An embattled UN rights expert who probes Israel’s conduct towards Palestinians on Tuesday rejected calls to step down, saying his opponents were trying to silence his criticism of the Jewish state by labelling him anti-Semitic.
“I don’t intend to resign, and there doesn’t seem to be any formal initiative that is seeking my dismissal,” Richard Falk told reporters, a day after calling for an international investigation of Israel’s treatment of Palestinian prisoners.
Falk, an 82-year-old American who is an emeritus law professor at Princeton University, has been the UN Human Rights Council’s monitor for the Palestinian territories since 2008.
He rejected claims of anti-Semitism, saying they were “hurtful” and “completely malicious”, given that he is Jewish himself.
“It makes it appear as if criticising Israel is tantamount to what everybody agrees to be objectionable, which is anti-Semitism. I’m not willing to be intimidated in this way,” he said.
“The attack on the messenger is a way of diverting attention from the message.”
Falk has repeatedly locked horns with Israel, the United States, Canada and some human rights groups for positions including labelling Israel’s 2008 offensive against Gaza a war crime and urging a boycott of companies helping Israel’s settlement drive in the Palestinian territories.
Washington has said he should quit his UN role, which like other rights monitors at the world body he holds on an unpaid, voluntary basis.
Falk has also come under fire for alleged anti-Israel bias from UN Watch, a lobby group affiliated with the American Jewish Committee.
In April, Canada asked the rights council for Falk’s departure after UN Watch highlighted comments he had made that could be interpreted as linking the Boston marathon bombing to Washington’s support of Israel.
Falk said his remarks were “spun” by opponents, that he had condemned the Boston attack as “terrorist criminality”, and that his goal was to examine the roots of antipathy towards US policies.
“I’ve criticised the US frequently, and I don’t feel I’m anti-American,” he said.
“Why do I keep getting into trouble? It’s because of my role in trying to speak honestly about the situation that Palestinians are facing under this condition of prolonged occupation,” he added.
South African Jews and Muslims meet at the South African ambassador's residence in Washington
Partnership between Jews and Muslims in South Africa flourished when both communities joined forces in the struggle to end the apartheid regime. But as the common cause uniting them was resolved in the early 1990s, Jews and Muslims, both minorities in South Africa, grew apart and allowed the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to become a wedge issue and a source of ongoing tension.
Now, leaders of the two communities are in Washington are trying to find ways, thousands of miles away from their homeland, to rebuild the bridges.
“The greatest challenge we’ve encountered is South Africa,” said Rabbi Marc Schneier, who is the founder and president of the Foundation for Ethnic Understanding, the organization that put together the joint mission of Muslim and Jewish leaders to the United States. This challenge, which he sees as being more difficult than in other parts of the world in which the group has been trying to promote interfaith dialogue, is made up of a community of 70,000 Jews and a Muslim population 10 times its size, both of which have been far behind the United States in terms of interfaith cooperation. The reason, leaders of both communities agree, has to do more with the Middle East than with relations on the ground in Africa.
“Obviously, Israel is a huge issue,” said Rabbi Ron Hendler, who represented South Africa’s chief rabbi in the mission to Washington. “Many in the Muslim community feel very, very strongly about the Israeli-Palestinian issue, and many in the Jewish community are very Zionist.”
Sitting around a breakfast table at the residence of Ebrahim Rasool, South Africa’s ambassador to the U.S. and one the country’s leading Muslim activists, leaders of the two communities expressed their eagerness to move closer. Rasool, who co-founded the Call of Islam, a Muslim organization formed to fight apartheid, told the Forward that he would like to see the discussion about Jewish-Muslim relations begin not in the founding of the State of Israel in 1948, but rather in 1492, when Christians expelled Jews and Muslims from Spain, a place in which both communities flourished together. Like other activists, Rasool lamented the break in Muslim-Jewish cooperation once South Africa transitioned beyond its racist past. “We all cooperated in fighting apartheid. Our humanity forced us to reach our common values,” he said, “but as soon as that evil was pushed down, we allowed ourselves to retreat to the issue of Israel-Palestine.”
Speaking to two dozens activists gathered at his home, Rasool said that in order to build bridges, both communities need to “divest from the exclusive victimhood.” He quoted South African leader Nelson Mandela, who “knew that victims can’t make peace.”
