Israel & Palestijnen Nieuws Blog

Bouwplannen Gilo tonen kloof tussen Obama en Israelisch publiek aan

2009-11-22T05:05:00.000Z

Keinon heeft gelijk dat Obama er niet erg in slaagt om het vertrouwen van de Israeli's te herwinnen, en wellicht ook dat hij de reactie van het Israelische publiek heeft onderschat, maar de vraag is hoeveel dat Obama kan schelen. Uiteindelijk heeft Israel de VS veel harder nodig dan andersom. Netanjahoe heeft zijn populariteit onder het Israelische publiek vergroot met zijn 'in your face' beleid tegenover de buitenwereld, maar hiermee verslechtert Israels imago en reputatie verder en neemt de druk op Israel alleen maar verder toe. Als Obama en de rest van de wereld niet willen dat er in Gilo gebouwd wordt, terecht of onterecht, dan wordt daar niet meer gebouwd. Zo liggen de verhoudingen. Met een andere aanpak - aankondigen van een moratorium op de bouw in de nederzettingen van tien maanden (met uitzondering van Jeruzalem) in plaats van een nieuw bouwplan voor Oost Jeruzalem - had Netanjahoe waarschijnlijk meer bereikt. Nu jaagt Israel zijn vrienden nodeloos tegen zich in het harnas, waarvoor een hogere prijs betaald zal moeten worden.

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Analysis: Obama's press on Gilo shows a continued misread of Israel
Herb Keinon , THE JERUSALEM POST

Nov. 19, 2009
www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1258566462450&pagename=JPArticle%2FShowFull

US President Barack Obama is an extremely intelligent man surrounded by equally intelligent advisers, many of whom have years of experience dealing with the Middle East. His continued misreading and misunderstanding of the Israeli public is, therefore, somewhat baffling.

This misread was evident again in the past few days by the US objection to the Jerusalem Municipal Planning Committee's approval of a plan to build some 900 new units in Gilo - not in a far-flung settlement overlooking Nablus, nor even in one of the settlement blocs like Gush Etzion, nor even a Jewish complex in one of the Arab neighborhoods of the capital, but in Gilo, one of the large new neighborhoods built in the city following the Six Day War. If Israel cannot build in Gilo without US approval, than it cannot build in Ramot Eshkol, French Hill, Ramot, Neveh Yaakov, Pisgat Ze'ev, East Talpiot or Har Homa.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs on Tuesday expressed "dismay" at the decision. The dismay, however, cuts both ways, with many Israelis clearly dismayed that the US - like Europe - now seems to be considering as settlements the post-1967 neighborhoods in Jerusalem. The EU, clearly following Gibbs's lead and then taking it one step further, released a statement on Wednesday saying, "The European Union is dismayed by the recent decision on the expansion of the settlement of Gilo."

Truth be told, this is not the first indication of US policy on this matter. Former US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice seemed to be giving the new neighborhoods settlement status in 2007 when she opposed a new project in Har Homa. She didn't clarify, however, whether other Jerusalem neighborhoods over the Green Line, such as Gilo and Ramot, were settlements in the eyes of the United States.

However, the Obama team's call for a complete settlement halt also included a halt to new construction in east Jerusalem, something Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu refused to accept.

By continuing to press the issue, Obama - who recently showed nascent signs of wanting to engage the Israeli public out of an understanding that if you want to get Israel to make concessions, Israel will need to trust the US president - risks further alienating the Israeli public. According to a Jerusalem Post poll conducted in August, only four percent if Israelis consider him to be pro-Israel.

When Obama came to power in January, he apparently did so with two basic assumptions regarding Israel.

The first was that the Israeli public so cherishes its relationship with the US that it would not tolerate any daylight between Jerusalem and Washington, and that if its government was responsible for that daylight, then it would replace that government with another in order to preserve the special relationship with Washington.

The second assumption was that the Israeli public hated the settlements.

Based on those two assumptions, Obama immediately upon taking office pressed Israel hard on the settlement issue, calling for an unprecedented complete halt to all settlement construction, including in Jerusalem.

The administration's working premise seemed to be that since the Israeli public was not enamored of the settlements in any event, if Obama pushed hard on that issue, the Israeli public would pressure its own government to give rather than risk a fissure with the Obama administration.

But the assumptions were mistaken. The Israeli public does not hate the settlements. Granted, it does not like the illegal settlement outposts, or what it sees as the extremists among the ideological settlements, but the public makes a distinction between those settlements outposts and those extremists and the large settlement blocs, such as Ma'aleh Adumim and Gush Etzion, which are well within the Israeli consensus. And the public certainly doesn't view the neighborhoods of Jerusalem, as the Europeans said in their statement, as "settlements."

Pressing a construction freeze in those areas was widely viewed by the public as an unreasonable demand, especially when it was not accompanied by any demands on the Arabs or Palestinians.

Rather than rallying around Obama, Israelis have - according to polls that shows Netanyahu's popularity rising - rallied around Netanyahu. And no issue will make them rally even further around the prime minister than Jerusalem.

Netanyahu understands this, which is why his office was behind a leak during the summer about Obama's objections to Jewish building at the Shepherd's Hotel site in Sheikh Jarrah, and was also likely behind the leak this week of US objections to the Gilo plan. In the summer, the objection to the Shepherd's Hotel plan made the administration's demands seem unreasonable to the Israeli public, as the Gilo objections have done now.

The irony is that this has come at a time when it looked as if Obama understood that his much touted outreach to the Arab and Muslim world had to be accompanied by some kind of dialogue with Israel; that he needed to talk with the Israelis and the Jews. Thus he addressed the public in a video welcome aired at last month's conference in Jerusalem put on by President Shimon Peres; thus he addressed by video a rally at Kikar Rabin earlier this month on the anniversary of the Rabin assassination; and thus he had planned to address the Jewish Federation's General Assembly in Washington last week.

That address was cancelled at the last minute, however, when Obama needed to fly to Texas to participate in a memorial ceremony for the 13 servicemen killed there by Maj. Nidal Hasan. And any attempt to get off on a better footing with Netanyahu was foiled by the hesitant dance surrounding whether or not there would be a meeting, and then the clandestine manner in which that meeting took place. What looked like an attempt by the administration to positively engage Israel sputtered. And now, with the Gilo issue, these efforts risk faltering altogether.

Twee Israelische soldaten bestraft voor verzet tegen huisuitzetting

2009-11-21T01:36:00.000Z

Het mes snijdt aan twee kanten, en wie niet oppast kan zichzelf ermee in de vingers snijden: linkse actiegroepen hier steunen Israelische soldaten die uit principe dienst weigeren in de Palestijnse gebieden, en rechtse groeperingen spreken daar schande van. Zij tonen weer eerder begrip voor soldaten die weigeren om mee te werken aan het ontruimen van nederzettingen, en sommigen roepen ook daartoe op, zoals tijdens de terugtrekking uit Gaza.

Het Israelische leger probeert doorgaans rekening te houden met de principes en voorkeuren van haar soldaten, maar als iedere soldaat zelf mag weten welke orders hij uitvoert en welke niet, dan kun je het leger - elk leger - wel opheffen. Een goed idee? Wie moet dan het land verdedigen? En wie moet dan de nederzettingen ontruimen die vroeg of laat toch ontruimd zullen gaan worden?

Opvallend is de secretaris van Peace Now, die beweert dat linkse soldaten altijd zonder morren hun democratische plicht doen en ook bereid zijn nederzettingen te beschermen als ze dat krijgen opgedragen. Hij spreekt zeker niet voor héél links, al is het percentage refuseniks met enkele honderden niet erg hoog.

Wouter

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JPost - The Jerusalem Post
Nov 16, 2009 12:33 | Updated Nov 16, 2009 20:09
2 soldiers jailed for evacuation protest
By YAAKOV KATZ AND JPOST.COM STAFF
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1258027301522&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

Two Nachshon Brigade soldiers, who demonstrated against the razing of two illegal structures near the settlement of Negohot in the Southern Hebron Hills on Monday morning, were sentenced to 30 days in military prison.

The soldiers were also banned from combat and command positions and were demoted.

The soldiers, who did not take part in the operation although their unit provided perimeter security around the area, went up on the roof of a structure in a nearby army base, raising a poster with the words "Nachshon also does not expel Jews" written on it.

IDF sources said that they view the incident in the "utmost severity."

Last month, soldiers from the Shimshon Brigade raised a banner during their swearing-in ceremony at the Western Wall which said "Shimshon will not evacuate Homesh." Both Shimshon and Nachshon Brigades are part of the larger Kfir Battalion.

A family with six children lived in one of the structures that was demolished while a young couple with a baby lived in the other.

Assaf Freed, who lives in a nearby settlement, accused the Civil Administration of carrying out a "selective and racist" enforcement of building laws in the area.

"People are forced to build on their own because one cannot get a building permit nowadays due to political reasons. Only a mile from here you can a see an illegal Arab structure that I, as an IDF officer, together with a Civil Administration official, personally served its owners with a demolition order 10 years ago. But it is still there 10 years later while houses of Jews are demolished," he told Israel Radio.

Right-wing activist Itamar Ben-Gvir blamed Defense Minister Ehud Barak for the deteriorating situation.

"Over the past weeks, we've been approached by more and more soldiers who don't want to be [Barak's] pawns and to expel children from their homes," said the activist, who also serves as parliamentarian aid to MK Michael Ben Ari (National Union.) "Today, we are casting the responsibility upon the defense minster and saying that Barak is responsible for the recent uprisings in the IDF, and if such expulsions continue, there will be manifold and severe repercussions.

Peace Now secretary-general Yariv Oppenheimer slammed soldiers from the Right who of recent are disobeying more and more orders for political reasons, which is not the wont of the Left, according to Oppenheimer.

"For years, thousands of soldiers from the Left filled orders they were not at whole with, such as securing settlements and illegal outposts. I do it too annually in my reserve service, and nobody rebels, and we accept the democratic decisions. This is a phenomenon of mutiny in the army, and should be taken care of with severity," he said.

"The leaders of the Right should act on this, and speak out against such issues," Oppenheimer added.

5.000 Nieuwe woningen voor Arabieren in Jeruzalem

2009-11-21T01:07:00.001Z

Terwijl de hele wereld valt over de geplande bouw van 900 woningen voor Joden in Gilo (Jeruzalem), plant Israel ook ruim 5.000 nieuwe woningen voor Arabieren in Oost-Jeruzalem.

RP
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13 November 2009
Jerusalem Municipality Advancing Plans To Build Over 5,000 New Housing Units for the Arab Public
(Communicated by the Jerusalem Municipality Spokesperson)

The Jerusalem Municipality is currently advancing plans to build over 5,000 new housing units for the Arab public in Jerusalem.

Among the plans currently being promoted in the eastern part of the city are:

A master plan for Tel Edasa in the northern part of the city, including approximately 2,000 new housing units. The plan is due to be submitted local and district committees.

A master plan for the Arab-Aswahara area including approximately 2,500 housing units. It is being discussed by the local and district committees.

A master plan for the Dir Al-Amud and Al-Muntar areas in Beit Tsafafa for an additional 500 housing units is currently in advanced planning stages.

A master plan for Jebel Mukhaber including 172 housing units and public structures is due to be discussed for approval by the district committee.

The district committee is discussing an additional 50 and 72 housing units for Abu Tor and Tzur Bahker, respectively.

The Jerusalem municipality is implementing court decisions and enforcing the law. This is alongside advancing construction solutions and improving municipal services for residents of the eastern part of the city.

Mayor Nir Barkat points out that the municipality is working to meet the needs of all sectors and to allow the construction of new housing units in various neighborhoods in order to attract young people to the capital and encourage them to buy apartments there. "There is demand in Jerusalem for the construction of new housing units throughout the city. The municipality is working to meet the needs of residents, Jewish and Arab alike, in an equal manner," the Mayor added.

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Mayor Barkat Opens New Sports Complex In East Jerusalem
(Communicated by the Jerusalem Municipality Spokesperson)

During a working tour of the Beit Tsafafa community, Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat opened a new NIS 5 million sports complex for the benefit of the local school and residents.

The 750 square meter sports complex is an integral part in the advancement of the local school and the local community and was made possible by the investment of the Jerusalem Municipality and in close coordination with the local residents.

Joining the Mayor on the working tour were the leaders of the community, the school administrators, members of the Jerusalem City Council, and department heads of the Jerusalem Municipality. Mayor Barkat is committed to investing in all sectors of Jerusalem in order to improve the quality of life for all residents of the city, irrelevant of race, age, gender, religion, or national identity.

