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Mitchell Hoping for a Quick-Fix Fake Peace?

source: Intifada-Palestine

by Stuart Littlewood

From left, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Jordan’s King Abdullah II and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak listen as President Barack Obama speaks on the Middle East peace negotiations in the East Room of the White House in Washington, on Wednesday. Photo: AP.

For real peace he must bang heads together at the United Nations to finish their unfinished business

On the eve of the silliest peace talks in history, the big question is this. What makes Obama’s envoy George Mitchell, a negotiator of high repute, say there is “no role” for Hamas?

The talks are silly because they seek to overturn what the United Nations has already decided for resolving the Israel-Palestine conflict and drive a bulldozer through the building blocks of justice.

It might be music to Zionist ears, but to people of good will it’s a cruel, futile and immensely damaging ploy.

The talks are also silly because they bring together two people who by no stretch of the imagination could qualify as partners for peace. And they sit down under the auspices of a third party with an appalling track record in the Middle East and whom no-one trusts to act fairly.

So Mitchell has been dealt a crap hand. The former US senator, we’re told, has had an illustrious career in politics. Honours have been heaped upon him for his part in the Northern Ireland ‘Good Friday’ agreement.

Accepting one of those awards – the Liberty Medal in 1998 – Mitchell said: “I believe there’s no such thing as a conflict that can’t be ended… No matter how ancient the conflict, no matter how hateful, no matter how hurtful, peace can prevail. But only if those who stand for peace and justice are supported and encouraged, while those who do not are opposed and condemned. Seeking an end to conflict is not for the timid or the tentative. There must be a clear and determined policy not to yield to the men of violence…”

How about that? Conflict can be ended only by supporting those who stand for peace and condemning those who don’t. But does he know – has he really taken the trouble to find out – who actually stands for peace and justice in the ever-escalating obscenity of the Israeli occupation of Palestine? And is he absolutely clear who “the men of violence” are? Get it wrong and matters are made worse.

Mitchell is such an awesome peace-monger that he has become a visiting Professor at Britain’s Leeds Metropolitan University’s School of Applied Global Ethics, and the University is developing a new Centre for Peace and Conflict Resolution bearing his name.

If Mitchell is so clued up you have to wonder why he took the job – a veritable poisoned chalice. And you’d think a person with his vast experience would stick to accepted rules of engagement for conflict resolution and peace-making. I’ll mention just three…

* Talk directly with the people who are concerned or with whom there are concerns.
* Attack the issues, not the people with whom there is disagreement.
* No issue can be ‘off limits’.

There is no-one more concerned than Hamas. As the democratically elected authority they are the principle stakeholder on the Palestinian side. Obviously they must be allowed to represent the Palestinian case. It matters not one jot or tittle that the White House has “identified” Hamas as a terrorist organization. They have legitimacy. Besides, millions outside the White House can point to Israel’s much worse terror crimes.

Mitchell, besides barring Hamas, bends even further to Israeli prime minister Netanyahu’s demands and has ruled there must be no pre-conditions. Which means that Israel’s criminal conduct such as settlement construction, dispossession, ethnic cleansing, the land and sea blockade of Gaza, the occupation, the strangulation of the economy and their taste for piracy and extra-judicial killing, and their trampling of human rights including those of self-determination, are allowed to continue while the hapless Palestinians face them across the table.

And never mind that Netanyahu is permitted to enter these talks with his own pre-conditions, saying that the return of Palestinian refugees to the homes they were forced to flee, and the continuing occupation of East Jerusalem including the Old City, are not for discussion, and threatening to resume the (temporarily suspended) illegal settlement building.

If Mitchell is truly a person of integrity and a champion of “global ethics” how could he show such favour to one side?

What, I wonder, will he be saying to the Israeli team about UN Resolution 181 of 1947, which deals declares that “the City of Jerusalem shall be established as a corpus separatum“ administered by the United Nations?

What will he say to them about Resolution 242 (1967) by the Security Council and therefore fully binding? This insists on:

(i) withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict;

(ii) termination of all claims or states of belligerency, and respect for and acknowledgement of the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of every State in the area and their right to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force.

242 also emphasizes the need for

(a) guaranteeing freedom of navigation through international waterways in the area;

(b) achieving a just settlement of the refugee problem;

(c) guaranteeing the territorial inviolability and political independence of every State in the area, through measures including the establishment of demilitarized zones.

Will Mitchell bang the table to demand long overdue action on Security Council Resolution 338 (1973), which called on the parties concerned to start immediate implementation of Security Council Resolution 242?