In practical terms, organizers hope the short trip to Washington can inspire South African Jews and Muslims to follow some of the models set in the United States for interfaith dialogue, including the idea of twinning synagogues and mosques, the flagship program of the Foundation for Ethnic Understanding.
The organization has long sought to spread the idea of interfaith relations beyond the United States and has already conducted programs in Europe and Latin America. This mission, which alongside delegates from South Africa also included representatives from Australia and from New Zealand, is the first attempt to reach out to Jews and Muslims in the Southern Hemisphere.
“South Africa is such a deeply prejudiced society,” said David Jacobson, executive director of the South African Jewish Board of Deputies, the community’s umbrella organization. But it is this deep divide that gave participants hope that just as South Africa overcame its racial tensions, it can build bridges between Jews and Muslims. “If we can do it in South Africa, we can be a beacon to the world,” Jacobson said. – Jewish Daily Forward
The Toronto city council has no legal grounds to deny grant money to Pride over the gay festival’s refusal to ban the group Queers Against Israeli Apartheid, Toronto’s chief lawyer has told Mayor Rob Ford’s executive committee.
In a confidential and frank April report obtained by the Star, city solicitor Anna Kinastowski says she “cannot recommend” that council require Pride to ban the phrase “Israeli apartheid” as a condition of receiving taxpayer funds.
Kinastowski writes: “The term ‘Israeli Apartheid’ does not violate the city’s human rights policy, does not appear to violate the Ontario Human Rights Code, and does not appear to constitute ‘hate’ as the (Supreme) Court has interpreted it and would therefore appear to fall within the realm of potentially ‘offensive’ yet protected speech.”
The committee will again discuss Queers Against Israeli Apartheid (QuAIA) on Tuesday during a debate on the city’s anti-discrimination policy for grant recipients. Pride’s annual grant — about $124,000 last year — will be debated by council in June, only 10 days before the festival begins.
Pro-Israel councillors have repeatedly and unsuccessfully sought to find a way to tweak city rules in a way that might prevent the activist group from marching in the annual Pride parade. Councillor James Pasternak, who does not sit on the executive, has even floated the idea of offering Pride a “diversity bonus” for excluding QuAIA.
Citing a February Supreme Court decision, Kinastowski also warns against a 2012 suggestion from the executive to change the anti-discrimination policy to prohibit “anything which shows a lack of respect for all persons.”
Kinastowski, cautioning against imposing “an overbroad standard for ‘discrimination,’ ” says such a policy would be “unlikely to withstand a court challenge” on freedom-of-speech grounds.
“That’s what we know. I mean, it’s not a secret. Every single report that comes out says we don’t violate any hate laws or anything like that,” said QuAIA member Tony Souza. “We’re not breaking any laws, and we certainly don’t ‘hate’ anybody. We just want justice in Palestine.”
“I don’t think the question is a legal question — I think the question is one of morality and divisiveness,” said Avi Benlolo, chief executive of the pro-Israel Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies. “And if we want to live in a pluralistic society where we demonstrate respect for one another, then there’s just morality. . . . We’re just saying to the city we don’t think this is socially acceptable.” – Toronto Star
Russia has sent advanced antiship cruise missiles to Syria, a move that illustrates the depth of its support for the Syrian government led by President Bashar al-Assad, American officials said Thursday.
Russia has previously provided a version of the missiles, called Yakhonts, to Syria. But those delivered recently are outfitted with an advanced radar that makes them more effective, according to American officials who are familiar with classified intelligence reports and would only discuss the shipment on the basis of anonymity.
Unlike Scud and other longer-range surface-to-surface missiles that the Assad government has used against opposition forces, the Yakhont antiship missile system provides the Syrian military a formidable weapon to counter any effort by international forces to reinforce Syrian opposition fighters by imposing a naval embargo, establishing a no-fly zone or carrying out limited airstrikes.
“It enables the regime to deter foreign forces looking to supply the opposition from the sea, or from undertaking a more active role if a no-fly zone or shipping embargo were to be declared at some point,” said Nick Brown, editor in chief of IHS Jane’s International Defense Review. “It’s a real ship killer.”