Premie op ontvoeren Israëlische soldaten

2009-11-21T01:01:00.000Z

Zou deze liefdadigheidsorganisatie ook (mogelijk via Oxfam Novib) Nederlandse subsidie krijgen? Je weet het maar nooit tegenwoordig. En anders kunnen ze zeker op steun van Van Agt en Meulenbelt rekenen, die warm voorstander zijn van praten zonder woorwaarden met Hamas, en bijzonder veel begrip voor het Palestijnse 'verzet' hebben.

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http://buitenland.nieuws.nl/575852/premie_op_israelische_soldaten

Premie op Israëlische soldaten

(Novum/AP) - Een aan Hamas gelieerde liefdadigheidsorganisatie in de Gazastrook heeft een premie uitgeloofd voor iedere Israëlische soldaat die gevangen wordt genomen. De Waad groep roept Palestijnen in Israël op om soldaten te gijzelen. De groep stelt hiervoor 1,4 miljoen dollar beschikbaar.

De Waad groep ondersteunt Palestijnen die door Israël gevangen zijn gezet en ressorteert onder Hamas-minister van binnenlandse zaken Fathi Hamad.

Waad-directeur Usama Kahlout zei dat tot het uitloven van de premie is besloten in reactie op het aanbod van een Israëlische organisatie om inwoners van Gaza te betalen voor informatie over de verblijfplaats van een Israëlische militair die al meer dan drie jaar door Hamas gevangen wordt gehouden. In ruil voor korporaal Gilad Schalit eist Hamas de invrijheidstelling van honderden Palestijnse gevangenen.

Israelisch leger treft wapenwerkplaats en smokkeltunnels in Gazastrook na raketaanvallen

2009-11-21T00:54:00.001Z

Het is jaren niet zo rustig geweest in Sderot en omgeving, en het merendeel van de 750 raketten en mortieren die afgelopen jaar zijn afgevuurd vielen tijdens de Gaza Oorlog. De ruim 250 die er daarna vielen zijn een historisch laag aantal. In 2008 werden er meer dan 3.300 afgevuurd. Ik kan mij niet aan de indruk onttrekken dat er enig verband is met operatie Cast Lead, al is het in de mode te zeggen dat geweld alleen maar meer geweld uitlokt en je guerrillaoorlogen niet kunt winnen.

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IDF Spokesperson

November 19, 2009
IAF Struck Weapon Manufacturing Facility and Two Smuggling Tunnels in the Gaza Strip

Overnight, Israeli aircraft successfully targeted a weapons-manufacturing facility in the southern Gaza Strip and two smuggling tunnels in the Rafah border area. The attacks were in response to the recent firing of rockets into Israeli territory.

Approximately 15 rockets and mortar shells were launched at Israel during the past month. In total, more than 250 rockets and mortar shells were fired at Israel since the end of Operation Cast Lead and more than 750 hit Israeli in the whole of 2009. Throughout 2008, prior to the operation, over 3300 rockets and mortars were fired from the Gaza Strip at Israel.

The IDF will continue to respond to any attempt to disrupt the calm in Israel's southern communities.

Palestijnse 'historicus': Joden zijn profiteurs en uit op wereldmacht

2009-11-21T00:49:00.001Z

Dr. Ibrahim Al-Sinwar, a lecturer on Islamic history at the Islamic University of Gaza:

"In the modern era, an American philosopher, Benjamin Franklin, issued a strong warning to the U.S. government, in its early days, about the presence of Jews in the U.S. He said to them: "If the Jews remain in the U.S., within 100 years - or 200 years, at most - the Jews will take control of all the economic resources of the country." Then [the] Jews will be able to sit in the shade of a fruit tree in his garden, to sip a cup of coffee, to put his feet up, and wait for the Americans to come to him in the evening, in order to hand over to him the day's earnings, and what they collected from working his land, which originally belonged to them. They will have become employees working for those Jews."

Dit nep-citaat van Benjamin Franklin behoeft geen commentaar lijkt me. Wie beweren er ook weer allemaal dat er geen antisemitisme is onder de Palestijnen, en men slechts een probleem heeft met de Israeli's die als bezetters kwamen? Wie beweren er dat Hamas steeds pragmatischer wordt, en er prima mee te praten is? Iemand die dergelijke dingen beweert speelt een zeer kwalijke rol in het voortduren van het conflict. Jammer dat het niet politiek correct is op dit probleem te wijzen.

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MEMRI
No. 2260| November 16, 2009

Palestinian Historian Dr. Ibrahim Al-Sinwar: Ancient Egyptians Had the Right to Force the Jews to Work Building Pithom and Raamses; Benjamin Franklin Warned against the Jews

Following are excerpts from an interview with Dr. Ibrahim Al-Sinwar, a lecturer on Islamic history at the Islamic University of Gaza. The interview aired on Al-Aqsa TV on July 31, 2009.

To view this clip, visit http://www.memritv.org/clip/en/2260.htm

Dr. Ibrahim Al-Sinwar:

"The claim that those who built Pithom and Raamses were persecuted is a lie. The archaeological finds have proven that they enjoyed rights and privileges, and that they did not suffer any injustice. Therefore, all the talk about persecution is incorrect. These are lies by the Jews, who have become used to not working, to being a burden on others. This has been part of their psychological makeup throughout their long history. They do not like to work. They like to have people working for them, and to receive the services.

In the modern era, an American philosopher, Benjamin Franklin, issued a strong warning to the U.S. government, in its early days, about the presence of Jews in the U.S. He said to them: "If the Jews remain in the U.S., within 100 years - or 200 years, at most - the Jews will take control of all the economic resources of the country." Then [the] Jews will be able to sit in the shade of a fruit tree in his garden, to sip a cup of coffee, to put his feet up, and wait for the Americans to come to him in the evening, in order to hand over to him the day's earnings, and what they collected from working his land, which originally belonged to them. They will have become employees working for those Jews.

I don't intend to go into all the details - some of which are incorrect, because that land is not the land of the Americans, who are themselves invaders and occupiers - but I would like to emphasize the warning about the mentality of the Jews throughout their long history. This is the mentality of people who like to have others work for them, and provide them with wealth, without any effort.

Therefore, when they were forced to work at Pithom and Raamses, making bricks to build the two cities, they viewed this as persecution. This is not true. This was merely construction work, playing an active role in the society in which they live - a society that has the right to force them to carry out this work."

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For assistance, please contact MEMRI at memri@memri.org.
The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) is an independent, non-profit organization that translates and analyzes the media of the Middle East. Copies of articles and documents cited, as well as background information, are available on request.

MEMRI holds copyrights on all translations. Materials may only be used with proper attribution.
www.memri.org

IAEA inspecteurs vinden verrijkt uranium in Syrië

2009-11-19T21:33:00.000Z

Op verschillende plaatsen is in Syrië verrijkt uranium aangetroffen, waarvoor het geen verklaring kon geven.

Agency inspectors who visited the Dir Azur site after the 2007 bombing found highly processed plutonium, so the uranium traces may indicate Syria's nuclear program was more advanced than was previously assessed.

Het woordje 'was' is het enige positieve aan dit bericht.

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'IAEA inspects site outside Damascus'

http://zionism-israel.com/israel_news/2009/11/iaea-inspects-site-outside-damascus.html

'IAEA inspects site outside Damascus'

Nov. 17, 2009
JPost.com Staff , THE JERUSALEM POST

Following Monday's report that the IAEA had discovered processed uranium at three separate Syrian sites, UN inspectors on Tuesday conducted an emergency visit to a smaller site outside Damascus, Channel 10 reported.

According to Monday's report, IAEA inspectors had discovered enriched uranium in three sites besides Dir Azur, where IAF jets destroyed an alleged reactor in September 2007.

These findings have led the UN nuclear watchdog to suspect that Syria has uranium stockpiles.

The main cause for suspicion was the discovery of nuclear material traces near a small research nuclear reactor outside Damascus, the TV channel said Monday.

When the evidence was presented to the Syrians, they failed to provide convincing explanations, senior IAEA officials were quoted as saying.

De Israelische Rachel Corries: slachtoffers van Palestijnse terreur

2009-11-19T21:30:00.001Z

Het wordt tijd dat zo'n boek ook in het Nederlands verschijnt.

Het feit dat in het conflict meer Palestijnen omkomen dan Israeli's, is absoluut geen reden de Israelische doden te negeren. Bovendien zijn de meeste Israeli's gedood met het bewuste doel om hen te doden, omdat ze Joods zijn en in Israel wonen. De Palestijnen die door Israel werden gedood waren doorgaans ofwel strijders (vaak erop uit om raketten af te schieten of een aanslag te plegen) ofwel burgers die onbedoeld werden gedood. In het ergste geval kan Israel wat dat betreft verweten worden dat het niet meer moeite deed om deze doden te vermijden.

Een ander belangrijk verschil: als het aan Hamas had gelegen waren er zeker vele malen meer doden aan Israels kant gevallen, want Israel heeft verreweg de meeste aanslagen verijdeld. Als Hamas de wapens van Israel had gehad, was er allang geen Israel meer en had men het vaak uitgesproken dreigement van een 'tweede Holocaust' in daden kunnen omzetten.

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The Zionist Rachel Corries - The untold stories of Israel's Jewish Martyrs

http://zionism-israel.com/israel_news/2009/11/zionist-rachel-corries-untold-stories.html

The film "Rachel Corrie" tells the story (or fable) of an American girl who went to Gaza looking for trouble and was tragically killed. It is used as a tool in the war against Israel. On the other hand, there are thousands of Israeli martyrs who were not looking for trouble - just minding their own business. They were struck down by Palestinian terrorists. No book commemorates them as a group, and no movie tells their story. Now, a book has appeared in Italian to tell their stories.

From

The Untold Stories of Israel's Martyrs

For the first time ever, in a book, depictions of the victims of Islamist hatred. Young and old, men and women. Struck down in a bus, at a bar, at the market. Killed solely for the "fault" of being Jewish

by Sandro Magister

ROME, November 7, 2009 Today Jews all over the world are commemorating their martyrs of the "Night of Broken Glass," the victims of the Nazi pogrom on the night of November 9-10, 1938, in Germany.

There is universal, mournful observance of that massacre and of the tremendous extermination of Jews by the Reich that came after it.

But the same is not done, in Europe and the West, for the many other Jewish victims who for years have been killed in Israel, assailed by Islamic terrorism.

Every time one of them is killed, it is covered in the news and then immediately ignored. The victim ends up buried in the vagueness of the "Palestinian question," viewed by many as Israel's "fault."

Meanwhile, one out of every three hundred Israeli families has been directly affected by an attack. The terrorist actions number in the thousands. More than 150 suicide attacks have been carried out, and for each of these the Israeli police estimate that they have prevented nine more. 1,723 people have been killed to date, 378 of them women. More than ten thousand have been injured.

The indifference of the West and of Christians in the face of this steady stream of victims, struck systematically in the midst of their daily routine, on the buses, in the cafes, in the markets, at home, now has a response in a book that recounts their stories for the first time. It finally tells us who they are.

The book was published a month ago in Italy, and translations will soon be published in New York and London. Its title is "Non smetteremo di danzare [We will not stop dancing]." And the subtitle: "Le storie mai raccontate dei martiri di Israele [The untold stories of Israel's martyrs]."

...

His most recent book opens with a preface by English philosopher Roger Scruton, and with a letter by Robert Redeker, the French writer who has been living in a secret location since he began receiving death threats from Islamist fanatics.

The following is an extract from the first chapter.

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The unsung dead of Israel

by Giulio Meotti

From "Non smetteremo di danzare," pp. 26-36

Why this book? Because before it there was not even one presentation of the story of Israel's dead. It was written without any prejudice against the Palestinians, it is an account motivated by love for a great people and its marvelous and tragic adventure in the heart of the Middle East and through the whole twentieth century. Every effort to exterminate an entire class of human beings, from Srebrenica to Rwanda, has been commemorated in some great story. This does not seem to be allowed for Israel; history has always been scrubbed quickly of the blood of Jews. Jews killed because they were Jews, whose stories have been swallowed up in the disgusting and amoral equating of Israelis and Palestinians, which explains nothing about that conflict and even blurs it to the point of disappearing. This book is intended to rescue from oblivion this vast reserve of suffering, to elicit respect for the dead and love of the living. [...]

The most beautiful gift in these four years of research was given to me by the Israelis who opened their grief-stricken world to my request for help, laying their sufferings bare. It was me knocking at the door, a stranger, a non-Jew, a foreigner. But they all shook my hand and spoke about their loved ones for the first time. [...]

