Tag Archives: Israel/Palestine

Israel Rails Against Palestinian Reconciliation Deal

open quoteIsraeli officials appear united in publicly condemning yesterday’s announced reconciliation deal among Palestinian factions Hamas and Fatah. Officials responded today with repeated warnings that they have ruled out any future peace talks.

Prime Minister Netanyahu has taken a line literally of asking Fatah to choose between the right-wing Israeli government and Hamas, saying they cannot have ties with both. Since the Netanyahu government broke off peace talks with Hamas in September, however, it appears the threat to not hold additional peace talks was not a major one for Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas.

Indeed, Israeli officials have occasionally insisted that talks with Fatah were pointless precisely because Hamas was not involved, and they hold sway over a large chunk of the population. It seems either way, the largely illusory peace process would be “imperiled.”

Which has led Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman to insist that Israel may begin withholding all taxes collected for the Palestinian Authority. Since Israel only occasionally pays this amount in full at any rate, and is constantly finding excuses to withhold it to punish officials, this too may be an empty threat.

But top US Congressmen are also threatening to withhold aid to the Palestinian Authority to punish them for “shunning peace talks” by accepting a peace deal with the rival Hamas faction.close quote (Read more from news.antiwar.com)

Israel intellectuals and artists back Palestinian state

open quoteDozens of Israeli intellectuals and artists have signed a petition calling for a Palestinian state based on 1967 borders and an end to the occupation.

The signatories include 16 winners of the Israel Prize, the country’s highest civilian honour. Among them are rights pioneer Shulamit Aloni, historian Yehuda Bauer and sculptor Dani Karavan.

The petition also backs the Palestinian drive for recognition by the UN, in the absence of progress in peace talks. close quote (Read more from bbc.co.uk)

US rejects Palestinian bid to seek UN recognition

open quoteThe United States again Tuesday rejected Palestinian plans to seek recognition for an independent state unilaterally from the United Nations without reaching a peace accord with Israel.

“We don’t believe it’s a good idea, we don’t believe it’s helpful,” said US State Department spokesman Mark Toner.

US-brokered peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians resumed in September, 2010, but collapsed shortly afterwards when Israel refused to extend a moratorium on settlement building in the occupied territories.close quote (Read more from news.yahoo.com)

Imagine my complete lack of surprise.

U.N. vote on Palestinian State Could Force Israel’s Hand

open quoteWith revolutionary fervor sweeping the Middle East, Israel is under mounting pressure to make a far-reaching offer to the Palestinians or face a United Nations vote welcoming the State of Palestine as a member whose territory includes all of the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem.

The Palestinian Authority has been steadily building support for such a resolution in September, a move that could place Israel into a diplomatic vise. Israel would be occupying land belonging to a fellow United Nations member, land it has controlled and settled for more than four decades and some of which it expects to keep in any two-state solution. close quote (Read more from nytimes.com)

Israel passes new Nakba Law

open quoteIsrael’s parliament passed a measure on Tuesday enabling the denial of state funding to institutions that question the country’s existence as a Jewish state, in a move criticised as targetting an Arab minority.

The so-called Nakba Law, using the Arabic word for “catastrophe” which is how many Palestinians regard the founding of Israel, passed by a vote of 37 to 25 after an angry debate among right and left-wing lawmakers.close quote (Read more from ahram.org)

Israeli Defense Minister: Israel may ask US for additional $20 billion in military aid in response to Arab pro-democracy upheavals

open quoteIsrael will need to boost military spending and may seek an additional $20 billion in U.S. security assistance to help it manage potential threats stemming from popular upheavals in the Arab world, Defense Minister Ehud Barak said Monday.close quote (Read more from online.wsj.com)

Israeli Diplomat: “I can no longer represent Israel.”

open quoteBaruch
Veteran diplomat Ilan Baruch quits, says he can no longer represent government; Israel’s foreign policy is ‘wrong,’ he says, adds that blaming global anti-occupation views on anti-Semitism is ‘simplistic, artificial’

Foreign Ministry earthquake: A veteran diplomat says he has resigned from his post because he had a hard time defending the policies of Israel’s current government, Yedioth Ahronoth reported Wednesday.

Ilan Baruch says he quit because “Israel’s foreign policy is wrong,” pointing to the Palestinian issue.

