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Palestinians accused Israeli forces on Monday of shooting a 65-year-old Gazan on his farm near the border with Israel. The Israeli military said it had no knowledge of the shooting.
The farmer’s son said that three gunshots were fired from an Israeli watchtower overlooking the family’s property, which is close to the security fence that marks the border, and that one of the bullets hit his father in the neck. Israeli forces, wary of Palestinian militants’ trying to come into Israel, have warned people in Gaza not to approach the fence.
Rebuffing U.S. criticism of a new housing project for Jews in an Arab neighborhood of East Jerusalem, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's office said Monday that the project was a private initiative in which the government "was not involved."
Bulldozers tore down a wing of the former Shepherd Hotel on Sunday to make way for the project. That drew a rebuke from Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who said the action undermined peace efforts.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton lobbied Arab governments on Monday to help tighten the screws on their Iranian neighbors, saying that sanctions and other measures are hurting Tehran and undermining its ability to acquire components for its nuclear program.
Clinton, in the Middle East for four days of talks, also pushed oil-rich Persian Gulf states to do more to back fragile governments in the West Bank and Iraq to create stability in a region that has so frequently veered into war.
Bulldozers began tearing down a former hotel building Sunday to make way for a Jewish housing development in an Arab neighborhood of East Jerusalem, pushing ahead with a contentious project that has raised concerns in Washington.
The work drew a rebuke from Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and sharp condemnation from Palestinian officials, further souring the diplomatic atmosphere as the Obama administration works to sustain peace efforts despite a breakdown of direct talks in a dispute over Israeli building in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
Israel's foreign relations are suffering these days from an outbreak of poor diplomacy. Not necessarily bad; just poor.
Foreign Ministry employees say they are just that, poor. Their basic salaries have been devalued by about 40% since last being updated in the early 1990s, and many of them rely on help from welfare services, say activists from the ministry workers' union.
In 2000, then-President Bill Clinton suggested that one of the thorniest issues of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict – the division of Jerusalem to create two capitals for two states – should be decided along demographic lines. In other words, Jewish neighborhoods would be incorporated into Israel and Arab neighborhoods would become part of the future Palestinian state.
The demolition of an East Jerusalem hotel to make way for Jewish homes in a predominantly Palestinian neighborhood has sparked concerns from Europe to Egypt, which suggested a new intifada could break out as a result.
The Shepherd Hotel project will bring only 20 Jewish homes to Sheikh Jarrah, but it is at the forefront of a broader, intensely controversial Jewish campaign to establish a foothold in Arab neighborhoods circling the heart of Jerusalem.
The Shepherd Hotel, partially bulldozed yesterday by private Israeli builders, is located just a few hundred yards from what had been my Jerusalem office until a few months ago. For the past several years, while I was based there working for the Quartet, I would pass the fenced off property daily thinking that the slightly dilapidated structure, built in the 1930s, must have once been elegant and grand. It has been fenced off and unused while its fate was being fought out in the Israeli judicial system.
The Palestinian U.N. envoy said on Monday that his and other U.N. delegations have yet to persuade Washington to support a Security Council push to condemn Israeli settlement work, but they will keep trying.
Riyad Mansour, the permanent Palestinian observer to the United Nations, said that an initial draft resolution that condemns and calls for a halt to all West Bank settlements was delivered to the 15-nation U.N. Security Council in December.
The U.N. chief "deplores" Israel's demolition of the Shepherd Hotel in East Jerusalem and said it only served to heighten tensions between Israel and the Palestinians, a U.N. spokesman said on Monday.
The Shepherd Hotel, torn down as part of a settlement project first announced in 2009, was declared "absentee property" by Israel after it captured and annexed East Jerusalem. Israel views all of Jerusalem as its capital, a claim that is not recognized internationally.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rebuked his combative foreign minister on Tuesday for attacking members of the Israeli leader's Likud party, pointing to growing strains within Israel's coalition government.
In a rambling press conference, Avigdor Lieberman criticized Likud leaders for opposing an initiative to investigate Israeli human rights groups critical of the government. He said it was a "strange spectacle" to see Likud members protecting groups that he described as "terrorist collaborators."
Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erekat announced Tuesday that he will visit Washington to discuss reviving peace talks with U.S. officials.
Erekat stressed that he will not meet the Israeli envoy who will also arrive in Washington this week.
The bilateral discussions which involve Erekat and U.S. State Department officials will "look into how to get out of the current impasse which resulted from Israel's rejection to halt settlement construction," Erekat told Xinhua.
Late last year, Defense Minister Ehud Barak found an unusual message posted on his Facebook profile. It was sent to him by from an individual calling himself Future Ehud Barak and signed “you from the future”.
Barak was told in the message that he would soon receive a package containing very important content. “If you use it wisely… we can do amazing things together”.
One can only imagine the expression on his face when he found that package, waiting for him on the doorstep of his office at the Knesset – a copy of a newspaper called Israel Tomorrow, dated January 1, 2018.
There is no longer any doubt. Avigdor Lieberman is the big boss of the state, the new landlord. His venom has gone to his head even as he sprays it left and right - at "terror-enabling" leftist organizations and at "finicky" rightists who, with the blind conformity of Ionesco's rhinoceroses, "prevent the right from ruling."