Security Council Resolution 446 (1979) leaves absolutely no wriggle room. It “determines that the policy and practices of Israel in establishing settlements in the Palestinian and other Arab territories occupied since 1967 have no legal validity and constitute a serious obstruction to achieving a comprehensive, just and lasting peace… Calls once more upon Israel, as the occupying Power, to abide scrupulously by the 1949 Fourth Geneva Convention, to rescind its previous measures and to desist from taking any action which would result in changing the legal status and geographical nature and materially affecting the demographic composition of the Arab territories occupied since 1967, including Jerusalem, and, in particular, not to transfer parts of its own civilian population into the occupied Arab territories.”

It’s all there, Mr Mitchell, in black and white. The UN has set it out. The world is waiting for the UN to implement it.

Stand up, any suitable partners for peace and any genuine peace-brokers

Israeli foreign policy is driven by manifesto promises like…

* “The Palestinians can run their lives freely in the framework of self-rule, but not as an independent and sovereign state.”
* “Jerusalem is the eternal, united capital of the State of Israel and only of Israel.”
* The claim to a national and historic right to the Land of Israel “in its entirety” and the pledge to keep Jerusalem and the settlements.

Netanyahu’s belligerent coalition government probably won’t survive unless he uses all means to achieve these unlawful and hugely provocative aims and resists demands to give back Israel’s ill-gotten gains. A thief is clearly no partner for peace.

Neither is the PLO’s Abbas, who dances to America’s tune and whose authority is in question. Any agreement he makes will be open to challenge by his own people.

Obama is US president courtesy of the pro-Israel lobby. He is like putty in their hands. And he’s so ill-informed that he told AIPAC it’s OK for Israel to grab the hallowed City of Jerusalem and turn it into the permanent headquarters of the Zionist regime. Jerusalem “will remain the capital of Israel and it must remain undivided,” he blurted. When it dawned on him that he’d made a monumental blunder he tried to wriggle out: “Well, obviously, it’s going to be up to the parties to negotiate a range of these issues. And Jerusalem will be part of those negotiations… And I think that it is smart for us to work through a system in which everybody has access to the extraordinary religious sites in Old Jerusalem, but that Israel has a legitimate claim on that city.”

A legitimate claim? Who says? And negotiate what? Has the President forgotten that the UN decided long ago that Jerusalem, along with Bethlehem, was to become an international zone?

And how can it be right for weak, unarmed and impoverished Palestinians to have to negotiate with a brutal, lawless military regime for their universal rights and freedoms, which are supposed to be guaranteed by the international community but have been denied them for decades?

Obama is clearly no genuine peace-broker.

And George Mitchell, despite his awesome reputation elsewhere, has so far failed in the Holy Land. He and his boss are getting desperate. Staging farcical, lopsided talks in order to achieve a fake, temporary peace will no doubt save a few worthless political skins for the timebeing. But they benefit no-one else. And they don’t do an envoy of Mitchell’s calibre any credit. He would be better employed banging heads together at the United Nations, to finish the unfinished business there and ensure all the resolutions they have passed and all the other solemn declarations they have endorsed are implemented. No need for conflict resolution, judgment has already been handed down.

Then peace talks can begin, if genuine partners and an honest broker can be found.

It’s called justice, Mr Mitchell. There’ll be no real peace until justice is delivered.

Stuart Littlewood is author of the book Radio Free Palestine, which tells the plight of the Palestinians under occupation. For further information please visit www.radiofreepalestine.co.uk

source: ITN

A Palestinian gunman has killed four Israelis on the eve of a new round of Middle East peace talks in Washington.

The killer opened fire at a vehicle travelling near Hebron – a volatile West Bank city that has been a flash point of violence in the past. A pregnant woman was among the dead, according to an Israeli Army spokesman.

Some 500 ultranationalist Jewish settlers live in heavily fortified enclaves in the city amid more than 100,000 Palestinians.

A spokesman for the armed wing of Hamas has claimed responsibility for the attack.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has launched a US push for peace in the Middle East, holding talks with Israeli and Palestinian leaders before they begin direct negotiations on Thursday.

Benjamin Netanyahu’s spokesman said the Israeli Prime Minister “will tell Clinton the criminal murder proves again the need to stand firmly on Israel’s stringent security demands, and there will be no compromise on them”.

source: FOX News
JERUSALEM – JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel’s foreign minister said Wednesday that it would be unacceptable to extend a slowdown on West Bank settlement construction, even as Mideast peace talks get under way next week.

Avigdor Lieberman, whose ultranationalist Yisrael Beitenu party is a major partner in the governing coalition, told Israel Radio he realized that resuming settlement construction would antagonize both the U.S. and the Palestinians. But he said that maintaining tight restrictions on building would “punish” tens of thousands of Israelis living in the settlements.

“We don’t need to create unnecessary conflicts but we don’t need to punish and we don’t need to fold either,” he said.