Should this trend continue, he warned, Israel will turn into a pariah state and face growing de-legitimization. close quote (Read more from axisoflogic.com)

Another Holocaust survivor accused of antisemitism

open quoteSacramento’s carefully cultivated interfaith bonds are being stretched to the limit by an 86-year-old Holocaust survivor who is scheduled to speak at a local mosque about the Nazi Holocaust and Israel’s treatment of Palestinians.

Auschwitz survivor Hajo Meyer makes the 11th stop on his national “Never Again for Anyone” tour at the Sacramento League of Associated Muslims Islamic Center at 7 p.m. tonight.

Meyer has equated the Holocaust to Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories, drawing intense fire from Sacramento’s Jewish community and the Anti-Defamation League.

“Comparing Israel to Nazi Germany is repugnant, anti-Semitic and defiles the sacred memory of millions who perished during the Holocaust,” said Rabbi Reuven H. Taff, president of the 13-member Board of Rabbis of Greater Sacramento, in a civil but emotional exchange of letters with SALAM’s Imam Mohamed Abdul Azeez. [emphasis added]close quote (Read more from sacbee.com)

I would like to point out to Rabbi Reuven that Albert Einstein also cmpared Israel to Nazi Germany. (more)

Israeli Perspectives on Egypt

open quotePrime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has told ministers of the Jewish state to make no comment on the political cliffhanger in Cairo, to avoid inflaming an already explosive situation. But Israel’s President Shimon Peres is not a minister.

“We always have had and still have great respect for President Mubarak,” he said on Monday. He then switched to the past tense. “I don’t say everything that he did was right, but he did one thing which all of us are thankful to him for: he kept the peace in the Middle East.”

Newspaper columnists were far more blunt.

One comment by Aviad Pohoryles in the daily Maariv was entitled “A Bullet in the Back from Uncle Sam”. It accused Obama and his Secretary of State Hillary Clinton of pursuing a naive, smug, and insular diplomacy heedless of the risks.close quote (Read more from cnews.canoe.ca)

Rand Paul: End ‘welfare’ to Israel

Rand Paul: open quoteAnd, he said, giving money to the country is especially unwise considering Israel’s relative wealth. “I think they’re an important ally, but I also think that their per capita income is greater than probably three-fourths of the rest of the world,” he said. “Should we be giving free money or welfare to a wealthy nation? I don’t think so.”close quote (Read more from politico.com)

Israel rejected Palestinian offer of almost all Jerusalem: leaked documents

open quoteDocuments to show ‘intimate level of covert co-operation’ between Israel, Palestinian Authority

“Desperate” Palestinian negotiators offered Israel almost all of Jerusalem as part of a peace deal, only to see the offer rejected as inadequate, leaked official Palestinian documents show.

Documents leaked to Arabic news channel al-Jazeera and obtained by the Guardian show that senior Palestinian negotiator Ahmed Qureia made the offer to Israeli negotiators in June of 2008, at a meeting attended by then Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and then Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni.

Qureia’s offer would see all of East Jerusalem, except one neighborhood — Har Homa — handed over permanently to Israel as part of a peace deal.

“This is the first time in history that we make such a proposition; we refused to do so in Camp David,” Qureia reportedly said, referring to the peace negotiations held under President Clinton, which fell apart in 2000 with the start of the Second Intifada.

In response, “the Israeli side refused to even place Jerusalem on the agenda, let alone offer the PA concessions in return for its historic offer,” al-Jazeera reports.

The Guardian reports:

Israeli negotiator Tzipi Livni is recorded as dismissing the offer out of hand because the Palestinians had refused to concede Har Homa, as well as the settlements at Ma’ale Adumim, near Jerusalem, and Ariel, deeper in the West Bank. Israel’s position was fully supported by the Bush administration.

“We do not like this suggestion because it does not meet our demands, and probably it was not easy for you to think about it, but I really appreciate it,” Livni said.

“These documents could discredit among Palestinians the very notion of negotiation with Israel and the two-state solution that underpins it,” Jonathan Freedland wrote in a comment piece at the Guardian.close quote (Read more from rawstory.com)

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Also, via Twitter: Al Jazeera will release the 1st of more than 1,600 documents related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. 20GMT