Jeffrey White, a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and a former senior American intelligence official, said Syria’s strengthened arsenal would “tend to push Western or allied naval activity further off the coast” and was also “a signal of the Russian commitment to the Syrian government.”
The disclosure of the delivery comes as Russia and the United States are planning to convene an international conference that is aimed at ending the brutal conflict in Syria, which has killed more than 70,000. That conference is expected to be held in early June and to include representatives of the Assad government and the Syrian opposition.
Secretary of State John Kerry has repeatedly said that it is the United States’ hope to change Mr. Assad’s “calculations” about his ability to hold on to power so that he will allow negotiations for a political solution to the conflict. Mr. Kerry indicated that he had raised the issue of Russian arms deliveries to Syria during his recent visit to Moscow, but declined to provide details.
“I think we’ve made it crystal clear we would prefer that Russia was not supplying assistance,” he said. “That hasn’t changed.”
American officials have been concerned that the flow of Russian and Iranian arms to Syria will buttress Mr. Assad’s apparent belief that he can prevail militarily.
“This weapons transfer is obviously disappointing and will set back efforts to promote the political transition that is in the best interests of the Syrian people and the region,” Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee, the senior Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee, said in a statement on Thursday night. “There is now greater urgency for the U.S. to step up assistance to the moderate opposition forces who can lead Syria after Assad.”
Senator Robert Menendez, Democrat of New Jersey and the committee chairman, added in a statement, “Russia is offering cover to a despotic ruler and defending a bankrupt regime.”
Syria ordered the coastal defense version of the Yakhont system from Russia in 2007 and received the first batteries in early 2011, according to Jane’s. The initial order covered 72 missiles, 36 launcher vehicles, and support equipment, and the systems have been displayed in the country.
The batteries are mobile, which makes them more difficult to attack. Each consists of missiles, a three-missile launcher and a command-and-control vehicle.
The missiles are about 22 feet long, carry either a high-explosive or armor-piercing warhead, and have a range of about 180 miles, according to Jane’s.
They can be steered to a target’s general location by longer-range radars, but each missile has its own radar to help evade a ship’s defenses and home in as it approaches its target.
Two senior American officials said that the most recent shipment contained missiles with a more advanced guidance system than earlier shipments.
Russia has longstanding interests in Syria, including a naval base at the Mediterranean port of Tartus.
As the Syria crisis has escalated, Russia has gradually augmented its naval presence in the region. In January, more than two dozen Russian warships sailed to the Black and Mediterranean Seas to take part in what the Defense Ministry said was to be the country’s largest naval exercise in decades, testing the ships’ ability to deploy outside Russian waters.
A month later, after the Black Sea exercises ended, the Russian Defense Ministry news agency said that four large landing vessels were on their way to operations off the coast of Syria.
“Based on the results of the navy exercises in the Black and Mediterranean seas,” the ministry said at the time, “the ministry leadership has taken a decision to continue combat duty by Russian warships in the Mediterranean.”
Israel plans to declare legal four unauthorized West Bank settler outposts, a court document showed on Thursday, days before U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry returns to the region to try to restart peace talks.
Israel has been sending mixed signals on its internationally condemned settlement policy as Kerry pursues efforts to revive negotiations Palestinians quit in 2010 in anger over Israeli settlement building on occupied land they seek for a state.
In a reply to a Supreme Court petition by the Israeli anti-settlement group Peace Now, the government said it had taken steps in recent weeks to authorize retroactively four West Bank outposts built without official permission.
“The intention to legalize outposts as new settlements is no less than a slap in the face of Secretary Kerry’s new process and is blatant reassurance to settler interests,” Peace Now said in a statement.
A spokesman for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declined to comment on the government’s response to the court.
Most the world deems all Israeli settlements in the West Bank, which Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East war, as illegal. Israel disputes this and distinguishes between about 120 government-authorized settlements and dozens of outposts built by settlers without permission.
Last week, Peace Now and Israeli media reports said Netanyahu has been quietly curbing some settlement activity by freezing tenders for new housing projects, in an apparent effort to help the U.S. drive to renew peace talks.
But Peace Now said at the time construction already under way was continuing, and Israel announced last week that it had given preliminary approval for 300 new homes in Beit El settlement as part of a plan Netanyahu announced a year ago.