Lieberman’s comments added a powerful voice to a debate that is having deep repercussions for the U.S.-backed peace process. A 10-month moratorium on most West Bank construction expires Sept. 26 and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is under heavy domestic pressure to allow building to resume.

Renewed construction in the settlements could spell disaster for the peace talks before they even get off the ground. But leaving the moratorium in place could cause Netanyahu’s hard-line Israeli government to crumble.

Government spokesman, Mark Regev, refused to say what Netanyahu would do after the settlement slowdown expires.

Israeli officials said they hope to reach some sort of arrangement before next week’s summit launching the peace talks in Washington. But an agreement is far from certain. The U.S. is pushing Israel to refrain from any action that could upset the peace talks, and the Palestinians have threatened to walk away from the negotiating table if any settlement activity resumes.

Lieberman suggested that Israel resume construction in major settlement blocs that Israel expects to retain under a future peace deal, while limiting construction elsewhere.

Some 80 percent of the nearly 300,000 West Bank settlers live in these blocs, which are concentrated along the boundary with Israel. Past proposals have suggested that Israel “swap” an equal amount of territory in exchange for the settlements.

After months of shuttle diplomacy, the U.S. announced last week that direct talks between Israelis and Palestinians would resume on Sept. 2 at the White House. The U.S. hopes to forge a final peace settlement within one year.

Lieberman added that he had doubts about the Palestinians’ intentions at the talks.

“They are not coming out of true good will to make peace, they are coming because they were forced to come,” he said. “I think everyone should lower expectations.”

The roughly 120 Jewish settlements that dot the West Bank have long been a sore point in Mideast peacemaking. Israel began settling the territory soon after capturing it along with Gaza and east Jerusalem in the 1967 war.

The Palestinians say the settlements, interspersed among some 2.4 million Palestinians, are gobbling up land they want for a future state. The international community considers them illegal, and President Barack Obama has been an outspoken critic.

Under intense U.S. pressure, Netanyahu imposed the slowdown last November to draw the Palestinians to the negotiating table. The move barred approval of new housing construction, though hundreds of homes already being built were allowed to be completed.

Netanyahu also quietly imposed a similar slowdown in east Jerusalem early this year after a run-in with the U.S. over Israeli policies in the area.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has expressed strong reservations about negotiating with Netanyahu, fearing the talks will be a waste of time and that his already poor public standing could suffer further damage.

On Wednesday, dozens of Abbas supporters stormed into a meeting hall in the West Bank town of Ramallah and blocked a group of opposition activists from holding a meeting to voice their objections to the peace talks. The men shouted slogans in favor of Abbas and his Fatah party.

The activists, from opposition factions inside the Palestine Liberation Organization, had planned to issue a statement urging Abbas not to speak to Israel until there is a complete halt to all settlement activity.

One of the organizers, independent lawmaker Mustafa Barghouti, claimed the mob were pro-Abbas security men disguised in civilian clothes. He called the attack a “stark violation of human rights.”

West Bank police spokesman Adnan Damiri denied the allegations and said no security forces were involved.

source: ynetnews

Raising the stakes: Finance minister says America must warn Tehran of military strike within weeks; ‘Time has come for whole world, under US leadership, to present Iran with unequivocal ultimatum,’ he says

The US should issue a strict ultimatum to Iran, warning that the possibility of a military strike will turn into reality within weeks should Tehran fail to curb its nuclear program, Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz said Thursday.

In the first such statement by a Cabinet member, Steinitz said: “The US must issue a clear ultimatum to Iran, tell it that if it does not change its behavior within weeks, the military option that has been on the table up until now will become relevant.”

Steinitz, who is a close associate of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, is familiar with Iran’s nuclear program from his service as the chairman of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee.

“It’s time for the whole world, under US leadership, to issue Iran a clear ultimatum that if it does not change its ways in a clear and verifiable manner, it can expect an American attack, or at least a naval blockade,” he said.

Bushehr reactor. ‘Not necessarily the significant reactor’ (Photo: Reuters)

Steinitz refrained from mentioning Netanyahu’s stance on the matter, but said the demand for an ultimatum is being made despite certain achievements in diplomacy and other measures adopted by the international community.

He also disputed claims by the by former US ambassador to the UN John Bolton, who said Israel has “days” to attack Iran before Russia fuels its Bushehr nuclear facility.

“Bushehr is only one reactor, and not necessarily the most significant one in respect to the nuclear issue. However, Iran’s progress in enriching (uranium) and its aspirations for nuclear weapons continue and must be stopped,” the finance minister said.

source: Palestne Telegraph

By Stephen Lendman

On August 9, Israel’s self-appointed Turkel Commission, its planned whitewash, began hearings into the Freedom Flotilla massacre, a humanitarian mission delivering essential aid to besieged Gazans, Israeli officials blaming the victims, not themselves.

