi Livni and war minister Ehud Barak. Israeli officials have cited ’scheduling problems’ as the reason.

But the main reason is apparently Carter’s reported plan to meet with Hamas political Chief Khalid Mashaal in Syria.

“I’ve not confirmed our itinerary yet for the Syrian visit, but it’s likely that I will be meeting with the Hamas leaders,” Carter said in the interview.

On Thursday, the US State Department had also advised Carter against meeting with Hamas officials.

 

Carter, who reportedly plans to meet exiled Hamas chief Khaled Meshaal in Syria, said he viewed Hamas’s inclusion in peace talks as “very important” and stressed he was not travelling as an official US negotiator.

“It’s very important that at least someone meet with the Hamas leaders to express their views, to ascertain what flexibility they have, to try to induce them to stop all attacks against innocent civilians in Israel and to cooperate with the Fatah as a group that unites the Palestinians,” Carter told ABC news.

“There’s no doubt in anyone’s mind that, if Israel is ever going to find peace with justice concerning the relationship with their next-door neighbours, the Palestinians, that Hamas will have to be included in the process,” he said in the interview, which was pre-recorded and aired on Sunday.

Carter arrived in Israel Sunday and held talks with President Shimon Peres in Jerusalem before meeting the parents of an Israeli soldier who was abducted in June 2006 by Gaza militants and is being held by Hamas.

Israel and Hamas have been holding secret, indirect negotiations to secure the release of Corporal Gilad Shalit as part of a prisoner exchange deal.

Carter’s study mission that runs until April 21, will also take him to the Israeli-occupied West Bank, Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia and Jordan, his Atlanta-based Carter Center said.

Media reports that Carter plans to hold talks with Meshaal in Damascus sparked a furore in the United States. Carter’s office would neither confirm nor deny the reports, and the former president has remained vague about the details.

Israel on Sunday urged the US ex-president not to meet Meshaal.

Hamas, which seized control of the Gaza Strip last June after routing Fatah forces loyal to Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas, is considered a terrorist organisation by Israel, the United States and the European Union.

However, the 83-year-old Carter pointed out during the ABC interview that he was not travelling in any official capacity.

“I’m not going as a mediator or a negotiator,” he said. “I’ve been meeting with Hamas leaders for years.”

Carter said his most recent talks came after Hamas’s win in January 2006 elections. At that time, he said Hamas expressed willingness to declare a ceasefire in Gaza and the West Bank and allow Abbas to negotiate on behalf of all Palestinians.

“I intend to find out if these are their prevailing thoughts now,” he said.

“Carter is going to visit places we do not wish to associate ourselves with. He also never made an official request to meet Olmert,” a senior government official told AFP.

The US State Department on Thursday advised him against meeting Hamas because Washington supports Abbas in new peace talks with Israel and backs the Jewish state’s bid to isolate the Islamists.

Carter’s 2006 book “Palestine: Peace, Not Apartheid” infuriated some Jewish and zionist groups who accused him of racism and anti-Semitism.

 

/press tv + afp

 

Many Arabs fear McCain would continue Bush policy

Arabs keen to see the end of George W. Bush’s presidency fear that a win for likely Republican candidate John McCain will bring little change to U.S. policies they blame for destabilizing the Middle East.

For Arab politicians who have gained from U.S. policy in countries including Iraq and Lebanon, continuity may be a good thing.

But Bush’s many critics in the Arab world worry that McCain will continue current U.S. policies, which they fault for unleashing chaos in Iraq and providing unflinching support for Israel in its conflict with the Palestinians.

McCain wants to keep troops in Iraq until it is more stable, setting him at odds with Democratic rivals who want to withdraw from a country which has been wracked by violence since U.S.-led forces toppled Saddam Hussein five years ago.

During a Middle East tour this month, McCain’s statements on Israel also sounded alarm bells for Arabs who have long criticized Washington for not exercising enough pressure on the Jewish state to withdraw from occupied Arab land.