Kerry, due to meet Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas separately next week, has said he believes “the parties are serious” about finding a way back into talks.
The main issues that would have to be resolved in a peace agreement include the borders between Israel and a Palestinian state, the future of Jewish settlements, the fate of Palestinian refugees and the status of Jerusalem.
Some 500,000 Israelis have settled in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, which was also captured from Jordan in 1967. About 2.7 million Palestinians live in those areas. – Reuters
The Netherlands has asked its retail chains to label Israeli products made in areas beyond the 1949 ceasefire line, including Judea, Samaria, eastern Jerusalem and the Golan Heights.
The Netherlands is the second European country, after the UK, to introduce this kind of labeling system.
However, there will be no punitive measures for those retailers who choose not to comply. Also, it will not be illegal to import products from these areas and only labeling of fresh fruit, vegetables, wine, honey, olive oil, fish, meat, chicken, eggs and cosmetics will be affected.
The decision comes following the EU recommendation for its member states to implement an economic boycott of Jewish communities in those areas.
From Monday Palestinians travelling to day jobs into central Israel from the West Bank will be urged to board special buses at a checkpoint instead of the regular services used by Israelis.
The scheme was drawn up by the Israeli transport ministry after residents in two Jewish settlements complained that Palestinians travellers on the Trans-Samaria road – also known as Highway 5 – between the West Bank and Tel Aviv were a potential threat.
There were also reports of overcrowding and fights between Israeli and Palestinian passengers.
The transport ministry insisted the move was “designed to improve the service for Palestinians entering Israel”.
But some human rights groups called it “blatant racism” that resembled South African-style apartheid.
“They are institutionalising segregated services for Jews and non-Jews,” said Ofra Yeshua-Lyth, an activist with Women For Civil Disobedience, an Israeli-Palestinian campaign group. “Many people don’t class the Israeli situation as apartheid because for a long time, Israel refrained from the characteristics of petty apartheid, like separate roads, cafés and buses. This bus situation is a step in the direction of petty apartheid because people are being segregated in their daily activities.”
Avner Ovadia, a transport ministry spokesperson, said there was no official ban on Palestinian workers travelling on public buses.
“Furthermore, the transport ministry is not authorised to stop any passenger travelling on these bus routes,” he said.
But drivers with the Afikim bus company, which operates the Trans-Samaria route, said Palestinians attempting to use the regular services would be pointed towards a different bus.
“We are not allowed to refuse service and we will not order anyone to get off the bus, but from what we were told … there will be checks at
the checkpoint, and Palestinians will be asked to board their own buses,” one driver told Ynet, an Israeli news website.
Flyers in Arabic advertising the new service have been distributed at bus stops near Palestinian villages in the West Bank.
Yirsael Maidad, a spokesman for the Jewish Settlers Council, said Israelis felt justified in refusing to share buses with Palestinians because of Israel’s experience with suicide bombers.
“Since we ride buses with Arabs every day in Israel, it’s not a racist thing but for some strange reason, Arabs blow themselves up in buses and Israelis find that very unnerving,” he said. “If you were to ask some bright young radical, he would say forcing Arabs to ride Israeli uses would be a form of colonialism. Having their own buses should be very much welcomed as part of a state-building process.”
Campaigners say troops began ordering Palestinians with Israeli work permits off buses after settlers made complaints last November.
After witnessing one such incident, Ms Yeshua-Lyth lodged a report with Makhsom Watch, an Israeli group that monitors check point incidents. She described how soldiers herded around 30 Palestinian workers from a bus travelling from Tel Aviv to the West Bank.
“The soldier/officer roars: “Udrub!” (Move!) And then: “Sit on your butts! On your butts!,” she wrote. “They are then marched to the terminal fence and made to stand along it in a line, then to sit on the cold ground and wait.”
When the men asked why they had been taken from the bus, they were told “You’re not allowed to be on Highway 5” and “You’re not allowed to use public transportation at all”.
Palestinians say they have been forced to walk several miles to their homes or use expensive taxi services since the policy of removing them from buses began. An estimated 29,000 Palestinians travel to jobs in Israel every day, according to official figures. – http://www.telegraph.co.uk
Israel has boycotted the UN human rights forum over fears of scrutiny of its treatment of residents of the occupied territories. Israel is now the first state in history to win a deferment of the periodical review of its human rights record.