I decided to tell some of the great Israeli stories full of idealism, suffering, sacrifice, chance, love, fear, faith, freedom and the hope that, in spite of all this silence, Israel will triumph in the end. [...] There are incredible people like the obstetrician Tzofia, who lost her father, a rabbi, her mother, and her little brother. Today she helps Arab women give birth to their children. [...] There's Torah copyist Yitro, who converted to Judaism and whose son was kidnapped and executed by Hamas. There's Elisheva, from a family of farming settlers who lost them all in Auschwitz, and whose daughter, nine months pregnant, was killed by remorseless terrorists because "she wanted to live the Jewish ideal." In Tzipi they stabbed the chief rabbi to death, and where his bedroom used to be there is now an important religious school. Ruti's husband and David's brother was a great humanist doctor who cared for everyone, Arabs and Jews. There's the rabbi Elyashiv, whose son, a seminarian, was taken from him, but who continues to believe that "everything in life makes the strong stronger and the weak weaker." Then there's Sheila, who always talks about the coming of the Messiah and about how her husband took care of Down's children. Menashe lost his father, mother, brother, and grandfather in a night of terror, but continues to believe in the right to live where Abraham pitched his tent. [...] Elaine lost a son during dinner on the shabath, and for more than a year was not able to cook or make any sound. There are the friends of Ro'i Klein, a human shield who leapt onto a mine reciting the Shema' Yisrael, saving the lives of his fellow soldiers. Yehudit lost her daughter too soon, coming back from a wedding together with her husband. From Uri, who made the alyah from France, they took his daughter as well, a volunteer working with the poor.

Orly lived a happy life in a trailer, but her son didn't have time to put his kippah back on his head before he was killed. There's Tehila, one of those God-fearing but modern women who populate the settlements, the wife of an idealist who "lived the land," who loved the pink and blue plumage of Samaria's flowers. [...] There's also the marvelous Yossi, whose son sacrificed his own life in order to save his friends, and every Friday went to give out religious gifts to passers-by. Rina had created a pearl in the Egyptian desert, she thought of herself as a pioneer. She had her son taken from her, together with his pregnant wife. [...] There's Chaya, who embraced Judaism together with her husband. For them, conversion "was like marrying God." [...] All of these stories speak to us of this nation that is unique in the world, born from the 19th-century philosophy of secular Zionism, which from the ashes of the Holocaust brought back to their ancient homeland a people in exile for two thousand years and cut down to less than half its prewar size. Stories that speak to us of courage, desperation, faith, of the defense of hearth and home, even if errors are sometimes made, of the preservation of "honorable warfare" in the only army that permits disobeying an inhumane order. [...]

The story of these Jewish victims is not only a story of heroes. They are almost always defenseless people. [...] The International Institute for Counter-Terrorism in Herzliya, the most important center for analysis in Israel, has calculated that only 25 percent of the Israeli victims were soldiers. The majority were and are Jews in civilian dress. Among the Israelis, 40 percent of all the victims are women. Europeans believe that Israel is the stronger side, the country and military with the control of the territory, the technology, the money, the knowledge base, the capacity to use force, the friendship and alliance with the United States. And before it stands the pitiful weakness of a people claiming its rights, and ready for martyrdom in order to obtain them. But this is not the case. The stories of these new unsung victims proves it.

The Israelis have shown that they love life more than they fear death. The terrorists have killed hundreds of teachers and students, but the schools have never closed. They have killed doctors and patients, but the hospitals have continued to function. They have massacred soldiers and policemen, but the list of those who volunteer has never shrunk. They have shot up buses of the faithful, but the pilgrims continue to arrive in Judea and Samaria. They have made massacres at weddings, and forced young people to wed in underground bunkers. But life has always won over death. Like at Irit Rahamin's bachelorette party at the Sea Market Restaurant in Tel Aviv. When the terrorist began to shoot and throw grenades into the crowd, Irit threw herself to the ground, and from under the table called her future husband and told him that she loved him. Amid the screams. And the dying.

_________

The book:
Giulio Meotti, "Non smetteremo di danzare. Le storie mai raccontate dei martiri di Israele", Lindau, Torino, 2009, pp. 360, euro 24.00.

Khaled Abu-Toameh over de Palestijnse kansen op vrede en een staat

2009-11-19T21:22:00.001Z

But when Toameh spoke, what stood out was not that he is pro-Israel, but that he is pro-Palestine.

For example, he spoke about the virulent anti-Israel atmosphere he is seeing on U.S. college campuses, about which, he observed, "there is sometimes more sympathy for Hamas than I see in Ramallah."

Dit geldt ook voor veel zogenaamde Palestina sympathisanten in Nederland. Een kritisch woord over Hamas is meestal ver te zoeken, behalve dan even een obligaat zinnetje dat de zelfmoordaanslagen natuurlijk niet goed waren. Wat is er nou precies zo pro-Palestijns aan extremisten die hun eigen bevolking als menselijk schild gebruiken, journalisten oppakken, herdenkingsbijeenkomsten van volksheld Arafat verbieden, en zich niet islamitisch kledende en gedragende vrouwen lastig vallen?

Democraten als Dries van Agt hebben alle begrip voor de gewelddadige coup van Hamas. Vredesactivisten begrijpen dat de wanhoop en de frustratie van de Palestijnen leidt tot de onbedwingbare behoefte je in een bus in Tel Aviv op te blazen, feministen als Meulenbelt zwijgen over de onderdrukking van vrouwen.

--------------

Khaled Abu-Toameh talks about "peace" prospects - non-existent

http://zionism-israel.com/israel_news/2009/11/khaled-abu-toameh-talks-about-peace.html

A sober assessment of peace prospects from one of the most astute journalists in the Middle East. Not Jewish and not a Zionist - an Israeli Arab who is owned by nobody and whose journalistic analyses set standards for objectivity and integrity.

SwS,

Ami

=======================

November 17, 2009

Peace in Arabic

By David Suissa

It's not that I get tired of listening to Jewish speakers. More often than not, they motivate and inspire me. Whether I agree with them or not, there's a familiarity, a connection. I learn from my people and I embrace their diversity.

But no matter how diverse, it's still the same Jewish tent.

That's why it was so fascinating the other night to listen to someone who describes himself as an Israeli-Arab-Muslim-Palestinian. His look, his dress, his accent and body language all felt different. His mother's "large clan," he said, lives in Ramallah, where he visits almost every day from his home in Jerusalem. I could easily imagine him drinking tea and eating hummus with them.

The man was Arab journalist Khaled Abu Toameh, and he spoke at the home of Steve and Rita Emerson in Westwood.

Toameh has been reporting on Arab affairs for close to 30 years, for both Jewish and Arabic media. There's a quiet nonchalance about him, an old-school Middle Eastern dignity. Even when he says something familiar, it sounds different coming from him.

Toameh is in the middle of a U.S. tour sponsored by StandWithUs and was in Los Angeles for their annual "Israel in Focus" weekend conference, which gathers student activists from around the world. Of course, he wouldn't have been chosen if his views toward the Jewish state weren't sympathetic.

But when Toameh spoke, what stood out was not that he is pro-Israel, but that he is pro-Palestine.

For example, he spoke about the virulent anti-Israel atmosphere he is seeing on U.S. college campuses, about which, he observed, "there is sometimes more sympathy for Hamas than I see in Ramallah."

When he asked these students, "What makes you pro-Palestinian?" the answers were usually the same: "Israel is an apartheid state, Israel is a violent occupier, etc."

"But that's anti-Israel," he challenged them. "That's not pro-Palestine. I'm pro-Palestine. What makes you pro-Palestine?

"If you're really pro-Palestine, come help us instead of just spewing poison about Israel. Come teach my people democracy. Instead of Israel Apartheid Week, why don't you have Palestine Democracy Week?"

There was something authentic and disarming about him. His words didn't smell like propaganda or activism. He spoke for moderate Palestinians like himself, and he spoke from his heart, not from talking points.

He brought up a private meeting he'd had with President Obama a couple of years ago, while Obama was still a U.S. senator. Toameh told Obama that the key obstacle to peace is the hatred and incitement to violence that prevails throughout Palestinian society in schools, the media and mosques and is endorsed by the Palestinian leadership.

Commenting on the charge of incitement, Obama asked: "Is it true?" and later asked: "What can we do about it?"

Toameh suggested that the United States and other donor countries should predicate aid to the Palestinians on their stopping the incitement, to which Obama responded, "Isn't this political extortion?"

Toameh clearly thinks not. He thinks it is in the interest of the Palestinians to stop incitement, and he shared an Arab perspective on the subject.

"Look at the language that is now flying back and forth between Hamas and Fatah," he said. "It's the same poison you hear about the Jews: sons of pigs, infidels, etc. Incitement has spread and backfired on the Palestinians."

This incitement has also hurt the Palestinians' ability to make peace: "How do you tell people to make peace with the people you've called monsters and sons of pigs?"

Toameh sees no hope in the "top down" approach to peace. The soil is too rotten, he says. The Arab moderates have been undermined. "If I go to Ramallah and talk about Palestinian concessions on the right of return, I'll get shot in five minutes."

He says the Palestinians "already got their two-state solution - Gaza and the West Bank," and if it weren't for the Israeli presence in the West Bank, "Hamas would take over and Mahmoud Abbas would be lynched."

But lest you think there was no ray of hope in this Arab gentleman, he closed by discussing the people who he believes hold the key to an eventual peace between Jews and Arabs.

The Arab citizens of Israel.

"They are the ones who can build a bridge between Jews and Arabs," Toameh said. "They know what democracy is. They know about a free press and about freedom of religion. They know both sides."

He acknowledged the many obstacles - mutual mistrust, dual loyalties, Muslim radicalization, etc. - but he says Israel has no choice. If it wants a peaceful future, it must do a better job of embracing its Arab citizens.

The fact that some of them are becoming more radical is an even bigger incentive to embrace the moderates and preempt further radicalization.

It's true, he said, that Arabs have it better in Israel than anywhere else in the Middle East. But that's not the point. Israel must see its Arab minority not as a threatening nuisance that must be tolerated and contained, but as potential allies who can eventually help bring peace to the Holy Land.

From your mouth to Allah's ears, Mr. Toameh.

David Suissa is the founder of OLAM magazine. You can read his daily blog at suissablog.com and e-mail him at dsuissa@olam.org

"Joodse lobby heeft Groot-Brittannië in haar greep"

2009-11-19T21:11:00.001Z

Er zijn honderden lobby organisaties op velerlei gebied, en er zijn waarschijnlijk duizenden (beroeps) lobbyisten in Groot-Brittannië, die het politieke spel op hun duimpje kennen en goed georganiseerd zijn. Een studie naar al deze organisaties, hun donaties en taktieken zou niet alleen interessant zijn, maar hoogst noodzakelijk om een groep die zich liefst zoveel mogelijk aan het zicht onttrekt in kaart te brengen.

Wanneer echter telkens de aandacht uitgaat naar één specifieke lobby, een lobby die bovendien verbonden is met een volk dat er van oudsher van wordt beschuldigd achter de schermen uit te zijn op werelddominantie, dan is er iets niet helemaal fris. De "Protocollen van de Wijzen van Zion", in de Arabische wereld nog steeds ongekend populair, moest indertijd bewijzen dat de Joden via duistere praktijken en het tegen elkaar uitspelen van volken uit waren op de wereldmacht.

Het is overigens welhaast ironisch dat, terwijl dit soort beschuldigingen en insinuaties mainstream zijn geworden, blijkt dat de anti-Israellobby grof geld krijgt van de overheid, onder andere via ontwikkelingsorganisatie Oxfam-Novib. Het zou mij niet verbazen als dat ook geldt voor Groot-Brittannië. Overigens krijgen ook anti-Israël groeperingen in Israël en de Palestijnse gebieden grof geld van de EU. Dus misschien moet de conclusie luiden dat terwijl de Israël lobby geld geeft aan de regering, de anti-Israël lobby het ontvangt.

-----------------

Good news for Jews - we're taking over Britain

http://zionism-israel.com/israel_news/2009/11/good-news-for-jews-were-taking-over.html

According to UK Channel 4, the "Israel Lobby" (AKA World Jewish conspiracy) is poised to take over Britain when and if the Conservative party comes to power, since an all powerful Jew conspiracy has permeated the corridors of British power. The next British monarch will be Ikey I, by the grace of God, King of Great Britain, and the Menorah will be printed on British bank notes. The Channel 4 documentary evidently has compiled a list of the Jew lovers in the Conservative party, preparing to subvert the innocent British people, about to pass legislation that forces pubs to serve Manischewitz wine and kosher snacks. It must be the influential Jewish conspiracy that is responsible for tacit recognition of Sharia law and other pro-Zionist moves of the Zionist Occupied British government. The same Jew lobby was no doubt responsible for the spate of British Boycott Israel initiatives. Them Jews will get you every time, right?

