September 17, 2010

Middle East News: World Press Roundup

NPR profiles the new Palestinian security services. Sec. Clinton wraps up the latest round of negotiations and Pres. Abbas says talks will continue. There is no indication of an agreement on settlements. Jackson Diehl says the Middle East is not Northern Ireland. The CSM asks what happens next without a deal on settlements and whether Syria can help contain Hamas. Jon Haber says boycotts against Israel are ineffective and unhelpful. Israeli troops assassinate a Hamas leader in the West Bank. The PA may be seeking to gain control of a Gaza crossing. Settlers continue to try to seize a Palestinian home in occupied East Jerusalem. The World Bank says Palestinians are well positioned to establish a state, but need foreign investment. UNRWA asks for more aid from Arab states. DM Barak may use legal loopholes to restrict settlement activity. Yoel Marcus says the settlement issue is up to the United States. Ehud Yaari says peace talks have exposed divisions within Hamas. Israeli and Palestinian women illegally visit the beach together. Jacob Savage compares the Israeli occupation with French rule in Algeria. Michael Weiss says analogies between the Middle East and Northern Ireland, and especially between Hamas and Sinn Fein, are deeply flawed.

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Palestinians Make Strides In West Bank Security

Israeli and Palestinian leaders are back at the table negotiating for peace, and a key factor in getting them there was improved security in the West Bank. The Palestinians have taken a larger role, forming police and security forces that have helped restore order in the disputed territory. It’s considered a success, but a new report says it’s hard to sustain.

Abbas Says Israel Talks Will Continue

After two days of difficult peace negotiations with Israel over the issue of Jewish settlements, the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, sounded a modestly positive note on Thursday, declaring that he saw no alternative but to keep talking.

The Palestinians have threatened to walk out of the talks if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not extend a partial moratorium on the construction of settlements, something he has refused to do.

No sign impasse is resolved as Clinton ends Mideast trip

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Thursday wrapped up three days of intense Middle East diplomacy that produced good atmospherics but no sign that an impasse over Israeli settlement construction has been resolved.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said before meeting with Clinton in this West Bank city that both sides recognize there is "no alternative" to continuing peace efforts. But he gave little sign that he is willing to keep talks going after a partial moratorium on Israeli construction expires Sept. 30.

Clinton wraps up Israeli, Palestinian talks - for now

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Thursday wrapped up three days of intense Middle East diplomacy that produced good atmospherics but no sign that an impasse over Israeli settlement construction has been resolved.

"We all know that there is no alternative to peace other than negotiating peace, so we have no alternative but to continue peace efforts," Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said before meeting with the chief U.S. diplomat in the West Bank city of Ramallah.

Is George Mitchell in the Middle East, or Northern Ireland?

A dozen years ago, former senator George Mitchell helped to broker a peace accord, the "Good Friday agreement," between warring Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland. The Irish still appear to be grateful. But I'm not so sure about Israelis and Palestinians -- who appear to be doomed to listen to Mitchell draw parallels between their conflict and that of the Irish at every possible opportunity.

Israel-Palestinian talks end without settlement deal: What happens next?

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton left the Middle East on Thursday with no sign of a breakthrough in Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, despite three days of intensive mediation. The key sticking point is an unresolved dispute over Israeli settlement expansion in the West Bank.

Only two weeks remain before Israel's settlement freeze expires. With Palestinians threatening to quit the talks if construction resumes, negotiators have a fast-closing window – one filled with a cluster of Jewish holidays – to come up with an end game.

Israeli-Palestinian peace talks under threat from Hamas. Can Syria help?

With Gaza rocket fire and Israeli air strikes providing a potent reminder of Hamas's potential to destabilize Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, US envoy George Mitchell arrived in Syria today looking to secure broader regional support.

While Syrian leaders have repeatedly expressed support for restarting peace talks with Israel, few expect an imminent breakthrough on that front. But where Syria could play a crucial role in the short term is in helping the US shore up the recently renewed Israeli-Palestinian talks.