Tel Aviv has refused to send a delegation on Tuesday to the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva for the Universal Periodic Review procedure where UN member states have their human rights record evaluated every four years.
Israel’s cooperation with the council stopped last March after the UN set up a committee to inspect the effects of the Israeli settlements on Palestinians.
Israel which earlier accused the United Nations of anti-Israel bias reiterated its stance, recalling that the council has passed more resolutions against Israel than all other countries combined.
“After a series of votes and statements and incidents we have decided to suspend our working relations with that body,” Yigal Palmor, Israeli foreign ministry spokesman, told the Financial Times. “I can confirm that there is no change in that policy.”
“There have been more resolutions condemning Israel than the rest of the world put together,” an Israeli government official said on Tuesday. “It’s not a fair game – it’s not even a game.”
Following the Israeli decision, the council has decided to postpone its review until no later than November.
The Council president has also called on the body to adopt a draft response to an unprecedented move by Israel.
Egypt’s representative meanwhile has warned that a “soft” approach would create a dangerous precedent and leave “a wide-open door for more cases of non-cooperation,” the AFP quoted.
Activist groups lash out against Israel’s disregard for international law.
“By not participating in its own review, Israel is setting a dangerous precedent,” Eilis Ni Chaithnia, an advocacy officer with al-Haq, a human rights organisation based in Ramallah has told the FT. “This is the first time any country has made a determined effort not to attend.”
Others thought that the council’s decision to delay gives Tel Aviv the opportunity to make amends. Eight Israeli human rights organizations issued a statement saying, “Israel now has a golden opportunity to reverse its decision not to participate,” adding “it is legitimate for Israel to express criticism of the work of the Council and its recommendations, but Israel should do so through engagement with the Universal Periodic Review, as it has done in previous sessions,” JTA quotes.
The investigation into Israel’s Human Rights record began in 2007, but last year the UN started to pay particular attention to Israel’s activities in the West Bank.
The probe at the time prompted an angry response from the country’s leader.
“This is a hypocritical council with an automatic majority against Israel,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said.
Senior Israeli officials announced last month that Israel does not intend to cancel plans to accelerate settlement construction.
Netanyahu himself said in an interview with Israeli Channel 2 last month that the disputed area “is not occupied territory” and that he “does not care” what the UN thinks about it.
Around 500,000 Israelis and 2.4 million Palestinians live in the West Bank and in East Jerusalem, areas that, along with Gaza, the Palestinians want for a future state.
The United Nations regards all Israeli settlements in the West Bank as illegal. Tel Aviv last attended the human rights review in 2008. Israel is not a member of the Council, which is comprised of 47 UN member states. – RT
“Victory” has never smelled so sweet — or at least that’s what they would have you believe at the shop selling Gaza’s newest fragrance named M75 after a long-range Hamas rocket.
It’s a bold move by the “Stay Stylish” shop in Gaza City’s upscale Rimal neighbourhood, but one that store owner Abu Ahmed expects to pay dividends.
“We came up with the name M75 for a new perfume in the shop as a symbol of the rocket of the resistance, and the victory of Gaza,” he told AFP.
The M75 rocket was among several long-range missiles Gaza militant groups fired into Israel during an eight-day conflict last month, which ended with a ceasefire between Hamas and the Jewish state.
The conflict killed at least 174 Palestinians, including more than 100 civilians, and six Israelis, four civilians and two soldiers, but many in Gaza felt Hamas emerged from the violence victorious.
The goal of the perfume is “to promote and market our products, and its only natural to use something like a victory to market our goods,” added Abu Ahmed, who declined to give his full name.
“We want to send a fast message to people about this perfume to market it as quickly and easily as possible,” he said.
“People are proud that we were able to hit Tel Aviv and Jerusalem with this M75 rocket and this name is much talked about and liked by people here.”
The fragrance, available both for men and women, has been successful so far, despite the fairly hefty price tag of 50 Israeli shekels ($13, euros), which the manufacturers justify on the basis of the perfume’s “luxurious” components.