After the incident, Defense Minister Ehud Barak said organizers incited the attack. His deputy, Danny Ayalon, connected them to international terrorists, trying to smuggle in arms, bogusly claiming weapons were found on board the mother ship, the Mavi Marmara.

Netanyahu’s spokesman, Mark Regev accused the activists of “initiat(ing) the violence,” insisting IDF commandos “were attacked with knives, clubs, and even live fire.” Chief of Staff General Gabi Ashkenazi said soldiers were forced by violence to open fire.

He and other Israeli officials lied, clear evidence showing commandos attacked peaceful activists even before boarding, shooting others multiple times at point blank range, some in the head. Their well-planned mission was to interdict, attack, assassinate designated targets, seize the ship’s cargo, take prisoners, brutalize them, then send them to an Israeli prison for interrogations.

Straightaway, damage control cover-up began, including appointment of the Turkel Commission, Israel’s thinly veiled whitewash, hearings now underway – on day one, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu the first witness, Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs publishing his full testimony. Let the charade begin.

Deceiving no one, he absolved his government and IDF commandos, saying they:

“conducted themselves in accordance with international law….display(ing) a rare courage in fulfilling their mission and in defending themselves against a real threat to their lives. I have full confidence in our soldiers, and the State of Israel is proud of them. (My) appearance before this committee is the best evidence of the high standards by which Israel’s democracy functions.”

Democracy or hypocrisy? In Israel, as in America, for the privileged, not others; for Jews, not Arabs; why observers call Israel a failed state, a rogue one – reckless, lawless, and out-of-control, the Flotilla massacre one of many examples, murdering civilians in international waters, the Prime Minister condoning it, his above statement self-explanatory – words of a criminal, not a leader, asserting bald-faced lies, making false accusations, saying:

“Israel has always been different (from other Middle East states) – very different. Israel is a liberal, democratic country governed by the rule of law, with independent courts, a bona fide parliament, and a free press.”

False – Israel spurns democracy, the rule of law, and free expression, treating Jews one way, Palestinians another, including 1.5 million Arab citizens, denied their rights, treated like a fifth column in an alien land – persecuted, threatened, and intimidated to leave, perhaps expelled one day if they won’t.

Yet Netanyahu cited “unprecedented threats of war and terrorism,” his government “defend(ing) the security of its people and protect(ing) its democratic values, (meeting) this challenge for 62 years.”

No nations threaten Israel, the region’s only nuclear power, its history blood-drenched in violence against neighbors and Occupied Palestinians, living for 43 years under conditions Westerners can’t imagine, surviving and persisting nonetheless, determined one day to be free on their own land in their own country, reclaiming just 22% of what Israel stole, or living cooperatively in one state treating Muslims, Jews, Christians and all others equally, renouncing violence to live peacefully, what Israel won’t do and never has, its politics driven by violence, its motive – a dominant Jewish-only Greater Israel, dividing and subjugating other regional states, rendering them weak and subservient, what’s never acknowledged but true. What the Turkel Commission knows but won’t hear or discuss.

Netanyahu then bogusly called Hamas a terrorist organization, “work(ing) toward the destruction of Israel,” assisted by Iran, “also (wanting) to wipe Israel off the map….equipp(ing) Hamas with thousands of rockets, missiles, and other weapons, (transforming Gaza) into a terrorist enclave.” False, but Turkel Commission members won’t dispute it.

Asked by its members to justify military action, Netanyahu called it “a last resort, and the instructions were to conduct it with as little friction as possible.” False again. Planned weeks in advance, commandos had names and photos of activists to assassinate. Even IDF video was faked, filmed in advance on a look-alike ship, staged to comply with Israel’s version of events, the real ones entirely different, showing intent to commit premeditated murder.

Yet Netanyahu claimed Flotilla activists were terrorists, “interested with clashing with the IDF,” saying commandos had a right to defend themselves from violent attacks, the way Israel always blames victims for its crimes, in this case courageous activists delivering humanitarian aid, risking their lives and welfare doing it, knowing the risks, yet committed as are other planned flotillas coming, determined to break Israel’s illegal siege.

Haaretz Writer Gideon Levy Comments

On August 8, ahead of Netanyahu’s testimony, he headlined, “Missing the forest,” saying:

“Does anyone actually know the meaning of the term ‘Jewish state’? Wouldn’t it be better to live in a just democracy,” instead of Israel’s fake one?