Campaigns to hurt Israeli economy really hurt Middle East peace

After three years of relative quiet, Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaigns have been making a comeback in the past 12 months. The BDS movement demands that organizations divest from Israel’s economy as a protest against claims of human-rights violations against Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. Certainly, loud divestment protests on well-known college campuses and boycott decisions by aging pop stars may make sexier headlines than the quieter work of peace negotiations.

Israeli army assassinates Hamas leader

Israeli forces entered the home of a Hamas leader in Tulkarem on Friday morning and shot him three times in the neck and chest before withdrawing, family members said.

Medics at the Thabit Thabit Hospital in Tulkarem confirmed that 38-year-old Iyad As’ad Shelbaya, a known Hamas leader, was dead, killed by three bullets to the neck and chest.

Shelbaya lived in the Nur Shams refugee camp east of Tulkarem. Security sources said he was assassinated during a raid on his home at 2:30 a.m. on Friday morning.

PA: Exports from Gaza 'within weeks'

The Palestinian Authority will take over the administration of the southernmost Gaza-Israel crossing "within the coming weeks," Palestinian Minister of Civil Affairs Hussein Ash-Sheikh told Ma'an Radio on Thursday.

The official said that 95 percent of the structural changes to the crossing had already been completed, and once they were done the hand-over would be made.

Settlers make renewed attempt on Jlem home

Jerusalem's Qeresh family said friends and neighbors helped them resist what witnesses described as an attempted home take over on Wednesday.

The event reportedly began in the early morning in the As-Sa’diyah neighborhood in the old city of Jerusalem, as Israeli settlers entered a wing of the family home and allegedly began removing furniture.

Family members said young men from the neighborhood came to the scene, and forcibly prevented the settlers from taking the furniture out of the home.

Palestinians able to establish a state - World Bank

WASHINGTON, Sept 16 (Reuters) - The Palestinian Authority is well-positioned to establish a state but will remain dependent on foreign aid unless it can attract private investment and spur economic growth, a World Bank report said on Thursday.

The report to donors by the poverty-fighting institution comes amid new U.S.-led peace efforts between Israel and the Palestinians aimed at forging a deal on Palestinian statehood within a year.

Palestinian refugee agency presses Arabs for funds

The U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees called on Arab nations to give it more money on Thursday, saying a lack of funds was endangering its work supporting Palestinians scattered across their region.

Arab leaders regularly condemn Israel's occupation of Palestinian territories but give less than 5 percent of the funds the agency uses to alleviate one of the world's longest running refugee crises, according to the agency's figures.

Barak may use legal loopholes to impose de facto settlement freeze

Defense Minister Ehud Barak held initial discussions with defense officials this week about the approaching end of the building freeze in the West Bank. He is trying to find ways to restrict settlement construction by the Defense Ministry, which is the de facto authority in the West Bank, without issuing a new order to suspend construction when the moratorium ends on September 26.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton yesterday urged Israel to extend the freeze. She told Channel 10 this would be "extremely useful" for making progress in negotiations with the Palestinians.

A donkey and peace

It's been a long time since negotiations elicited as many smiles and as positive an atmosphere as the Washington-Sharm-Jerusalem round of talks. The leaders, including two presidents and one king, enter closed sessions and emerge smiling, as though the meetings have turned into joke-telling competitions. Those setting the tone are U.S. President Barack Obama in Washington and his envoy here, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Peace talks highlight internal tensions in Hamas

Unsurprisingly, the Hamas leadership – both in Gaza and Damascus, and less so in the West Bank – has greeted the resumption of direct Israeli-Palestinian talks with a flood of contrarian rhetoric.

Characterizing the process as a “sellout” of the Palestinian “cause,” the movement argues that President Mahmoud Abbas lacks the necessary “mandate” to represent his people. Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal went so far as to call Abbas “a zero,” amid accusations of “treason” and “betrayal.”

Sun, sea and grit: Israeli and West Bank women risk jail for day at the beach

The day starts early, at a petrol station alongside a roaring Jerusalem road. The mood among the 15 Israeli women is a little tense, but it's hardly surprising – they're about to break the law and with it one of the country's taboos. They plan to drive into the occupied West Bank, pick up Palestinian women and children and take them on a day trip to Tel Aviv.

Shades of Algeria on the West Bank

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