Or is the documentary evidence of a quite different trend in Britain? What do you think?

Ami Isseroff

=================

Israel lobby 'big influence in UK'

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/europe/2009/11/2009111743832125800.html

Al Jazeera, November 2009

A British documentary has alleged that any future Conservative government will be disproportionately influenced by a powerful pro-Israeli lobby in the country.

Channel 4's Dispatches programme on Monday said that at least half of the Conservative shadow cabinet are members of the Conservative Friends of Israel (CFI), one of a number of pro-Israel lobby organisations.

The prorgramme, entitled 'Inside Britain's Israel Lobby', said that such organisations make up "one of the most powerful and influential political lobbies in Britain", but that "little is known" about these groups and their associated individuals.

CFI members and their businesses are alleged to have donated more than $16.8m to the Conservative Party over the past eight years.

The alleged donations include tens of thousands of pounds to William Hague, after he was appointed shadow foreign secretary in 2005.

The documentary alleged that Lord Kalm, a CFI member and significant donor to the Conservatives, threatened to remove Hague's funding after he said that Israel had used "disproportionate" force during its war in Lebanon in 2006.

David Cameron, the Conservative leader, is alleged to have promised not to repeat the conjecture.

'Transparent'

Stuart Polak, CFI's director, disputed the figures in the UK's Guardian newspaper.

"CFI as an organisation has donated only £30,000 [$50,000] since 2005. Each of these donations has been made transparently and publicly registered," he said.

"In addition to this £30,000, it is undoubtedly the case that some of our supporters have also chosen, separately, to donate to the party as individuals."

The Dispatches documentary also claims that Poju Zabludowicz, a Finnish billionaire and chairman of Bicom (the British Israel Communications and Research Centre), gave $25,000 and $84,000 donations to Cameron and the Conservative Central Office respectively.

Zabludowicz has a business interest in a shopping centre in Ma'aleh Adumim, an Israeli settlement in the occupied West Bank deemed illegal under international law.

Bicom organises briefings on and trips to Israel for journalists. The CFI and the Labour Friends of Israel (LFI) group, which is described in the documentary as "less unquestioning in its support of the Israeli government than CFI", plays a similar role, accounting for 13 per cent of the total number of paid-for foreign trips for MPs and candidates.

'Openness needed'

Zabludowicz told The Jerusalem Post newspaper that the Dispatches programme "seems to have a predetermined agenda".

"Some people have suggested that the production team felt compelled to 'balance out' their two recent programs exposing the footprint of radical Islamism in the UK," he said.

"I come to this conclusion with a heavy heart, having been led [through] a not-so-merry dance over the past 10 days by the programme-makers.

"Bicom is an advocacy organisation. We work with journalists every day. It is in our DNA to put our side of the story forward and to be transparent."

While the programme said that the donations are legal, one of its makers, David Oborne, a political columnist for the British Daily Mail newspaper, said that more needs to be known about the Israeli lobby's workings and power.

"There is nothing resembling a conspiracy," he wrote in the Guardian.

"The pro-Israel lobby, in common with other lobbies, has every right to operate and indeed to flourish in Britain.

"But it needs to be far more open about how it is funded and what it does ... mainly because politics in a democracy ... should be out in the open for all to see."

In 2006, Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer, two American academics, released a paper stating that Washington's support for Israel was predicated by a hugely powerful Israeli lobby in the US.

Erekat wil Palestijnse staat via resolutie VN Veiligheidsraad

2009-11-19T02:24:00.001Z

De Palestijnen zouden, na de mild-afwijzende reacties op het voorstel eenzijdig de onafhankelijkheid uit te roepen, nu een VN Veiligheidsraad resolutie nastreven die de 1949 bestandslijn als de grens tussen Israel en een toekomstige Palestijnse staat definieert. Dit staat haaks op de afspraken in de Routekaart en de Oslo Akkoorden, die bepalen dat de precieze grenzen in onderhandelingen worden vastgesteld.

Onderhandelaar Erekat heeft gelijk dat de 1949 bestandslijnen ook daarbij door de meesten als richtlijn worden gezien, en alle vredesvoorstellen deze grenzen als basis hebben. Echter, wanneer de Veiligheidsraad deze grenzen zou voorschrijven is Israel al haar onderhandelingsruimte in één keer kwijt. In zo'n resolutie zou dan op zijn minst ook moeten worden opgenomen dat er geen sprake kan zijn van het zogenaamde 'recht op terugkeer' van de vluchtelingen. Ook zou Jeruzalem moeten worden uitgezonderd, anders zouden de Klaagmuur, de Joodse begraafplaats op de Olijfberg en de oude Joodse wijk zomaar tot 'Palestijns gebied' worden gerekend, ondanks het feit dat deze al lang voor 1948 Joods waren. Dit geldt ook voor andere delen van Oost Jeruzalem.

Bovendien moet de resolutie duidelijk maken dat de precieze grenzen het resultaat van onderhandelingen zullen zijn en dat de basis veilige en erkende grenzen van alle staten in de regio moet zijn. Zo'n resolutie bestaat echter al, en is kort na de Zesdaagse Oorlog aangenomen. Het enige verschil is dat daarin niet expliciet van een Palestijnse staat werd gesproken, wel van Israelische terugtrekking uit bezette gebieden en de territoriale integriteit van alle staten in de regio. Zie ook: Resolution 242

-------------

Erekat denies PA plans to declare state unilaterally
TOVAH LAZAROFF and HERB KEINON , THE JERUSALEM POST

Nov. 18, 2009
www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1258489190816&pagename=JPArticle%2FShowFull

The Palestinians will not unilaterally declare an independent state, but rather seek a UN Security Council resolution endorsing a two-state solution along the pre-1967 lines, Palestinian Authority negotiator Saeb Erekat told The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday.

Israeli officials said Erekat was backtracking on earlier statements calling for a unilateral declaration of independence, even as he said that Israel was "twisting his words."

The Palestinians want the Security Council to set the borders of their future state and those of Israel along the pre-1967 lines, Erekat said.

"What we are seeking is to preserve the two-state solution," he said. "One state is not an option."

In light of the deadlocked peace process and continued Israeli actions that jeopardized any possibility of a two-state solution, Palestinians felt that they had no choice but to appeal to the international community for help through the Security Council, Erekat said.

"We want the Security Council to declare that the two-state solution is the only option and that it would recognize the state of Palestine on the '67 borders and to live side by side with the State of Israel," he said.

One senior Israeli government source said that Erekat's comments were an effort to backtrack on the plan to unilaterally declare a state, following the refusal of either the US or the EU to support the idea.

Sweden's Foreign Minister Carl Bildt, whose country holds the rotating presidency of the EU, said before a EU foreign ministers meeting on Tuesday that regarding a Palestinian state, "I don't think we are there yet. I would hope that we will be in a position to recognize a Palestinian state, but there has to be one first. I think that is somewhat premature."

At the same time, Bildt said, we are "discussing other steps to demonstrate our support for the Palestinian aspirations more than we have done so far, and clearly there is a need for that."

The senior Israeli government official said it was clear from the whole process of negotiations with the Palestinians over the past 16 years that the final borders needed to be negotiated, and "could not be set unilaterally."

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said this week that a unilateral Palestinian declaration would have "no significance," but that such a move would break the "ground rules" and leave open to Israel "a whole range of possible responses." He did not elaborate.

Erekat said that a request for the UN Security Council to specify the pre-1967 lines as the future border between Israel and a Palestinian state was consistent with Security Council Resolution 1515 from 2003, which adopted the principles of the road map and a two-state solution, but did not specify what the borders would be.

Security Council Resolution 1397 from 2002 was the first to affirm a two-state solution, with a Palestinian state next to Israel.

"What we are asking the world to do is to specify the borders of the state as the 1967 border," Erekat said. If the UN Security Council already passed a resolution that endorses a two-state solution, why could it not say that this solution would be on the 1967 line? he asked.

"I want to make sure the Israeli people understand that we are not speaking of a unilateral declaration," Erekat said. "This is not an option."

He blamed Israeli leaders for reports that the PA was seeking a unilateral declaration of statehood, saying they were "always trying to twist our words."

Erekat said that while Israel's borders have yet to be finalized after 61 years, in the interim the country has changed the facts on the ground by continuing with unilateral steps such as settlement activity in the West Bank and east Jerusalem.

The decision to turn to the Security Council, he said, was affirmed last Thursday at the Arab League's meeting of foreign ministers, and was necessary to prevent Netanyahu from "undermining the two-state solution" by continued settlement activity.

The Palestinians have not yet set a date by which they planned to turn to the Security Council, Erekat said.

At this stage, he said, they were consulting and seeking support from countries around the globe for the resolution. Statements by the US and the European Union rejecting Palestinian pursuit of unilateral statehood were not relevant, he said, because they did not correctly address the Palestinians' true goals.

He noted that the bulk of the international community has never recognized Israel's right to the West Bank or east Jerusalem.

Erekat said he did not believe that a Security Council resolution would stop the Palestinians and the Israelis from coming to a later agreement that would slightly modify the border through lands swaps such as those suggested in past negotiations.

What it would do, he said, was give the Palestinians an accomplishment to point to after nearly two decades of a diplomatic process from which they feel they have received nothing.

"I do not have anything now. The Israelis are still the authority," he said, adding that Israel continued building settlements and demolishing homes in east Jerusalem.

"Unfortunately we have an Israeli government that refuses to resume where we left off [with prime minister Ehud Olmert]," Erekat said.

"What should we do while the Israeli government is busy with fait accompli actions" but to turn to the Security Council to preserve the option of two states? he asked.

One senior Israeli diplomatic source said it was ironic that the PA, which turned down Olmert's offer just a year ago, was now "nostalgic" for that offer and trying to force the new Israeli government to take it up.

In Cairo on Tuesday, PA President Mahmoud Abbas said that this plan was the only way to secure a state for his people.

He spoke with the media after meeting with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, who urged him not to make good on the threat he had issued earlier this month to step down after a presidential election he had set for January 24.

But last week, in a move that made it hard for Abbas to quit, election officials postponed the vote indefinitely.

Many senior Israeli officials are still taking Abbas's resignation threat very seriously, convinced that Israel would be worse off without him.

Some are urging the government to take a strategic decision to bolster Abbas such as further easing movement in the West Bank, cutting in half the number of IDF raids into areas under PA control and placing more areas of the West Bank under the control of Palestinian security forces.

PA forces are deemed to be operating effectively.

A few have even urged the government to consider increasing the flow of goods into Gaza, which has been restricted solely to humanitarian aid since Hamas violently took over the area in 2007.

Proponents of easing Israel's blockade of the Gaza crossings have argued that this would reduce the reliance on goods smuggled into the area through Hamas-controlled tunnels from Sinai, thereby increasing support for Abbas.

American officials are also anxious for Israel to bolster Abbas. They believe that the economic and security progress the Palestinians attributed to measures instituted by Prime Minister Salaam Fayad would be lost, unless palpable momentum is achieved and conditions are created under which peace talks can take place.

Netanyahu on Sunday night, in an address at the Saban Forum, called on the Palestinian leadership to take "courageous" steps for peace, and said that once talks are resumed, "we can surprise the world."

But he warned the Palestinians that unilateral steps on their part would be met by similar measures on Israel's side.

AP contributed to this report.

Israelische Arabieren in Galilea wantrouwig, pessimistisch en vervreemd

2009-11-19T02:14:00.001Z

De onderliggende problemen zijn enerzijds de weigering van veel Arabische leiders om (hun gemeenschap te laten) integreren in de Israelische maatschappij. Pogingen daartoe vanuit Israel worden met wantrouwen bejegend. Deze weigering heeft alles te maken met het feit dat men niet accepteert in een Joodse staat te leven en deze weigert te erkennen. Veel leiders sympathiseren sterk met de Palestijnen en spreken soms ronduit opruiende taal over Israel.

Het andere, hiermee samenhangende, probleem is dat Israelische Arabieren achtergesteld zijn, minder kansen hebben en door veel Joodse Israeli's met wantrouwen worden bejegend. De regering moet meer in de 'Arabische sector' investeren en discriminatie actief bestrijden. Zolang veel Arabieren echter zo afwijzend tegenover Israel staan is daarvoor weinig animo, en deze achtergestelde positie voedt op zijn beurt het wantrouwen tegen Israel.