Levy calls Israel’s “forest of political, governmental and institutional racism….dark and deep, (containing many) poisonous trees: Citizenship laws, loyalty laws, conversion laws, the razing of Bedouin villages in the Negev,” Israeli citizens losing their homes to make way for Jews, “and even the story of the Arab delivery man who was convicted of rape for pretending to be a Jew.”

Few see the “big picture….several times worse than the sum of its components,” more than ever today under Netanyahu, Israel’s most extremist ever leader, backed by a rogue government – militant, racist, fundamentalist, and dangerous, threatening everyone in the region.

“Defining Israel as a Jewish state condemns us to living in a racist (one). This is the new definition of Zionism,” moving relentlessly from one injustice to another, a character “embedded in the state’s most fundamental values. There is no other state” where religion is so blatantly one-sided.

“Jewish blood, whether authentic or dubious, is kosher. Other blood….is unacceptable.” Does this not reflect “a new kind of ‘racial purity….a religious ethnocracy or an apartheid state? Wouldn’t it be better to live in a just democracy? And how is it even possible” to call a Jewish state democratic, especially one defiling the rule of law, committing crimes of war and against humanity throughout its history, murdering humanitarian activists in international waters, claiming it’s self-defense, suppressing truths too disturbing to reveal under a leader even Jews should fear, Levy earlier saying Israelis should be worried.

Discussing the Flotilla attack, he cited a “chorus singing songs of falsehood and lies,” accusing activists of committing “a violent attack on Israeli sovereignty,” outrageous propaganda claiming the aid convoy violated international law, not the siege but legitimate aid trying to break it, so stopping it by cold-blooded murder is righteously justified.

“We (are now) portrayed not only as the ones that have blocked assistance, but also as fools who do everything to even further undermine our own standing,” Israel’s friend, Mario Vargas Llosa saying the “occupation was approaching its grotesque phase.”

More astute analysts know that passed long ago, reaching new heights under Netanyahu, Levy calling him “Tricky Bibi,” a pathetic outrageous extremist, preaching peace while waging war, practicing deceit, a man “betraying himself in his own words as a con artist,” worst of all a dangerous, treacherous one, endangering Jews like Arabs, Exhibit A the Flotilla massacre exposing Israel’s true face, revealing what everyone in the region fears, most of all peace and democracy advocates, notions Netanyahu and his colleagues won’t tolerate.

A Final Comment

On June 2, the UN Human Rights Council (HRC) approved formation of an international committee (like the Goldstone Commission) to probe the Flotilla attack, comprised of lawyers and international law and human rights experts. They’ll visit Israel, Turkey, Greece, and the Flotilla coalition, then present its findings in September, during the Council’s three week Geneva session. If they investigate as admirably as Judge Goldstone, expect a true account of Israeli lawlessness, exposing the real face of a rogue state.

Analysis: Israeli parliament embraces tyranny, then goes on holiday.
source: Global Post

By Matt Beynon Rees

Reuven Rivlin, speaker of the Israeli parliament, in 2007. Last week, Rivlin called Israeli lawmakers “pathetic.”

JERUSALEM — Israelis like to point out that theirs is the only democracy in a Middle East otherwise dominated by repressive regimes. Given the performance of legislators in the parliamentary session that just ended here, you might be forgiven for asking: with democracy like this, who needs dictators?

The Knesset, Israel’s parliament, broke up last week for its summer vacation. The speaker of the Knesset, Reuven Rivlin, sent lawmakers on their way with an interview in an Israeli newspaper in which he described them as “pathetic.” Several human rights organizations slammed as dangerous to democracy more than a dozen bills that passed preliminary readings. The most abiding image of the session was surely the gang of right-wing legislators heckling and threatening a female Arab parliamentarian who had been aboard a Turkish ship intercepted by Israeli commandos en route for Gaza.

In a letter to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last week, Debbie Gild-Hayo, director of policy advocacy at the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, complained of “14 dangerous draft bills” introduced to the departing parliament.

“The Knesset is supposed to be a bastion of democracy,” Gild-Hayo wrote. “It seems an increasing number of Members of Knesset believe that their job is to silence those who do not share their views.”

The most headlines were devoted to a confrontation between conservative legislators and Haneen Zoabi, the female Arab lawmaker. Zoabi was aboard one of the Turkish boats intercepted May 31 by Israeli troops, which resulted in nine dead among the activists on board. They were protesting the Israeli blockade of Gaza by trying to run it.

The Knesset voted two weeks ago to suspend Zoabi some parliamentary privileges. She called this an act of “revenge” for her participation in the seaborne protest. A right-wing Israeli lawmaker brandished an enlarged facsimile of an Iranian passport with Zoabi’s photo in it. (Zoabi has suggested that Iran should have nuclear weapons to balance Israel’s arsenal.)