The success, according to Abu Ahmed, has already inspired his fellow Gaza entrepreneurs, whom he expects to slap the M75 label on a whole range of new products.
The M75 rocket, among hundreds that Hamas and other groups fired into Israel during the eight-day conflict, appears to have captured the public’s imagination in Gaza, where it played a commanding role during Hamas’s 25th anniversary celebrations this weekend.
An enormous mock-up of the rocket had pride of place on a stage where the festivities took place, and Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal — in Gaza for the first time ever — emerged from a door in the fake missile to give an address. – France24
France has announced it will vote in favor of recognition of Palestine as a non-member observer state at the UN General Assembly later this week.
The French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius told parliament that France “will respond ‘yes’” when the issue is put on a vote at the UN General Assembly.
France, a permanent UN Security Council member, is the first European country to speak in favor of elevating Palestinian status from an observer to a nonmember observer state.
The United States, which opposes the Palestinian bid for statehood, publicly disagreed with France’s move. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said Paris’s decision would not change the US assessment of the Palestinian action as a “mistake.”
“With regard to France and any other countries, we obviously disagree with our oldest ally on this issue,” she told reporters. “They know that we disagree with them. But it’s their sovereign decision.”
The Austrian foreign ministry also said Tuesday it would back the Palestinian bid and claimed that more than half of the European Union’s 27 member states would vote for the proposal, AFP reported.
Meanwhile, the UK says it is ready to support the PA in their current bid to become a non-member observer state if the Palestinians comply with three conditions, The Telegraph reports.
British Foreign Secretary William Hague allegedly requested Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, pledge not to join the International Criminal Court after its UN status is upgraded, not to apply for full membership at the UN and to resume peace negotiations with Israel without any preconditions.
At the moment the PA refuses to negotiate with Israel until it halts the expansion of Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem territories.
On Thursday, the Palestinians will officially ask the assembly to upgrade their status. Earlier the Palestinian Authority said it expected the assembly to vote two-thirds in favor of granting the PA non-member status, seeing the move as an important step toward a two-state solution with Israel.
Israel strongly opposes the bid. Previously Tel Aviv said it objects to any wording the PA would bring for a vote at the assembly.
But as Israeli authorities were unable to block the bid they have changed their stance and now are trying to soften the wording, Haaretz reported on Tuesday citing a senior Israeli official.
The article states Tel Aviv and Washington are working together to change the document.
Last year, Washington used its veto power to block a Palestinian bid for statehood at the UN Security Council. A similar move is unlikely in this case as there are no vetoes in the General Assembly. – RT
Hillary Clinton and Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton vowed to support Israeli security on Tuesday while calling for a quick de-escalation of Gaza fighting that raged on unabated amid signs of an emerging truce deal.
The top US diplomat flew in for talks with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as efforts continued across the region to refine an elusive accord to end a week of violence that has cost 136 Palestinian and five Israeli lives.
The Israeli army confirmed its first fatality from rocket attacks on Tuesday, and a defence ministry official was also killed, while another missile landed harmlessly just south of Jerusalem on a day of continued strikes from Gaza.
The unrelenting violence also claimed the lives of 26 more Palestinians and witnessed an Israeli strike on a Gaza City building that houses foreign media organisations including AFP — the third such strike in three days.
Clinton told Netanyahu — a right-winger who has had strained relations with US President Barack Obama’s administration in the past year — that Washington’s commitment to Israeli security was “rock solid and unwavering.”
But she also stressed that this “is why we believe it is essential to de-escalate the situation” in the Palestinian territory.
Clinton further indicated that any truce announcement may not emerge until after she completes visits to the West Bank capital of Ramallah and Cairo for talks with Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi.
“In these days ahead, the United States will work with our partners here in Israel and across the region for an outcome that bolsters security for the peace of Israel, improves conditions for the people of Gaza and moves toward a comprehensive peace for all people of the region,” said Clinton.
Optimistic negotiators had initially said a deal could be announced in Cairo later Tuesday following days of negotiations brokered by Egypt’s new Islamist leadership.
“There will be a joint press conference between Hamas and Islamic Jihad and the Egyptian mediators tonight to announce the truce,” an Islamic Jihad source told AFP in Gaza City. A Hamas source separately backed up the report.