------------

JPost - The Jerusalem Post
Nov 17, 2009 14:36 | Updated Nov 17, 2009 16:10
Study: Galilee Arabs fearful, alienated
By JPOST.COM STAFF
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1258027312214&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

Results of a year-long study into Jewish-Arab coexistence in the Galilee published on Tuesday indicated that tensions between the communities are running high.

Over the last year, 40 high ranking Jewish and Arab Israeli officials in the Galilee, including heads of local authorities, were asked about their perception of coexistence in the region.

One of the those who conducted the survey, Mr. Awada Baker, told Army Radio that the picture painted by the results of the study was dire and quite a distance from true coexistence. According to Baker, "feelings of pessimism, alienation, suspicion, fear, and a lack of trust between the different communities," were clearly identified.

Baker called on the government to intervene quickly.

"If meaningful changes are not implemented by the government with regards to the Arab population, the writing is on the wall," he warned.

Another charged issue is that of a mixed Jewish-Arab community currently being established in the Galilee. According to the study, the Arabs perceive this community as another "settlement", whereas Jews see the mixed community as undermining a Jewish presence in the Galilee.

However, the study did have some positive findings. Arabs and Jews in the Galilee reportedly support cooperation in the fields of education, business development and environment.

Joden hebben Arafat vergiftigd volgens Palestijnse kinderen

2009-11-18T18:14:00.001Z

Dit is het gevolg van het met EU geld gefinancierde 'vredesonderwijs' van de Palestijnse Autoriteit.

A televised memorial ceremony for Yasser Arafat included a video clip of Palestinian children delivering messages in honor of Arafat. It is noteworthy that even though this clip was prerecorded and edited, the organizers of the PA's official ceremony chose to include hate speech and libels that demonized Jews and glorified violence and Martyrdom.

Zie hieronder voor citaten van de kinderen.

-------------

Bulletin - Nov. 17, 2009

Palestinian Media Watch
Click here to view on PMW's new web site:
http://palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=157&doc_id=1429

Kids' hate speech against Jews
included in PA Arafat memorial
by Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik

"The Jews poisoned him [Arafat] and I hate them very much.
Allah will repay them what they deserve."
[Video of Palestinian girl shown at Arafat memorial,
PATV (Fatah), Nov. 10, 2009]

A televised memorial ceremony for Yasser Arafat included a video clip of Palestinian children delivering messages in honor of Arafat. It is noteworthy that even though this clip was prerecorded and edited, the organizers of the PA's official ceremony chose to include hate speech and libels that demonized Jews and glorified violence and Martyrdom.

Several of the chosen messages featured children repeating the ongoing Palestinian Authority libel that Arafat was poisoned by Jews. None of the children spoke about peace; in fact, the opposite was the case. One boy praised Arafat because he was a "fighter" who "did things through [violent] struggle," and who "did not make peace." The Martyrdom (Shahada) ideal was also selected as a message for the ceremony, with one boy quoting Arafat: "They want me dead, they want me prisoner but I say: Martyr, Martyr, Martyr!"

This children's section in the special memorial indicates the PA's success in transmitting to the next generation of Palestinian children hate libels that demonize Jews. Including these hate messages in the ceremony also shows that the PA approves of, and wants to publicize, the values of hatred, violence and Martyrdom that the children have adopted.

To view the children's hate speech included in the Arafat memorial, click here:

http://palwatch.org/pages/demon_videos.aspx?fld_id=22&doc_id=1430

The following is the transcript of excerpts of the children's messages:

Ceremony host: "Blessings to Yasser Arafat, and here are messages from the children of Palestine."
Boy: "I was very, very sad when Arafat died as a Shahid (Martyr), because he was a good man and he was a fighter. He did things through struggle, he participated in the struggle and did not make peace and so on. He wanted to fight."
Boy 2: "Yasser Arafat was a very, very important president. He stood up to all the enemies and was not afraid of anyone. And anyone who approached - he managed to stop him. All the Jews and the Israelis and the people who are against us, were afraid of him. When he died, he died of poisoning."
Girl wearing pendant in the shape of Israel: "I say that he died from poisoning by the Jews. That's what I say."
Boy 3: "Arafat used to say: "They want me dead, they want me prisoner, but I say to them: Martyr! Martyr! Martyr!"
Girl 2: "He [Arafat] was our former president. He was under siege in Ramallah, and when he was under siege we were very upset. The Jews poisoned him and I hate them very much. Allah will repay them what they deserve."
Boy 4: "He [Arafat] died from poisoning by the Jews. Well, I don't know what he died from, but I know it was by the Jews."
Boy 5: "They destroyed his whole house and he was left in one room and in the end the Jews poisoned him and blamed someone else."

[PATV (Fatah), Nov. 10, 2009]

To see PMW's recent bulletin on the repeated PA libel that Israel was responsible for Arafat's death, click here:

http://palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=157&doc_id=1261

The official memorial ceremony for Yasser Arafat was held at the Ramallah Cultural Palace on Nov. 10, 2009, the fifth anniversary of his death, and broadcast live on PATV. Speakers included Salaam Fayyad (PA Prime Minister) and Nasser Al-Qidwa (Chairman of Board of Directors, Institute for Commemoration of Arafat, and former PA Foreign Minister).
Several senior PA, Fatah and PLO personnel attended, including Al-Tayeb Abd-Al-Rahim (Secretary General of the PA Presidency), Tayseer Al-Tamimi (PA Chief Justice of religious court and Chairman of Supreme Council of Islamic Law), and Fatah Central Committee members Muhammad Dahlan, Sultan Abu-Einin and Nabil Shaath.

===========
PMW
p:+972 2 625 4140 e: pmw@palwatch.org
f: +972 2 624 2803 w: www.palwatch.org
PMW | King George 59 | Jerusalem | Israel

Zwitserland, Zweden, Denemarken en Nederland steunen anti-Israel strijd via NGO's

2009-11-18T05:48:00.001Z

Nederland subsidieert samen met andere EU landen radikale anti-Israel organisaties in de Palestijnse gebieden. Daarnaast subsidieert Nederland via ontwikkelingsorganisaties waaronder Oxfam-Novib, ook de Palestijnse strijd in Nederland, zoals Een Ander Joods Geluid en Stop de Bezetting.,

Het wordt tijd dat hier eens het mes in wordt gezet, en geld voor ontwikkelingshulp ook naar ontwikkelingshulp (en bewustwording daarover) gaat, en niet naar het zwartmaken van Israel.

Zie ook: Strijd tegen Israel gevochten met Nederlandse subsidie

RP
----------

November 16, 2009
NGO Monitor
Promoting Accountability in the Arab-Israeli Conflict

Promoting Israel's Isolation:

Switzerland, Sweden, Denmark, Netherlands funding for NDC and NGOs

The NGO Development Center (NDC - Ramallah) has distributed $6 million to 25 NGOs on behalf of the governments of Switzerland, Sweden, Netherlands, and Denmark. The NGO grantees include some of the most radical groups operating in Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

NGO Monitor's analysis includes:

* Many recipients employ "apartheid" rhetoric: Al Mezan, Al Haq, Arab Thought Forum, Badil, ICAHD, Jerusalem Center for Women, JLAC, WATC, and Women for Life.

* NDC provides funds to PCHR, Al Haq, Al Mezan, Al-Dameer, Musawa, and WAC, which promote "war crimes" cases and lawfare against Israeli officials.

* Eleven grantees are signatories to the Palestinian boycotts, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) campaign: Addameer, Al Dameer, Arab Thought Forum, Al Mezan, DCI-PS, JCW, Jerusalem Legal Aid and Human Rights Center, PWWSD, Ramallah Center for Human Rights Studies, WCLAC, WATC.

* Only 6 of the 25 groups focus on the "priority" issues of "gender equality and rights of women." Most link their work on women's rights with anti-Israel activism.

* NDC "facilitated" and funded the "Palestinian NGO Code of Conduct" which demands that Palestinian groups reject "any normalization activities with the occupier."

* NDC support is often in addition to other funding from the four governments to the same organizations.

Click here to read the full report

============

NGO Monitor
1 Ben Maimon Blvd.
Jerusalem, 92262 Israel
mail@ngo.monitor.org
www.ngo-monitor.org

Oxfam: kwart miljoen euro voor Nederlandse tak anti-Israël-lobby

2009-11-18T05:38:00.001Z

Zie ook: United Civilians for Peace en Strijd tegen Israel gevochten met Nederlandse subsidie (2)

Het is een schande dat ontwikkelingsgeld op deze manier wordt misbruikt. Het is misschien een nog grotere schande dat ondanks herhaalde berichten hierover de regering er niks aan doet. Zo neemt het draagvlak voor ontwikkelingshulp af, terwijl die nuttig en noodzakelijk is.

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http://www.dagelijksestandaard.nl/2009/11/17/oxfam-kwart-miljoen-euro-voor-nederlandse-tak-anti-israel-lobby/

Oxfam: kwart miljoen euro voor Nederlandse tak anti-Israël-lobby

Nov 17th 2009

Bjorn Frontpage

U moet het zich ook wel eens afgevraagd hebben: hoe komen die boze Arafatsjaaltjes toch aan het geld om de onophoudelijke stroom van 'debatten', demonstraties, websites, folders en wat dies meer zij te financieren? Stoppen de Saoedies ze zo nu en dan wat zakgeld toe? De Iranezen anders? Betalen de boze jongens en meisjes het zelf (ha! as if..)? Nee, niets van dit alles. U, de belastingbetaler betaalt voor al dit moois!

Geld dat bedoeld is voor armoedebestrijding gaat, via Oxfam Novib (509 miljoen euro subsidie deze kabinetsperiode), na wat met potjes geschoven te hebben, naar allerlei anti-Israël-propaganda in Nederland. Formeel heeft Oxfam uiteraard tot doel om armoede te bestrijden, maar in de praktijk heeft het een politieke agenda waar de meeste Nederlanders geen weet van hebben. Wanneer men moet kiezen tussen het inenten van 100.000 Afrikaanse kinderen tegen de mazelen of het vervelen van Nederlanders met gekleurde (non-)informatie maakt men een zuiver politieke keuze. Naast de inmiddels bij de vaste DDS-lezer bekende anti-'racisme' agenda, heeft men namelijk ook een anti-Israël agenda. Bovendien heeft men een socialistische, politiek-islamitische en een imperialistische agenda, maar daarover wellicht een andere keer meer.

Op 21 mei 2008 gingen de zelfbenoemd Ariër Andries van Agt (die overigens plaats heeft in een dekmantelorganisatie van de Internationale Socialisten: Stichting Stop de Bezetting) en de schrijver van het boek 'The Holocaust Industry' Norman Finkelstein met elkaar in 'debat'. Een 'debat' tussen twee gelijkgestemden, twee 'Israël-criticasters' (om het eens vriendelijk te verwoorden). Zo ziet Oxfam het graag: ze belonen het met 1.035 euro. De Internationale Socialisten (IS) zien dit zo ook graag, en zo mocht Finkelstein ook, op kosten van de Universiteit van Amsterdam (UvA), met de grote vriendin van Hamas Miriyam Aouragh (lid van de Round Table van Oxfam) in 'debat'. De Internationale Socialisten worden overigens door Paul Aarts keurig bedankt (@00:30) voor het binnenhalen van Finkelstein. De UvA – of op zijn minst Aarts (bestuurslid Nederlands Instituut Palestina/Israël (NIPI) en present in het vriendenboekje van René Danen c.s.) – is sowieso goed bevriend met de IS, zoals ook blijkt uit de anti-Wilders bijeenkomst die in de UvA georganiseerd mocht worden door de IS. Voor de mensen die onbekend zijn met het IS-clubje: zie het dossier van Carel Brendel of, voor een zeer beknopte samenvatting, deze afbeelding (alleen op werkelijke grootte leesbaar). Aarts was overigens ook één van de vier 'wetenschappers' die Ramadan naar de UvA wilden halen.
We blijven nog even bij Aarts en zijn NIPI. Deze club heeft namelijk vaker subsidies van Oxfam mogen ontvangen. Zo kreeg men 8.500 euro om de door het ontbreken van de 'de Palestijnse visie' 'eenzijdige' beeldvorming te herstellen. Dat lang niet iedereen de beeldvorming eenzijdig vindt, althans niet eenzijdig in het nadeel van de Palestijnen, vond Oxfam kennelijk niet zo relevant. Althans, een subsidie aan bijvoorbeeld de Israel Facts Monitorgroup heb ik niet kunnen ontdekken.
Naar het Nederlands Palestina Komitee (NPK) ging 21.319 euro. Doel van de subsidie was om alle activiteiten van het NPK te financieren: de demonstraties, de folders, het lobbywerk, zelfs de website werd door Oxfam betaald. Eerder kreeg deze club al 11.280 euro om 'empathie' onder de Nederlandse bevolking te krijgen voor de Palestijnen. Overigens kreeg deze club ook nog eens 5.000 euro toegestopt door Cordaid (437.059.720 subsidie deze kabinetsperiode) om meer aandacht voor 'de langste bezetting ter wereld' te vragen.
Dan Een Ander Joods Geluid (EAJG), Carel Brendel besteedde hier eerder al aandacht aan. EAJG heeft in 2008 50.000 euro mogen ontvangen, nadat men eerder dat jaar al 10.000 euro had gecasht. Zestigduizend euro bedoeld voor de EAJG-propaganda – leest u zelf de 'project'omschrijvingen maar.
Aan FAST en Stichting De Balie, werd 25.000 euro besteed om 'zichtbaar [te] maken hoe ruimtelijke ordening gebruikt wordt als politiek instrument in Israël', want dat leidt tot 'apartheid'.
Enzovoorts. Ja, de lijst kan nog veel langer worden. Onder andere de eerder op dit weblog al gemelde subsidies ter hoogte van 15.000 euro voor Gretta's Stop de Bezetting en 10.000 euro voor Stop de Oorlog. Het altijd objectieve UCP kreeg in 2008 120.000 euro (zie Jaarverslag 2008) voor Nederlandse activiteiten onder het kopje 'conflictpreventie'. Een deel van de inkomsten van UCP gaat overigens direct door naar Stop de Bezetting (dat wordt voorgezeten door de antisemiet Gretta Duisenberg). UCP kreeg in alle voorgaande jaren ook al geld van Oxfam, maar toen werd de exacte grootte van het subsidiebedrag nooit gespecificeerd.