Speaker Rivlin attacked the behavior of the legislators who tried to silence Zoabi. “We, as members of the Knesset, were chosen due to our beliefs,” he said. “I believe that everyone should have the right to speak their minds, even if it hurts me.”

It isn’t, of course, just the protest at sea that upsets conservative lawmakers. Zoabi’s position on the future of Israel would be enough to raise their ire. She has declared herself in favor of an independent Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza. Alongside it, she calls for a reconfigured entity in what’s now Israel, which would be a binational state of all its citizens, rather than a Jewish state. In other words, the widely accepted two-state solution — except that neither state is Israel.

Zoabi is not the only Israeli passport holder whose loyalty is questioned by the Knesset. David Rotem of the nationalist Israel Our Home Party sponsored a bill that would require a loyalty oath for all citizens. Many among the 20 percent of Israelis who are Arab would balk at such an oath. Certainly their political leaders and many Jewish human rights groups do.

A National Union lawmaker put through a bill denying state funding for Israeli filmmakers who criticize the state. Israeli academics who support international moves for a boycott of the country’s universities would be sanctioned under a bill drawn up by a member of the ruling Likud Party.

Human rights groups are the target of another bill (from a member of the supposedly centrist Kadima Party) which would deny funding and legal status to organizations which help the prosecution of Israeli politicians and soldiers by foreign institutions. (That’s aimed at groups which highlight alleged war crimes by Israel, a practice that has led to fears Israeli leaders might be arrested in Europe.)

It isn’t all bad, of course. Leftist legislators passed a bill that would recycle shower, bath and laundry water, to save on drinking water in a country seemingly under permanent drought conditions. Restrictions were lifted from egg donation to childless couples, and it looks as though health insurance may be extended to the children of illegal immigrants and refugees.

Also, in a move that ought to be highlighted in the Vatican, the Knesset passed a bill allowing for the prosecution of rabbis who sexually abuse youngsters over whom they have spiritual authority.

If only the Knesset members cared as much for the abuse of temporal authority.

source: Prophecy News Watch

A report in a Jordanian newspaper suggesting the Palestinians want to see an international force deployed along the borders of any future Palestinian state has sent ripples around the diplomatic world over the weekend.

The newspaper Al-Ghad quoted Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas as saying that he will enter direct peace talks with Israel if the Israelis accept in principle the deployment of foreign troops around the borders of what are presently referred to by the international community as the occupied territories.

Some journalists are suggesting this idea was already discussed and agreed during talks between Abbas and former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, before the negotiations ended in December 2008.

THE IMPERATIVE

Incumbent Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wants direct talks to commence as soon as possible. He is facing a possible domestic coalition crisis if there are no face-to-face negotiations prior to September 26 when Israel’s 10-month partial settlement freeze terminates.

Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman warned on Monday that the moratorium on building in the West Bank will not be extended. Netanyahu knows that if he ignores Lieberman, several hawkish parties may quit his government. As a result he wants the direct talks to be in place before September 26.

However, Abbas is insisting that he receive something concrete from Israel before committing to sitting in the same room.

Meanwhile, analysts and journalists have already largely ruled out several possible goodwill gestures that Netanyahu would have to make, right now the idea of the deployment of an international force is gaining momentum.

ROLE FOR NATO?

There is some media speculation that earlier this month Abbas has suggested NATO take on the role. He is said to have formulated the idea in cooperation with the U.S. envoy to the Middle East and former senator George Mitchell.

The reason the Palestinians are suggesting the deployment of such a force is that they hope it would answer Israel’s security concerns about a Palestinian state and at the same time guaranteeing that Israel cannot deploy its soldiers on what would be the Palestinian border with Jordan.

Israel continually raises its concern that a Palestinian state could become a platform for militants to launch attacks against the Jewish state. Should there be no oversight of the Palestinian- Jordanian border, unwanted elements could enter the Palestinian areas unimpeded, Israel said.

In order to allay Israeli fears about the competence of such an international force, the model would have to be chosen very carefully.

Israel would not be able to accept a United Nations deployment akin to UN Interim Force in Lebanon, according to Shlomo Brom, director of the Program on Israel-Palestinian Relations at The Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv University.

“The UN is a political body and we know how it works and who has power there. We know about the problems Israel has with this political body,” Brom said.

Speaking to Xinhua on Monday he proposed two alternatives that he said could prove satisfactory to Israel.

The first is the model of the Multinational Force and Observers (MFO) responsible for peacekeeping in the Sinai Peninsula, which was established in the wake of the 1979 peace treaty between Egypt and Israel. The reason this model works, he said, is that, as the MFO puts it, “the parties negotiated a protocol in 1981 establishing the MFO ‘as an alternative’ to the envisioned UN force.”

The MFO’s work includes operation of checkpoints, reconnaissance patrols and observation posts. The Rome-based organization was established specifically for this purpose.