Apparently not everyone is willing to stick his nose into Yisrael Beiteinu's open sewer, sniff and enjoy it. Today, the evil spirit sets the tone, spreading the patriot-villain's radiocactive radiation.
The Knesset's decision to probe the human rights' groups funding sources, a move motivated by the right's desire to clamp down on the organizations' activity, should be denounced on several accounts.
However, the right-wing parties should be interested in continuing these organizations' activity, for the simple reason that they - albeit unintentionally - are advancing those parties' long-term interest: entrenching the occupation.
Many Diaspora Jewish communities are already perceived us to be on slippery slope of xenophobia, racism and witch-hunts against human rights and peace activists.
I am writing from Vancouver, the first leg of my North American speaking tour. My first stop is the University of British Columbia. Its student body, like much of Canada, is a rainbow of striking diversity. The cultural environment on campus is a proud blend of pluralism and politeness, acceptance and curiosity, a thirst for knowledge and academic achievement.
As Kassam lands south of Ashkelon, 'Asharq Alawsat' reports that terror groups agree not to initiate escalation, refuse to commit to ceasefire.
Hamas is trying to convince groups in Gaza to stop firing rockets at Israel, according to an Asharq Alawsat report cited by Israel Radio Tuesday morning.
The report was published as a rocket from the Strip landed south of Ashkelon, causing no casualties or damage.
According to the report, Hamas also deployed operatives along the border with Israel in order to maintain control over the Strip.
The Palestinian Authority is quietly encouraging officials from its ruling Fatah party who fled the Gaza Strip following the rival Hamas movement’s bloody takeover in 2007 to return home.
“Hamas and Fatah are both present in the Gaza Strip, and I support all Fatah people returning,” Hussam Khadr, a Fatah leader from Nablus, told The Media Line. "The party leadership should be brave and force people who left without a justified reason to return."
In hindsight everyone will be able to point a certain moment or event and say: “There, then, that is when it went off the tracks.” The incident will not necessarily be a large event, the place not always monumental or even memorable. It is only in hindsight, when it comes time to mourn or to write history, that it is clarified.
Very few come to Jerusalem without deep-seated beliefs about its significance. For Muslims, Jews and Christians, Jerusalem's narrative is part of their own, relevant to their past, their faith and their future.
Members of these three faiths have managed to share Jerusalem and maintain a respect for each other's beliefs for centuries at a time. Israel's insistence on control of Jerusalem as its undivided capital breaks with this tradition and makes a resolution to six decades of hostilities with the Palestinians a near impossibility.
The State of Palestine is on the road to becoming a reality, whether Israel likes it or not.
The writing is on the wall for the Zionist entity. What has happened in the last few days has been an eye-opener for all those who routinely hum and haw when it comes to the issue of Palestinian independence and sovereignty.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced Monday that U.S. officials led by White House Middle East peace advisor Dennis Ross will come to Israel this week to try to revive the Middle East peace process.
Netanyahu made the announcement speaking to members of his right-wing Likud party, adding that all the parties share one goal -- “to strengthen security and reach peace,” Reuters reports.
Links:
[1] http://www.americantaskforce.org/print/16995
[2] http://www.americantaskforce.org/printmail/16995
[3] http://www.americantaskforce.org/printpdf/16995
[4] http://www.americantaskforce.org/rss/wpr
[5] https://www.americantaskforce.org/civicrm/contribute/transact?reset=1&id=1
[6] http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/11/world/middleeast/11mideast.html?_r=2&ref=middleeast
[7] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/11/AR2011011101421.html
[8] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/10/AR2011011001989.html
[9] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/09/AR2011010903304.html
[10] http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/babylonbeyond/2011/01/israel-poor-diplomacy-strikes-out.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+BabylonBeyond+%28Babylon+%26+Beyond+Blog%29
[11] http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2011/0110/Five-controversial-Jewish-neighborhoods-in-East-Jerusalem/Sheikh-Jarrah
[12] http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2011/0110/Israel-hotel-demolition-escalates-fight-for-East-Jerusalem
[13] http://blogs.cfr.org/cook/2011/01/10/guest-post-a-capital-for-one-state-or-two/
[14] http://www.trust.org/alertnet/news/us-not-convinced-on-settlements-palestinian-envoy/
[15] http://www.trust.org/alertnet/news/update-1-uns-ban-deplores-israel-demolition-of-hotel/
[16] http://www.statesman.com/news/nation/strains-emerge-between-netanyahu-foreign-minister-1177473.html
[17] http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/world/2011-01/11/c_13685796.htm
[18] http://www.haaretz.com/culture/israel-tomorrow-where-will-the-mideast-be-in-2018-1.335570
[19] http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/lieberman-is-the-new-kahane-1.336296
[20] http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/israeli-ngos-are-entrenching-the-occupation-1.336331
[21] http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Columnists/Article.aspx?id=203018
[22] http://www.jpost.com/NationalNews/Article.aspx?id=203073
[23] http://www.themedialine.org/news/news_detail.asp?NewsID=31064
[24] http://www.forward.com/articles/134545/
[25] http://www.thenational.ae/thenationalconversation/editorial/muslims-christians-and-jews-must-share-jerusalem
[26] http://arabnews.com/opinion/columns/article232464.ece
[27] http://www.politico.com/blogs/laurarozen/0111/US_Middle_East_peace_efforts_to_resume.html?showall
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