In totaal ging dus minstens 272.134 euro van Oxfam naar de Nederlandse afdeling van de anti-Israël-industrie (dit bedrag is een absoluut minimum, Oxfam is alles behalve transparant over de wijze waarop ze hun geld besteden, het werkelijke bedrag is waarschijnlijk eerder een veelvoud van het hier vermelde bedrag). Al deze bestedingen hebben, los van het waardeoordeel over de gesubsideerde organisaties, niets van doen met armoedebestrijding. Terwijl Oxfam deze anti-Israël-industrie financiert, sterven er per jaar 197.000 kinderen aan mazelen, dat zijn bijna 540 doden per dag, 22 per uur. Een prikje tegen dit virus kost slechts 2 euro en 65 eurocent. Voor het bedrag dat Oxfam aan de anti-Israël-industrie besteedde, hadden meer dan 100.000 Afrikaanse kinderen ingeënt kunnen worden. Maar ja, keuzes…

Kritiek op Israelische historicus die bestaan van een Joods volk ontkent

2009-11-16T18:50:00.001Z

De omstreden Israelische historicus Shlomo Sand zei vorige week tegen de BBC:

"I'm not a Zionist. I don't define myself as an anti-Zionist... but I'm not a Zionist... I don't put into question the existence of Israel," he said. "I compare when I am speaking before Arab students the birth of the Israeli state to an act of rape. But even the son that was born of the act of rape... you have to recognize him... the existence of Israel I don't put in question today, you understand me?"

Veel antizionisten zeggen dat ze geen antizionist zijn, net als veel racisten en antisemieten ook niet toegeven dat ze racist of antisemiet zijn. Blijkbaar heeft men toch het idee dat er iets mis is met antizionisme. Wat het artikel hieronder zegt over gebrek aan context en een tegenstem bij de boekpresentaties van Sand in Engeland, is maar al te herkenbaar. Vorige week had de Volkskrant een artikel ever hem waar nergens stond dat zijn ideeën omstreden zijn, dat hij een communist is (het communisme heeft een traditie van antizionisme) en tot een kleine minderheid behoort, dat veel historici met tegenbewijzen zijn gekomen etc. Het is sowieso opmerkelijk dat dit soort mensen, die de fundamenten van de staat Israel ter discussie stellen, in Europa zo populair zijn en zoveel aandacht krijgen in de media. Hetzelfde geldt bijvoorbeeld voor Ilan Pappe, ook een communist. Goede en veel betrouwbaardere Israelische historici die niet zo tegen de staat trappen zijn hier volkomen onbekend. Vreemd, nietwaar?

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TAU historian accused of anti-Semitism
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1258027296653&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
By JONNY PAUL, JERUSALEM POST CORRESPONDENT
London

An Israeli academic has been accused of contributing to anti-Semitic discourse and incidents following his book tour in London promoting the thesis that Jews never existed as a people and the Palestinian Arabs are the true heirs of the biblical Jews.

Shlomo Sand, a professor of history at Tel Aviv University, spoke at a number of events in London last week to sell his book The Invention of the Jewish People, in which he writes that the Israelites were never exiled from the Promised Land and therefore have no right to return.

Jewish community figures questioned Sand's work and noted that no opposing view or contextualization was offered at his events.

"Sand's agenda is to sever the historic link between the Jewish people and the Land of Israel," said Jonathan Hoffman, co-chairman of the Zionist Federation of Great Britain and Ireland. "To promote that agenda his book ignores archeological and genetic evidence. At none of his three London appearances was there a historian or Jewish history expert on the platform to counter his distortions, evasions and sensationalism. The result will contribute to anti-Semitic discourse and incidents in the UK, already at a record level."

A guest on BBC Radio Four last week, Sand told presenter Andrew Marr that he compares Israel's birth to "rape".

"Sand's book represents another step towards the mainstream for replacement ideologies," said Jon Benjamin, chief executive of the Board of Deputies of British Jews. "Our history of exile and ghettoization has meant that the Jewish people are remarkably cohesive, genetically, culturally and religiously, and through the centuries the countries in which we have lived have had no compunction in designating us as Jews. It is Sand's theory that is the upstart, rootless and incredible, not the history and collective memory of the Jewish people and our connection to Israel."

The Community Security Trust, a charity that monitors anti-Semitism in the UK, also questioned how there was no dissenting voice at any of Sand's appearances.
"The book was featured without dissent on BBC Radio on November 9, the 61st anniversary of Kristallnacht," said Mark Gardiner, the Community Security Trust's director of communications.

Gardiner said there had also been no contextualization during the appearances. Evident, he said, when presenter Andrew Marr summarized the book on the BBC radio show with Sand saying: "There was a kind of [Zionist] master plan to present the history of the Jewish people in Europe which emerged in the 19th century and the modern world has rather swallowed whole... [The book says] actually the history of the Jewish people is not as you thought... The Old Testament is very, very inaccurate... Most of the story of the Jews as presented in the history of the Old Testament is fictitious, you think..."

Gardiner added: "There are many ways, often subtle, in which anti-Israel or anti-Zionist debate can have an anti-Jewish impact. However, a new anti-Zionist book by Tel Aviv University Prof. Shlomo Sand remolds the paradigm: with notions of Jewish peoplehood now under attack in the service of anti-Zionism.

"The sense of common lineage, kinship and peoplehood that Jews around the world share and hold is a fundamental part of their identity, as perversely demonstrated by the splenetic accusations of 'self-hater' that are hurled by some Jews at others who do not toe the majority line. To deny this aspect of Jewish identity - perhaps more accurately to demand that for political reasons it be rejected - is surely to deny or reject something that is essential to our perception of Jewishness itself."

Gardiner said there was nothing wrong with genuine historical inquiry about Jews or any other facet of history.

"However, that is neither the core purpose, nor the core impact of Sand's book. It can be summed up very simply as: No real Jews = no need for a really Jewish state.

"To add insult to injury, not only are Sand's conclusions extremely questionable, but even his claims to originality are significantly overblown. For example, there is nothing new in his claim that the Old Testament is neither a revealed text, nor historically perfect. Indeed, there are entire synagogue movements that are ideologically premised upon those very doubts. Similarly, there has been much debate and study about the Khazar kingdom and Jewish lineage: in both Jewish studies departments and the more deluded end of the far-Right spectrum," Gardiner said.

Sand's book also received a critical review in the Financial Times on Friday.

Jordaanse vakbondsleden kwaad over Israelische visa bij bezoek aan Westoever

2009-11-16T18:22:00.001Z

Misschien moet de VN Veiligheidsraad maar in spoedzitting zitting bijeen komen, en de EU een stevige verklaring uitvaardigen vanwege het nieuwste wangedrag van Israël tegenover buurland Jordanië, waarmee het sinds 1994 een vredesverdrag heeft.

Israël heeft namelijk zomaar, zonder medeweten van de betreffende vakbondsleden, Israëlische visa's in hun paspoorten gestempeld bij hun bezoek aan de Westoever, en dat kan natuurlijk niet. Nou dreigen ze uit de vakbond te worden gezet, wat het einde van hun carriere kan betekenen.

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"Tricky Israelis" have been blamed for Jordanian union members having Israeli visa stamps in their passport:

Although the delegates received a special permit from the Palestinian Authority to facilitate their entry, their passports were stamped by Israeli authorities "without justification", Obeidat claimed. "Israel is trying to tarnish our image and basic principles, which are against normalisation with Israel," he added.

================

Israel 'tricked' Jordan union members visiting West Bank

http://www.tuliponline.org/?p=1090

By andrew

"Tricky Israelis" have been blamed for Jordanian union members having Israeli visa stamps in their passport.

One hundred Jordanian Engineering Union members, part of a large delegation meeting with Palestinian counterparts, were facing expulsion from their union because of anti-Israel, anti-normalisation policies of their association.

Union expulsion could end careeers

This threat caused quite a deal of problems because under Jordanian law expulsion from their union could have ended their careers as engineers.

But the Jordan Times has just reported that the Engineers Union members who have Israeli stamps in their passports will now not be penalised, JEA President Abdullah Obeidat said on Tuesday.

Some observers have commented that the issues of tricky Israelis was conveniently raised a few weeks back by the union leadership because of internal Engineering Union elections.

Israeli border authorities blamed for stamping passports

Union President Abdulla Obeidat has blamed Israeli border authorities for allegedly stamping the passports of a union delegation travelling to the Palestinian territories without their knowledge.

"The engineers' delegation that participated in the third consulting conference in Ramallah was tricked by occupation authorities who stamped their passports without their consent or knowledge," the union president said in a statement made available to The Jordan Times.

Passport stamps considered normalisation and subject to disciplinary action

The members whose passports were stamped, considered by many in the association as a sign of normalisation, will not face disciplinary action , he added.

A delegation of around 100 engineers travelled to the occupied territories last month to lend support to their Palestinian counterparts.

Israel visa stamps tarnish our image and basic principles union president

"Israel is trying to tarnish our image and basic principles, which are against normalisation with Israel," he added.

Earlier this month, the Jordan Engineers Union delegation came under fire from some activists for entering the Palestinian territories with an Israeli visa.

The Anti-Normalisation Committee at the union warned that if any member is proven to have the Israeli stamp in his passport, he would face expulsion from the syndicate.

Conspiracy by Israel

Obeidat deplored Israel's actions and for "not informing delegation members what was happening".

"This is a conspiracy by the occupation to make it appear that the engineers are normalising relations with Israel," he said, noting that the union leadership refused to take part in the event for fear of similar action.

Jordan signed peace treaty with Israel in 1994

Jordan signed the Wadi Araba treaty with Israel in 1994, making it the second Arab country to sign a peace agreement with Israel following the 1978 Camp David Accords with Egypt.

However, activists at the professional associations have been leading a campaign against normalisation with Israel since the treaty was signed.

Members of professional associations who are proven to have established contacts with the Israeli side face disciplinary measures including being expelled from their association and banned from practising their profession.

Read earlier report on TULIP website

Union members face probe into Israel visas in their passports

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 11th, 2009 at 00:26.

Bill Clinton roept Palestijnen en Israëli's op om vredesbesprekingen te hervatten

2009-11-16T18:06:00.001Z

Het lijkt erop dat Obama Bill Clinton heeft ingezet om het vertrouwen van de Israeli's terug te winnen. Ik vind het vreemd dat hij niet zelf een duidelijk gebaar maakt, zoals Israel bezoeken, of steun uitspreken voor Israels standpunt dat de Palestijnen en Arabieren Israel als Joodse staat moeten erkennen. Waarom wordt nou opeens Bill Clinton ten tonele gevoerd??