Brom’s other suggestion for a workable solution fits glove in hand with that of Abbas.

“That’s where a credible, international organization that can do it agrees to take on the mission. Today there’s only one that can do so and that is NATO,” he said.

Here the UN can play a role, with its Security Council mandating NATO to perform the task, giving the mission broad international legitimacy, he added.

NETANYAHU’S LIKELY REACTION

On the question of whether Netanyahu would accept this request from Abbas, Brom said it is hard to know exactly what Netanyahu wants, but previous Israeli administrations have been prepared to accept such a proposal.

Gadi Wolfsfeld, a professor of political science at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, believes Netanyahu would not accept the deployment of an international force. In his opinion, Israel’s experience with UNIFIL has not been good.

In the event that Israeli troops were in hot pursuit of terrorists, Netanyahu would not want to have to deal with a NATO or similar force while trying to capture a terror cell, Wolfsfeld said.

If the Jerusalem academic is correct and Netanyahu does not agree to this condition from Abbas, that could leave a serious question mark over the fate of direct talks and indeed the entire peace process. The same can be said for any other terms that Netanyahu has already or will reject.

“As far as I can see unless there is a breakthrough on some major issues there aren’t going to be direct talks,” Wolfsfeld said.

He sees the Americans and the Israelis on the one hand calling for direct talks, while the Palestinians and the Egyptians are insisting they want to see Israeli movement before agreeing to enter a face-to-face parley.

With the September deadline drawing ever closer, Wolfsfeld does not see anything in the offing and even if direct talks do begin, they could well break off pretty quickly should Israel resume building in the West Bank, he said.

The truth is that at this stage no one outside of a handful of Israelis, Palestinians, Americans and Egyptians really know what the actual picture is. Hints, leaks, speculations and trial balloons on the part of Palestinian and Israeli officials are only succeeding in muddying the waters.

While much of the analysis is very negative, it is still the case that the parties are talking to one another, albeit indirectly, and there is a chance that direct talks could take place secretly to try to work out some form of compromise formula that could then take direct negotiations into the public eye.

source: Reuters
July 30, 2010 21:58 ET
By Nidal al-Mughrabi

GAZA (Reuters) – Israel carried out air strikes on targets in the Gaza Strip on Friday after a rocket fired from the Palestinian territory exploded in the city of Ashkelon, witnesses said.

The air strikes hit a training camp in Gaza City used by the Islamist group Hamas, which rules the enclave, and smuggling tunnels along Gaza’s southern border with Egypt. Another air strike struck an empty caravan in the central Gaza Strip.

Palestinian medical workers said four people were lightly wounded from debris in Gaza City. The Israeli military had no immediate comment.

Earlier in the day, Palestinian militants in Gaza fired a rocket into Ashkelon on Israel’s Mediterranean coast, blowing out the windows of an apartment block and damaging parked cars in a residential area of the city.

No one was injured in the blast. But the attack ended over a year of calm for the Israeli city closest to Gaza.

A police spokesman said the rocket was a 122mm, Chinese-made Grad, with a heavier payload and greater range than the crude, homemade rockets Gaza militants were launching daily until Israel’s three-week military offensive into Gaza 18 months ago.

“As you see, hundreds of people live here. It’s just luck that no one was killed,” said Ashkelon Mayor Benny Vaknin.

Ashkelon, with a population of 125,000, lies on the coast about 12 km (7 miles) north of the Gaza Strip. The mayor said it was the most serious attack on the city since Israel wound up its offensive in January 2009, largely ending Gaza rocket fire.

“Israel takes the firing on Ashkelon very seriously,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Friday.

Israeli media reported that the Jewish state had lodged a protest with the United Nations for an attack targeting civilians in violation of international law.

In a statement, U.N. Special Coordinator Robert Serry said “indiscriminate rocket fire against civilians is completely unacceptable and constitutes a terrorist attack.”

Hamas must not allow militant violence to undermine progress in talks between Israel and the Palestinians, he said.

PEACE TALKS

No group in Gaza claimed responsibility for Friday’s attack.

Hamas has said it is trying to stop militants from firing at Israel, but smaller groups have continued to launch rockets.

Friday’s violence coincided with diplomatic efforts to persuade Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas that he should advance from indirect negotiations to direct talks with Israel in pursuit of a Middle East peace pact — a course that Hamas and other militant and armed Islamist groups in Gaza oppose.

Abbas, branded by Hamas as a pawn of the West, has been negotiating with Netanyahu indirectly for two months via a U.S. mediator and is under U.S. pressure to upgrade to face-to-face talks before the end of September.