“The first time McCain started to catch attention was when he visited … Israel and committed himself to recognizing Jerusalem (as its capital) and not pressuring Israel,” Mohamed al-Sayed Said of Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies told Reuters in Cairo.

“This confirms the natural inclination of Arabs to think that whatever the next administration is, it will be a tool of the Israelis.”

But while Arabs see little difference between candidates when it comes to the Arab-Israeli conflict — with all repeatedly committing themselves to Israel’s interests and security — Iraq is seen as a different story.

IRAQ

The 2003 U.S.-led invasion, which was opposed by Washington’s Arab allies including Egypt, empowered Shia factions such as the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council — a group with longstanding ties to Shia Iran.

Jalal al-Din al-Sagheer, a cleric and senior member of the group, said a McCain presidency would be a good thing. “I believe it is a positive matter if the Republican candidate wins in the coming election. We know now how the Republicans think.”

“McCain is so close to the Bush administration and they both adopted the same policy.”

McCain, speaking during a visit to close U.S. ally Jordan, said that a premature withdrawal from Iraq would enhance Iran and Sunni Islamist militant group al Qaeda — both foes of America — and endanger the region.

But Mudhafer al-Aani, a senior member of the largest Sunni bloc in Iraq’s parliament, urged a correction of “the great mistakes of the administration.”

“McCain’s statements on the U.S. presence in Iraq represent the same policy as the current president’s,” he said.

An Iranian political analyst, who declined to be identified, said that while the authorities were publicly keeping their distance from the U.S. election campaign, their preference appeared to be for Democratic candidate Barak Obama.

“I guess they look at McCain as some sort of continuity of the present situation. I can’t say for sure, but from their positions, I gather they will not like a repetition of Republican rule,” the analyst said.

“McCain has confirmed the American intention to keep American troops in Iraq. This is something that is against the wish of Iran. They want the Americans to be gone, and the issue to be sorted our regionally, in which Iran will play a big part,” the analyst said.

Syrian political commentator Thabet Salem said McCain’s pro-Israeli stance and comments against Syria, as well as a commitment to keep U.S. troops in Iraq could lead to more Middle East instability.

“McCain has exhibited little willingness to depart from the foreign policy of the neocons, which encourages spread of fundamentalism and terrorism,” he said.

//reuters//

Cheney vows ‘unshakable’ commitment to Israel, warns Palestinians

JERUSALEM — Vice President Dick Cheney arrived Saturday night in Israel, where he pledged America’s “enduring and unshakable” commitment to the security of the Jewish state as it approaches its 60th anniversary.

Cheney met with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to kick off a weekend of talks with Israeli and Palestinian leaders.

“Our two countries have been more than just strong allies. We’ve been friends, special friends,” Cheney said at a news conference with Olmert.

“Both our nations share the ideals of liberty, equality, human dignity and representative government.”

“Both our nations have stood firm against forces of terror and intimidation. … We are natural allies,” Cheney added.

“It’s not America’s role to dictate the outcome, but we will help with the negotiations and provide all the support and encouragement we can,” Cheney said.

Cheney warned the Palestinians Sunday that attacks on Israel were killing hopes for their “long overdue” state, as the sun set on his Easter weekend peace push.

“Security and peace will not be realised with the continuation of the settlement activities, the establishment of roadblocks around cities and villages, the military escalations in the Gaza Strip, and the continuing military operations in the cities and towns of the West Bank,” he said.

Cheney repeated his message to Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert upon arrival Saturday that a peace accord “will require tremendous effort at the negotiating table, and painful concessions on both sides.”

Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank are one of the main snags that have hampered the peace talks since they were relaunched under US stewardship at an international conference four months ago.

A delegation of Republican members of the U.S. House of Representatives, led by Minority Leader John Boehner of Ohio, also arrived in Jerusalem on Saturday.

//cnn/+/afp//
related//OpEd: Cheney’s trap