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'US policy on settlements has changed'

Nov. 15, 2009
Tovah Lazaroff , THE JERUSALEM POST

Former US president Bill Clinton urged the Palestinians on Sunday to accept America's modification of its anti-settlement policy and return to the bargaining table.

"Take where we are and the reformulation of the settlement issue and find a way [to move forward]," Clinton told a Jerusalem gathering of high level American and Israeli policy makers at the Saban Forum in Jerusalem.

The Palestinians, he warned, were more likely to get a good deal through negotiations. By refusing to talk with Israel, he said, they risked irking the international community, which might then blame them for the stalled peace process.

His words were consistent with the policy of US President Barack Obama's administration, which has backed Israel's call to the Palestinians to open an immediate dialogue without preconditions.

America has said it wants Israel to freeze settlement activity but that Israel's refusal to comply with this demand should not stop the two sides from talking.

"We have to work with the politics we found in Israel just like we have to work with the politics we found with the Palestinians," Clinton said.

He added that he would not be shocked if Netanyahu's government "actually does make some kind of an agreement or makes a proposal that would be beyond anything anyone expects," Clinton said.

He repeated the praise his wife, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, made last month with regard to Israel's decision to curb settlement activity.

"This is the first time that any Israeli government has said we will not issue any new permits and not have any new settlements and that should be enough to open the door and start talking," said Clinton.

Both sides, he said, would only benefit from peace.

"You cannot get a divorce and move to another planet," Clinton said.

The Palestinians, he warned the Israelis, are having children at a faster rate. "If you want to be a democracy and a Jewish state you have to cut a deal," he said.

There is a physical danger to a deadlocked peace process, he added. It is only a matter of time, he warned, before Hamas is capable of putting a GPS system on the rockets that it continues to launch from Gaza against Israel's southern border.

"The trajectory of technology is not your friend… you need to get this done and you do have partners," said Clinton. It is not too late to make peace.

But in the process, he said, Israel should be careful "not to sound too victimized." It should also believe that America is its friend and remains deeply committed to Israel and its security.

"You should not think that President Obama is your enemy," Clinton said.

He spoke in the aftermath of media reports of a strained relationship between Netanyahu and Obama as well as speculation that the US was about to step away from the peace process.

Clinton, however, stressed that the US, and Obama, remain deeply committed to the peace process.

"I think that when we meet someone new, in any context, we are always looking for clues that will tell us something," said Clinton.

"No American president can serve in good conscience and not be committed to the security of Israel," said Clinton.

"The United States cannot make you do something that you do not want to do," Clinton said. He added that if the US spends federal funds to support Israel's security needs, "then we owe it to you to say what the best way to achieve that security is."

He said that Israel should interpret America's rejection of the Goldstone Report, which accused Israel of war crimes in Gaza, as a strong sign of its commitment to Israel.

For America to be an effective partner in the peace process it is critical that Israel believes and trusts in the deep bonds between the two countries.

"As long as you believe that American is with you at some core emotional level, we can have a conversation about anything. If you ever stop believing that then it does not matter what our position is," he said.

He cautioned Israelis not to "over-analyze the Obama-Netanyahu relationship."

With respect to a nuclear Iran, he said, the largest danger is the nuclear proliferation that would follow Iran's ability to produce weapons of mass destruction.

This article can also be read at http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1258027297193&pagename=JPArticle%2FShowFull

Israel nog onmisbaar voor Palestijnse watervoorziening en voor veiligheid Abbas

2009-11-16T17:58:00.001Z

Despite the deployment of these forces - which IDF officers openly admit are doing a good job cracking down on Hamas infrastructure in the West Bank - whenever PA President Mahmoud Abbas travels outside of Ramallah to another Palestinian city, the IDF, Shin Bet and Civil Administration are all involved to coordinate and ensure his safety.

"When Abbas travels it is like a military operation," one officer explained. "Everyone is involved since the PA forces cannot yet completely ensure his security."

Dit is maar één van de vele voorbeelden waarin de Palestijnen Israel nodig hebben en er samengewerkt wordt.

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'The Palestinian Water Authority wouldn't last a day on its own'

Nov. 15, 2009
Yaakov Katz , THE JERUSALEM POST

While Palestinian officials continued to threaten Sunday to unilaterally declare independence, one senior Israeli defense official summed up the growing assessment in the defense establishment by saying, "Just let them try."

Behind the dare is a belief in the IDF and Defense Ministry that even though the past year has seen an unprecedented improvement in the performance of Palestinian security forces and civilian institutions - largely due to increased cooperation with Israel - the Palestinian Authority is still far from being able to hold it together on its own.

One official gave the water situation in the West Bank as an example. While Israel has recently come under growing international criticism for allegedly denying Palestinians adequate access to water, according to Israeli officials the situation would be far worse without Israeli assistance.

"The Palestinian Water Authority wouldn't last a day on its own," an IDF source said. "We allocated them a piece of land on the coast to build a desalination plant and they have decided not to build it."

Another example focuses on security cooperation, which has significantly increased over the past two years, since Hamas violently took control of the Gaza Strip. Next month, the fifth Palestinian battalion trained by US Lt.-Gen. Keith Dayton in Jordan will return to the West Bank for deployment. Another one will then depart for four months of training in Jordan.

"When Abbas travels it is like a military operation," one officer explained. "Everyone is involved since the PA forces cannot yet completely ensure his security."

The understanding in the defense establishment is that with all the hype surrounding the possibility that the Palestinians will unilaterally declare a state, it is more likely a ploy aimed at getting Israel to be serious about negotiations on the two-state solution. The idea is to get other countries to put pressure on Israel to start making real concessions - such as a freeze on settlement construction - so the talks can begin.

While this may be true, the corridors of the IDF's Central Command and Planning Division were buzzing with talk about the potential fallout, both diplomatically and militarily.

If the Palestinians declare statehood, then Israel will likely come under major international pressure to take action to show it recognizes the new state. The government will then go knocking on the IDF's door.

Ultimately though, Israeli moves will be dictated by political decisions. Israel cannot order the IDF to completely pull back from the West Bank while settlers still live there. It can, on the other hand, lift more roadblocks and even allow the Palestinians in the interim to "have" their new state in Area A parts of the West Bank which are already, for the most part, under Palestinian control.

This article can also be read at http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1258027297260&pagename=JPArticle%2FShowFull

Muziekfestival in Jeruzalem wil Joden en Arabieren bij elkaar brengen

2009-11-15T03:35:00.000Z

Een mooi inter-cultureel muziekfestival in Jeruzalem om Joden en Arabieren bij elkaar te brengen, met hulp van Europese muzikanten!

Maar nee, dit is niet het 'Al Quds 2009' festival dat onlangs de Nederlandse kranten en het NOS journaal haalde, waar Joden helaas niet konden worden toegelaten. Dit festival werd afgelopen juni gehouden, en toont aan dat Joden en Arabieren in Jeruzalem wel degelijk samen te brengen zijn, zoals al decennialang op allerlei terreinen wordt gedaan. Helaas nog niet genoeg.

Wouter

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Festival pieces Jerusalem together through music
http://www.reuters.com/article/email/idUSTRE55P2T020090626

Fri Jun 26 11:52:10 UTC 2009

By Alastair Macdonald

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Throughout June, a group of European classical musicians, accompanied by Palestinians and Israelis, has roused and challenged audiences across Jerusalem in an eclectic festival aimed at bridging the city's divides.

Audiences at the fourth annual Sounding Jerusalem Festival (www.soundingjerusalem.com) have heard chamber music by Brahms and Bach wafting through the Old City, Mozart and Mendelssohn at a Crusader church in an Israeli Arab village and flutes playing Beethoven in the confines of an ancient fort in the West Bank.

Many of the daily concerts, which will conclude on Sunday with a spectacular sunset show, also featured local harmonies.

"We are trying to break down walls," the festival's prime mover, 35-year-old Austrian cellist Erich Oskar Huetter, said on Wednesday as he prepared to lead an ad hoc sextet including an Arab oud, or lute, accordion and clarinet for an innovative evening performance in a medieval courtyard near al-Aqsa mosque.

"We hope to get people a bit confused, say to themselves is this really the music of my enemy?" added Huetter, who founded the series of free concerts in 2006 and who expects to develop it further next year, with continued financial support from Austrian, German and other European state cultural foundations.

Among prominent European names persuaded to perform were the Casals Quartet from Spain and Vienna's Artis Quartet, along with an impressive line-up of soloists, including French clarinetist Michel Lethiec and Austrian pianist Paul Gulda.

Wednesday's program ran through music appropriate to the four quarters of the Old City -- Bach for the Christians, Arabic classical airs for the Muslim Quarter, European and Israeli Jewish tunes and finally toe-tapping Armenian melodies.

It delighted an audience of 100 or so, from both Arab and Jewish sides of the modern city of Jerusalem, who came despite the tension that pervades the walled Old City, where barbed wire marks divisions between Arab and Jewish homes and heavily armed Israeli police patrol the narrow, cobbled streets.

"It's very touching," said Tzipi Weitzman, an Israeli art teacher who said the festival had become an annual fixture in her cultural calendar and tempted her to return to parts of her home city she had long avoided due to violence or tension.

"The festival has brought me back to the Old City."

Read the rest of the article here: REACHING ACROSS THE CITY

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Opiniepeiling: Israëli's steunen mogelijke onderhandelingen met Hamas....

2009-11-14T04:16:00.000Z

.... als Hamas Israël erkent.

Dat detail maakt de kop wat lang, dus heeft men dat weggelaten, met als gevolg dat de voorstanders van onvoorwaardelijk praten met Hamas nu zeggen: 'onze oproep met Hamas te praten wordt gesteund door meer dan de helft van de Israëli's'. Zo gemakkelijk gaat het verdraaien van informatie.

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Israelis seen backing possible talks with Hamas

http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSTRE5AC1CC20091113

Fri Nov 13, 2009 4:33am EST

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - More than half of Israelis would support peace talks with the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas if it recognized Israel, a poll published on Friday said.

The results of the survey conducted by the Israeli Dialog Institute seemed to suggest Israelis were blaming Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, a Hamas rival, for a deadlock in peace talks, more than Israel's rightist Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the Haaretz newspaper wrote.

A peace plan floated on Sunday by a former defense chief, Shaul Mofaz, suggesting possible talks with Hamas if the Islamists were to drop their refusal to recognize Israel, was backed by 57 percent of Israelis, the poll showed.

It also showed an increasing majority backing Netanyahu.

Mofaz, number two lawmaker in Israel's largest opposition party, Kadima, also proposed giving Palestinians 60 percent of West Bank land for a state and compensating Jewish settlers to leave these areas.

Western countries have said they would engage Hamas only if it renounced violence, accepted interim peace deals with Israel and recognized its right to exist.

Abbas had threatened to avoid standing for reelection, blaming Netanyahu for a delay in peace talks stalled since December. He has since agreed to delay a scheduled Palestinian poll after objections voiced by Hamas.

Despite the support for Mofaz's ideas, Netanyahu had also gained greater backing in recent months, the newspaper said. The poll was taken after Netanyahu's talks with U.S. President Barack Obama in Washington on Monday.

Netanyahu's right-wing allies were predicted as capable of winning more seats in parliament than in the February election, whereas center and left-wing parties have lost some support, the survey showed.

Israeli rightist parties would win 72 of parliament's 120 seats, up from 65 at the moment, while centrist and left-wing parties would drop from 55 to 48, the poll found.

(Writing by Allyn Fisher-Ilan; Editing by Charles Dick)

Syrië wijst rechtstreekse onderhandelingen met Israel af

2009-11-14T04:09:00.001Z

En ondertussen wel dreigen de Golan met geweld terug te pakken als Israel niet wil praten. Wie is hier inconsequent? Uiteraard moet Israel, als er ooit gepraat zal worden, al Syrië's eisen inwilligen, anders dan - ja dan wat? Dan blijft Syrië Hezbollah steunen en dreigende taal spreken en de Joden beschuldigen van het bakken van matzes met het bloed van christelijke kinderen en Israel op allerlei andere manieren tegenwerken, zoals het al 60 jaar doet. Als Israel al Syrië's eisen inwilligt dan is er binnenkort geen Israel meer. Er valt op dit front dus voorlopig geen vooruitgang te verwachten.

RP
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Syria rejects Israel talks
Al Jazeera - 13 Nov. 2009

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/europe/2009/11/20091113145246388303.html

Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian president, has said he is not willing to hold face-to-face talks with the Israeli leader, after a meeting in France aimed at restarting the Middle East peace process.