On Thursday, Arab League foreign ministers meeting in Cairo gave Abbas the green light to engage in direct peace talks with Israel when he feels the time is right.

Hamas rejected the decision, calling it a “political sin.”

The attack on Ashkelon also coincided with a demand from the U.N. Human Rights Committee in Geneva that Israel lift its military blockade of Gaza and let an independent fact-finding mission investigate its raid on an aid flotilla on May 31 in which nine activists were killed by Israeli commandos.

Israel has since eased restrictions on imports of food and consumer goods to Gaza but insists that the naval blockade must stay in place to help prevent shipment of weapons, such as Grad missiles, to hostile groups in the enclave.

There has been sporadic, and erratic, rocket fire from Gaza since Israel’s Gaza offensive, mostly at smaller Israeli towns near the border, occasionally causing damage but no casualties.

Israeli forces usually respond by conducting air strikes on targets in Gaza, mainly smuggling tunnels under the border with Egypt used to bring in everything from staples to weapons.

(Additional reporting by Amir Cohen in Ashkelon; Writing by Douglas Hamilton and Joseph Nasr; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

Speaking during a reception for outgoing Israeli UN envoy Shalev, U.S. envoy Susan Rice says that Washington remains fully and firmly committed to Israel’s security.

source: Haaretz

The United States will continue to maintain Israel’s military advantage as well as protect it in the diplomatic arena, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice said Wednesday, adding that the American commitment to Israel’s security was “not negotiable.”
Susan Rice

U.S. UN envoy Susan Rice
Photo by: AP

Speaking during a reception for Israeli Ambassadors Gabriela Shalev and Daniel Carmon, held by the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations in New York, Rice said the “United States of America remains fully and firmly committed to the peace and security of the State of Israel.”

“That commitment spans generations and political parties. It is not negotiable, and it never will be,” Rice added, saying the United States would “continue to strengthen Israel’s qualitative military advantage so that Israel can always defend itself, by itself, against any threat or possible combination of threats.”

The U.S. UN envoy also reiterated the U.S. conviction to defend Israel in the diplomatic arena, saying that, “as U.S. President Barack Obama] pledged, we will continue U.S. efforts to combat all international attempts to challenge the legitimacy of Israel—including and especially at the United Nations.”

“Our two countries have a long and extraordinary friendship, going back to the moment that President Truman made the United States the very first country to recognize the State of Israel—11 minutes after it declared its independence,” Rice said.

Referring to recent attempts to jumpstart the stalling peace process The U.S. envoy to the UN also said that in the wake of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ” recent meeting with President Obama, we will continue to work together to seek a lasting and comprehensive peace, that meets Israel’s security needs and creates a viable, sovereign Palestinian state.”

On the subject of the outgoing Israeli ambassador to the UN, Rice praised Shalev’s work, saying that while “being the American Ambassador to the United Nations isn’t always easy…being Israeli’s Ambassador to the United Nations is never easy.”

“But Gabi and I had the opportunity to work closely together on a series of important issues, from dealing with the deeply flawed Goldstone Report to seeing through the passage by the Security Council of the toughest sanctions resolution to date against Iran,” Rice said, adding that Shalev had been “a lioness in defense of Israel’s security and its legitimacy.”

Shalev, Rice said, worked tirelessly to ensure that Israel has the same rights and enjoys the same responsibilities as any other UN member state.”

Rice also went to compliment the Israeli envoy, comparing her to other Israeli greats who had served as Israel’s UN envoys, such as “Abba Eban, Chaim Herzog, and a scrappy up-and-comer named Bibi Netanyahu.”

“But I believe when the history books are written, in all honesty, historians will rank Gabriella Shalev as among the best representatives that Israel has ever had at the United Nations for her dedication, her skill, and her extraordinary heart,” Rice said at the Conference of Presidents reception.

The American ambassador to the UN also pointed out a reception Shalev hosted in honor of Israel’s independence, one that was attended by “many, many ambassadors, from all over the world were there”

“And they were there not only out of respect for Israel but deep and abiding friendship for Gabriella,” Rice said, adding that Shalev was her “kind of diplomat,” saying she was “smart, she’s creative, and above all, she always plays it straight.”

Israeli Premier Benjamin Netanyahu has been met by protests on his visit to the White House for talks on the Middle East peace process.

Protesters chanted slogans against Israel’s crippling siege on the Gaza Strip.

Netanyahu’s visit to Washington comes shortly after the US called for direct talks between Israel and the Palestinian authority.

Acting Palestinian Authority Chief Mahmoud Abbas has ruled out direct talks unless Israel clarifies its stance on East al-Quds’ (Jerusalem) frontiers and security.

Among the protesters are “True Torah Jews” — an organization dedicated to informing the world that not all Jews support the Zionist state of Israel.