But Hamas later said in a statement that there was no truce accord, stressing that it could only be announced by Egypt and calling on Palestinian armed groups to “continue to riposte against Israel’s crimes.”
And an Egyptian official told AFP in Cairo that “the truce announcement is not expected tonight because we are still waiting for a response” from the Jewish state.
A meeting was held between Egypt’s intelligence chief Rafat Shehata and top-level delegations from Hamas and Islamic Jihad, but it wound up with no agreement being reached on a ceasefire, a source close to the discussions told AFP in Cairo.
“Hamas and Islamic Jihad told the Egyptians they weren’t in a hurry, and it was Israel that had asked Egypt for a truce,” the source said.
“Hamas says it has not yet received a reply from Israel and asks all the media not to rush. It is the Egyptian presidency that will announce a truce if an accord is reached. Any declaration before that, or different from that, is irresponsible.”
An Israeli diplomatic source told AFP that negotiations were ongoing.
“We are working very hard using our diplomatic channels. We are working continuously. But I cannot give you an estimated time of arrival (of a truce),” the source said.
The bloodshed meanwhile showed no signs of abating as the military pressed on with its bombardment of northern Gaza positions from which most of the militants’ rockets have been launched.
Netanyahu told Clinton he was ready to agree to a “long-term solution” as long as the rocket attacks from Gaza stopped.
“If there’s a possibility of achieving a long-term solution for this problem by diplomatic means, we prefer it. But if not, I’m sure you understand that Israel will have to take every action necessary to defend its people,” he said.
A senior Hamas official told AFP in Cairo that a key sticking point was whether Israel would begin easing its six-year-old blockade of Gaza coinciding with the truce or at a later date.
“A compromise solution is for there to be agreement on lifting the siege, and that it would be implemented later at a specified time,” he said.
Netanyahu and his key ministers decided in a closed-door meeting late Monday to place “a temporary hold on a ground incursion to give diplomacy a chance to succeed,” a senior Israeli official told AFP.
The move came as UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon met Netanyahu and again urged all parties to end fire “immediately”.
A delegation of more than 10 Arab foreign ministers and other senior representatives also visited Gaza in a symbolic show of solidarity with the Palestinians — the latest in a string of regional leaders’ visits to the impoverished coastal enclave.
“The real problem is not a truce,” Arab League chief Nabil al-Arabi told reporters in Gaza City.
“The real problem that the Arab and Islamic countries and all friendly countries in the world must focus on is ending the occupation,” the organisation’s secretary general said.
Hamas is understood to be seeking guarantees that Israel will stop its targeted killings and end its blockade.
Israel for its part is believed to be looking for a 24- to 48-hour truce as a buffer to work out a more permanent arrangement.
The Security Council held talks late Tuesday to discuss a demand by Arab nations that it hold a public meeting on the crisis.
Western diplomats had expressed fears that comments made at an open meeting could harm efforts to reach a ceasefire, but they agreed to hold the meeting on Wednesday at 2000 GMT. – AFP
One of the less heralded, but more successful, projects that have been undertaken recently in Israel is the security fence on the country’s southern border. In October, only 54 illegal African refugees entered Israel—one of the lowest numbers in many years, and a far cry from the 1,000 to 2,000 and more that entered the country each month over the past few years.
Last October, for example, 2,100 illegals were estimated to have entered Israel. Only a few were caught as they crossed the then-wide open border. Since then, the security fence on the border with Sinai has rapidly been built, and currently some 80% of the border is protected. In areas where construction is going on, the IDF has sharply increased patrols. At this point, the vast majority of illegals are caught before they enter Israel, and are immediately taken into custody for deportation to their homelands. Word that Israel’s gates are closing tight has apparently seeped back to Sudan, Eritrea, and other African countries, and now there are far fewer attempts to cross the border.
In addition to the increased protection, the Interior Ministry, led by Eli Yishai, has conducted a strong campaign to deport illegals, or at least persuade them to go home voluntarily. Using a mixture of carrots and sticks, with payments to illegals who leave for good and months-long detention at camps in the Negev, the illegal alien population has been slowly but surely dwindling. Yishai has been quoted as saying that if the current pace of enforcement is kept up, Israel could be free of illegal African aliens within just a few years. However, that could take some time—as the Population Registry estimates that there are still over 10,000 illegal Africans in the country.