His comments come after meeting Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, who conveyed a willingness by Israel's prime minister to begin peace talks with the Syrians.

Al-Assad said: "If Mr [Binyamin] Netanyahu is serious, he can send a team of experts, and we'll send a team of experts to Turkey. Then we can really talk, if they're interested."

The meeting between al-Assad and Sarkozy in Paris on Friday comes a week after Netanyahu met the French leader.
Sarkozy was expected to hand al-Assad a letter from Netanyahu, in which he says the Israelis are ready to begin talks with the Syrians, with no pre-conditions.

Syria has long had one main pre-condition for talks with Israel - the return of the strategic Golan Heights, which Israel captured in the 1967 war and annexed in 1981.

Al-Assad, speaking outside the Eylsee Palace, said: "Today, Syria wants peace. There is a mediator, Turkey, which is ready to resume its mediation.
"What we lack is an Israeli partner who is ready to go forward and ready to come to a result," he said.

Conditions for peace

Hostility between Israel and Syria is one of the problems underlying efforts to seek a broader Middle East peace settlement.

While Syria has repeatedly demanded the return of the Golan Heights, Israel accuses Syria of backing armed groups such as Hezbollah and Hamas.

This week al-Assad told a meeting of Arab politicians that Syria would not "put forward conditions on making peace" but warned it had "rights that we will not renounce," the SANA news agency reported.

Earlier on Friday, al-Assad hailed a "climate of trust" with France, welcoming a "resumption of good relations" between the two countries.
Our correspondent said it comes after Sarkozy reached out to the Syrians a year ago.

"Remember they had a dreadful relationship when Jacques Chirac was president. Sarkozy said he was going to sort that out," Fisher reported.

EU 'partnership'

But the Syrian leader said his country had not "yet reached a revival of trust between Syria and the United States," and called on Barack Obama, the US president, to do more for the stalled Middle East peace process.

"What president Obama said about peace was a good thing. We agree with him on the principles, but... what is the plan of action? The [peace process] sponsor must come up with a plan of action," al-Assad told Le Figaro.
"The weak point - it's the American sponsor."

The Syrian president also repeated his position that Damascus must review a partnership agreement with the European Union, which had been due to be signed in October, calling on the bloc to have "more political independence".

"The Europeans have turned completely towards the United States, to Syria's detriment. A partner must be a friend and we haven't noticed that from Europe these last years," he said.

Damascus and the EU first drew up the draft partnership pact in 2004, but it was never signed by European countries, amid concerns by some nations of human rights abuses in Syria.

Source: Al Jazeera and agencies

Ook Israel twijfelt over F-35 Joint Strike Fighter

2009-11-14T03:57:00.000Z

Israel heeft ook zo zijn problemen met de Joint Strike Fighter, die officieel F-35 Lightning II is genoemd. Het volgende is delicaat:

In the coming weeks, officials said, the Defense Ministry will receive an official letter from the Pentagon detailing the price of the aircraft and also finalizing some of the outstanding issues between the sides regarding the integration of Israeli defense suites into the plane, as well as allowing Israel to independently maintain the aircraft without needing to send it to Europe for repairs.

Als onderhoud en reparaties in Europa zouden moeten plaatsvinden, kunnen EU landen dit als chantage middel tegen Israel gebruiken en allerlei voorwaarden gaan stellen aan die reparaties, zoals acceptatie van een staakt het vuren met Hamas onder ongunstige voorwaarden en allerlei andere concessies. De roep om druk op Israel als het niet aan Europese voorwaarden voldoet wordt steeds luider, en verschillende landen hebben al eerder militaire sancties tegen Israel ingesteld. Vreemd genoeg worden aan de Palestijnen geen harde eisen gesteld, ondanks de miljarden aan EU steun voor de Palestijnse Autoriteit.

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The F-35 problem again

http://zionism-israel.com/israel_news/2009/11/f-35-problem-again.html

Israel is not enthusiastic about buying the F-35 as the next generation workhorse aircraft of the IAF. It is too expensive and too slow. Its stealth capabilities are very important in evading sophisticated enemies or for surprise bombing missions such as attacks on nuclear reactor sites in certain countries, as well as for destroying the Russian Surface to Air Missile air defense systems typically in use in enemy air forces, but it is too slow and heavy to be a match for the Mig 31 in a dogfight and has an inferior ceiling. Because it is underpowered, its rate of climb statistics (classified) cannot be good. Add to that the prohibition on Israeli maintenance and other problems that were supposedly solved in the past, but seem to keep repeating themselves, and the aircraft becomes truly problematic. It is not a replacement for the F-16 or F-15, which are nimbler aircraft.

Ami Isseroff

==================

Israel wants production role in F-35

Nov. 13, 2009
Yaakov Katz , THE JERUSALEM POST

While Israel is interested in purchasing the fifth-generation stealth Joint Strike Fighter from Lockheed Martin, it will likely hinge its order on US acceptance of its demand that Israeli defense industries be allowed to participate in the aircraft's production, senior defense officials said Thursday.

On Monday, Defense Minister Ehud Barak met with US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and discussed potential Israeli involvement in the production of the JSF, also known as the F-35. In the past, Israeli aerospace companies have been integrated into the production of aircraft purchased by the IAF.

During their meeting, as well as a meeting last week between Defense Ministry director-general Pinhas Buchris and officials from Lockheed Martin, the Israeli officials stressed that they would be reluctant to purchase the aircraft immediately if Israeli companies were kept out of the deal.

Officials said, though, that if the price of the aircraft were reduced from the expected $130 million, Israel would be more willing to compromise in following through with its initial plan to purchase the aircraft in the coming months. If that happens, the JSF will begin arriving in Israel in 2014.

In the coming weeks, officials said, the Defense Ministry will receive an official letter from the Pentagon detailing the price of the aircraft and also finalizing some of the outstanding issues between the sides regarding the integration of Israeli defense suites into the plane, as well as allowing Israel to independently maintain the aircraft without needing to send it to Europe for repairs.

In July, the Defense Ministry submitted an official letter of request to the Pentagon to purchase its first squadron of 25 F-35 stealth fighter jets, but officials have said that the target date for a contract at the beginning of 2010 would likely not be met. As a result, the arrival of the aircraft - initially predicted to begin in 2014 - would likely be postponed by at least one or two years.

Uitroepen Palestijnse staat door PA is overtreding van Oslo Akkoorden

2009-11-13T05:07:00.000Z

Een eenzijdige uitroeping van een onafhankelijke staat, waarmee de Palestijnse Autoriteit heeft gedreigd, zou een grove schending van de Oslo Akkoorden inhouden. Dat stelt immers dat beide partijen de juridische status quo in de bezette gebieden niet mogen veranderen. Als Europa een dergelijke onafhankelijkheidsverklaring zou steunen, zou zij een schending steunen van het akkoord dat zijzelf als getuige mede heeft ondertekend. Toch heeft de EU tegen premier Fayyad gezegd dit plan te steunen. Het lijkt soms alsof de EU gemaakte afspraken en internationaal recht alleen van belang vindt, wanneer het tegen Israel gebruikt kan worden.

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Analysis: PA would breach Oslo if it declared a state unilaterally

Nov. 9, 2009
Dan Izenberg , THE JERUSALEM POST

From a practical point of view, the question of whether or not the Palestinian Authority can declare "Palestine" an independent state is more political than legal.

It is clear from the provisions of the 1995 Oslo Interim Agreement that the Palestinian Authority would be perpetrating a material breach of the treaty by declaring an independent state.

According to Article 23 of the internationally recognized accord, "neither side shall initiate or take any step that will change the status of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip pending the outcome of the permanent status negotiations."

Therefore, a unilateral declaration of independence by the PA would constitute a clear and serious violation of the agreement.

According to attorney Allen Baker, a former legal adviser to the Foreign Ministry, on the basis of that breach, Israel could declare the entire agreement void.

Baker added that the 1995 accord not only determined the administrative and security arrangements in all of the West Bank according to areas A, B and C, but is also the source of authority for the PA itself.

Palestinian Prime Minister Salaam Fayad's program not only declares that a Palestinian state will be established in 2011, but also says its borders will be those of June 4, 1967, in other words, it will include all of the West Bank and east Jerusalem.

In the plan, entitled "Palestine: Ending the Occupation, Establishing the State," Fayyad wrote, "This [proposal] is the path to the creation of the independent state of Palestine on the Palestinian territory occupied in 1967, with East Jerusalem as its capital."

Hebrew University Professor Emeritus Ruth Lapidot told The Jerusalem Post that according to the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, no state can abrogate a bilateral treaty unless it declares that the other partner is guilty of a "material breach" of the agreement.

Although the PA is not a state, the same principle should apply to it.

So far, the PA has not accused Israel of any material breach. Nevertheless, when he introduced his proposal to building up the Palestinian institutions for the establishment of an independent state, Fayad reportedly added that Oslo had been signed 16 years earlier, yet there was still no end to the Israeli "occupation."

And pointing to the more than 100 settlements in the West Bank, which he said were built in violation of international law, Fayad added, "Look who's talking about unilateralism."

Lapidot explained that there was no international body or institution that recognized states. Individual countries did so according to their own national considerations.

There are, indeed, four conditions that an entity should fulfill in order to be regarded as a state. It must have a population, a territory, an effective government and it must be able to conduct relations with other countries.

But each country determines for itself whether the criteria have been met. Lapidot estimated that the PA would have no trouble finding countries to recognize Palestine as a state, despite the constraints of the Oslo Accord.

The experts with whom the Post spoke on Sunday agreed, however, that the most important question for Israel is whether the US would do so.

Dan Diker, a foreign policy analyst at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, said he was worried that the American administration is heading in that direction and is ready to abandon the peace negotiations which have been stalled since Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu came to power.

But Baker said he was not overly concerned that this would happen because the US, along with Russia, Norway, Egypt and the European Union, co-signed the Oslo Accord. Baker said he found it difficult to believe that any of them would be prepared to support a material breach of the treaty by the PA and recognize a Palestinian state.

This article can also be read at http://www.jpost.com /servlet/Satellite?cid=1257455213467&pagename=JPArticle%2FShowFull

Hezbollah beweert dat raketten heel Israel kunnen treffen

2009-11-13T04:48:00.000Z

"The enemy knows that defeat under the current circumstances would be a critical defeat that would change the balance of power in favor of Hizbullah, leading to the destruction of the Zionist entity," Kamati said.

Hezbollah is overduidelijk niet alleen maar uit op het verdedigen van Libanees grondgebied, maar op de vernietiging van Israel, iets dat ook in haar beginselprogramma staat. Wanneer eisen al die mensenrechtenactivisten en vredesactivisten eens dat Hezbollah zich aan het internationale recht houdt en wordt ontwapend zoals verschillende VN resoluties eisen?

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JPost - The Jerusalem Post
Nov 11, 2009 18:29 | Updated Nov 11, 2009 21:26
'All of Israel is within our fire range'
By JPOST.COM STAFF
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1257770041635&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

Senior Hizbullah official Mahmoud Kamati on Wednesday mocked IDF Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi, and said all of Israel was within his group's fire range.

"Ashkenazi's threats are baseless and are an attempt to draw attention away from the enemy's defeat in Gaza and in Lebanon," Kamati said in an interview with Al-Jazeera. He went on to boast that "all the cities and all Israeli military and industrial centers are within Hizbullah's fire range."

Kamati was responding to remarks by Ashkenazi on Tuesday, who told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee that "Hizbullah operatives in Lebanon are in possession of tens of thousands of rockets, with a range of up to 325km."

The Hizbullah official went on to warn that if the IAF bombed Beirut, Hizbullah would retaliate by bombing Tel Aviv.

"The enemy knows that defeat under the current circumstances would be a critical defeat that would change the balance of power in favor of Hizbullah, leading to the destruction of the Zionist entity," Kamati said.

In Tuesday's briefing, the IDF chief told committee MKs that Israel was working to prevent weapons smuggling from a plethora of locations in the region, noting last week's raid of the Francop, on which hundreds of tons of weaponry bound for Hizbullah were discovered.

Kamati, however, denied that the weapons were bound for Hizbullah, calling such claims a "ridiculous lie."

Also on Wednesday, a military court in Lebanon sentenced a Lebanese soldier and his wife to death after the couple were found guilty of spying for Israel, Israel Radio reported.

The court also sentenced the defendant's sister and her husband, who are reportedly living in Israel, to death.

According to the report, the four were found guilty of contacting Israeli agents in order to assist in case of an Israeli attack on Lebanon.

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