Besides holding back the tide of illegals, the security fence has helped limit smuggling of drugs and other illegal items by Bedouin. In August, a terror cell killed 16 Egyptian soldiers as they attempted to blow up a portion of the security fence and enter Israel. IDF forces destroyed a jeep that managed to get through, on its way to carry out a terror attack at a border area community. – Israel National News
Painting a picture of internal political dysfunction in a dangerous world, former Defense Secretary Robert Gates warned Wednesday night that a U.S. or Israeli attack on Iran would have disastrous consequences.
Neither the United States nor Israel is capable of wiping out Iran’s nuclear capability, he said, and “such an attack would make a nuclear-armed Iran inevitable. They would just bury the program deeper and make it more covert.”
Iran could respond by disrupting world oil traffic and launching a wave of terrorism across the region, Gates said.
“The results of an American or Israeli military strike on Iran could, in my view, prove catastrophic, haunting us for generations in that part of the world.”
First in this season’s Norfolk Forum speaker series, Gates spoke to an audience of nearly 2,000 in Chrysler Hall.
United Nations sanctions aimed at discouraging Iran’s nuclear ambitions are starting to have an impact on the Iranian economy, he said, and “that’s our best chance going forward, to ratchet up the economic pressure and diplomatic isolation to the point where the Iranian leadership concludes that it actually hurts Iranian security and, above all, the security of the regime itself, to continue to pursue nuclear weapons.”
And while Israeli anxiety over Iran’s intentions is understandable, he added, America should make it clear to Israel’s leaders that “they do not have a blank check to take action that could do grave harm to American vital interests.”
Meanwhile, Gates warned, the United States is paralyzed by partisan gridlock that threatens the nation with financial insolvency.
The combination of across-the-board spending cuts and tax increases set to take effect in January, put in motion by Congress’ inability to agree on how to reduce the ballooning national debt, would do grave damage to the military and virtually every other essential government operation and could throw the country into a new recession, he said.
The central problem, Gates said, is that both major parties have been captured by their ideological extremes.
“The moderate center, the foundation of our political system, is not holding.
“Too many of our politicians seem more concerned with winning elections and scoring ideological points than saving the country.”
Gates ran the Pentagon from 2006 to 2011 under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama. He was the first defense secretary to serve under presidents of both parties.
He was also the only career CIA officer in history to rise from entry-level employee to director of the agency. He was director from 1991 to 1993.
The Kansas native now holds the honorary post of chancellor at the College of William and Mary. A 1965 graduate of the college, he is the first alumnus in the modern era to become chancellor.
Israeli forces shot dead an American man who opened fire in a seaside hotel packed with tourists on Friday, killing one person.
The Friday incident at the lobby of Leonardo Club Hotel took place after an Israeli armed guard tried to intervene in an intense argument between the American and a hotel employee.
The US tourist then grabbed the guard’s gun and fired several shots, killing the hotel staffer.
The shooter has been described as “in his twenties” and part of an Israeli-American exchange program that is regularly sponsored by various pro-Israeli organizations across the US.
No other deaths or injuries have yet been reported, although some hotel guests and employees were reported to be suffering from psychological distress, requiring hospitalization.
Reports indicate that the shooter barricaded himself in the hotel’s kitchen after killing the employee and was shot dead by the police forces following what has been described as failed negotiations for his surrender.
The man barricaded himself in the hotel kitchen, shooting back at law enforcement officers. He was shot dead by members of a military counter-terrorism squad, a military source said.
An Israeli hotel guest, Aviram Sela, said he tried to wrestle the gunman to the ground before he started shooting, as terrified tourists dived for cover behind a sofa in the hotel lobby.
“We saw him beating the guard and grab his weapon and the magazine,” Sela told Israeli television, adding that the gunman then took aim at a member of his family.
Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak told Army Radio the incident “appears to be an internal dispute”.
Eilat, on the border with Egypt and Jordan, has been a target of militant attacks in the past, and has come under rocket fire from Egypt’s Sinai in the past several months. The city is currently crowded with both foreign tourists and Israelis on a seven-day Jewish religious holiday.
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