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Days after Egypt, with great fanfare, opened its border permanently with Gaza, new restrictions have been imposed on Palestinians who want to cross, and the area’s Hamas rulers spoke on Wednesday with frustration and anger.
Only three buses, carrying a total of 150 passengers, entered the Egyptian hall at the Rafah crossing on Wednesday, while five others remained stuck on the Palestinian side, Hamas officials said two hours before closing.
More than a month after saboteurs blew up an Egyptian pipeline supplying natural gas to Israel, the line is repaired but gas is not flowing and foreign shareholders of the company suspect politics to be the reason. They are threatening legal action against Egypt.
American and Thai shareholders in the pipeline have demanded urgent consultations to avoid resorting to binding arbitration based on trade treaties. One letter to Egyptian ministries from an American company with an Israeli chairman threatens a lawsuit of $8 billion.
Today is Jerusalem Day in Israel, the anniversary of the day in the 1967 war when Israel took the Old City and East Jerusalem from Jordan. More than 40 years later, Jerusalem remains one of the largest hurdles to resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Israel insists Jerusalem is its ‘undivided and eternal’ capital while Palestinians insist on securing a capital in East Jerusalem. Here are three reasons why Jerusalem is so important to both sides.
One capital city wanted by two nations
Israeli forces detained two members of the Palestinian Legislative Council from the Hamas and Fatah blocs overnight on Wednesday, following raids on their homes in Nablus and Tulkarem, official sources told Ma'an.
Fatah lawmaker Hussam Khader, a long-time proponent of reconciliation between Hamas and Fatah, was taken from his home at 2 a.m., officials said.
Witnesses said 50 Israeli military jeeps had arrived in the Balata refugee camp, surrounded the home and searched its contents before taking Khader to an unknown location.
French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe arrived in Jerusalem late Wednesday on an "exploratory mission" aimed at reviving the stalled peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians through a conference in Paris.
"We are convinced ... that maintaining the status quo in the Middle East would be a serious mistake. Everything is changing in this region, in Egypt, in Syria, so we must move to regain the initiative," Juppe said after meeting President Mahmoud Abbas in Rome.
A high-ranking Islamic Hamas movement official on Wednesday accused Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas of breaching the reconciliation agreement, which was signed in Cairo and sponsored by Egypt on May 4 between the movement and Fatah party.
Mahmoud al-Zahar, Hamas strongman in Gaza, said in an exclusive interview with Xinhua that President Abbas has made a mistake " when he tried to make the new government, which should be formed after signing the agreement, as his own government, instead of a government of national accordance."
Head of Palestinian Contractors Union Osama Kaheil said Wednesday that the Gaza Strip is in need of five billion U.S. dollars for the reconstruction process including the infrastructure and the economical sectors that had been paralyzed for years.
Kaheil said in an interview with Xinhua that the Gaza Strip is not only in need of reconstructing what the Israeli occupation had destroyed during the three-week Israeli operation Cast Lead in late 2008, adding "the Gaza Strip is in need of comprehensive reconstruction process that includes all sectors."
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared on Wednesday at an official ceremony marking Jerusalem Day that Jerusalem will never be divided again.
"We won't go back to the days we had to climb up the Terra Sancta building to watch the Old City; we'll never go back to a divided, lacerated city, because the day Jerusalem was reunified – the wound healed," he said.
The event, held at the Ammunition Hill, was attended by President Shimon Peres, IDF Chief of Staff Benny Gantz and Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat, as well as other officials.
The dust has settled on the Obama-Netanyahu summit, speeches, counter-speeches, and instant, predictable analyses. Leaving our politics aside, American and Israeli, we now have an opportunity to go beyond performance analyses and the allocation of blame or praise and reflect on where we stand and where we might go.
From the perspective of the majority of Israeli voters, the end result was viewed as a major accomplishment for Prime Minister Netanyahu. An end result was the bringing back of a measure of complexity into the Israeli-Palestinian discussion.
The prime minister’s mention of Israeli Arabs in Congress last month was a step in the right direction but mere mention, without addressing any of the challenges they face, certainly wasn’t enough.
Dear Prime Minister, I would like to congratulate you on your decision to mention the Arab citizens of Israel in your speech to the US Congress last month. Clearly, one of the most significant indicators of the quality of a democracy is the status of its minorities. Like you, I too believe it is important to look at Israeli society and ask: Does the Arab minority in Israel enjoy equal rights?
No, no, Egypt can’t open its border with Gaza – the terrorists will come in and threaten our security, our very existence! So last week Egypt opens its border with Gaza, and suddenly it’s no big deal, maybe we’re better off, now the Gazans won’t be able to complain so much that we’re starving them. Never mind.
The United States will not participate in the United Nations-sponsored Durban III conference this September, the State Department said.
In a letter to Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), Joseph Macmanus, acting assistant secretary of state for legislative affairs, confirmed that the United States would not attend the conference, which in its previous iterations has been a forum for anti-Semitism and anti-Israel rhetoric. JTA obtained a copy of the letter.
While U.S. officials are running a full-court diplomatic press against the Palestinian bid for U.N. recognition of statehood this September and officials at international Jewish organizations are trying to convince foreign leaders to oppose statehood, the Israeli government appears to be taking a different approach: acceptance.
On Monday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told a Knesset committee that there is no way to stop the U.N. General Assembly from recognizing Palestinian statehood.
We know that pragmatism is a part of politics, and that politicians deal with the public along the lines of "do as I say, not as I do". Yet this is all we know today with regards to the politics of our region, where Israeli ships, commercial or otherwise, have been anchored in Iranian ports for years, and this is another matter altogether!
There is weak optimism about the results of the visit by French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe the day after tomorrow to Israel, where he will meet with Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. Juppe will also visit Ramallah, where he will meet with the Palestinian prime minister, Salam Fayyad, after meeting tomorrow evening with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Rome. No matter how strong Juppe's personality is, or the widespread respect he enjoys in France and the rest of the world, the problem lies in the obstinate positions of Netanyahu.
Negotiators the world over are taught that in order to maximise one’s bargaining position, they should always have credible alternatives.
The Arab Peace Initiative adopted at an Arab summit conference in 2002 and reiterated in another summit in 2007 was never controversial among Palestinians in the occupied territories.
Links:
[1] http://www.americantaskforce.org/print/19431
[2] http://www.americantaskforce.org/printmail/19431
[3] http://www.americantaskforce.org/printpdf/19431
[4] http://www.americantaskforce.org/rss/wpr
[5] https://www.americantaskforce.org/civicrm/contribute/transact?reset=1&id=1
[6] http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/02/world/middleeast/02gaza.html?ref=middleeast
[7] http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/02/world/middleeast/02egyptgas.html?ref=middleeast
[8] http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2011/0601/Jerusalem-Day-Why-the-Holy-City-is-at-the-crux-of-the-peace-process/Sovereignty-and-security
[9] http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=393095
[10] http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=393126
[11] http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/world/2011-06/02/c_13906285.htm
[12] http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/world/2011-06/02/c_13906253.htm
[13] http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4077166,00.html
[14] http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4077249,00.html
[15] http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Op-EdContributors/Article.aspx?id=223227
[16] http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Columnists/Article.aspx?id=223229
[17] http://www.jta.org/news/article/2011/06/01/3087972/us-wont-participate-in-durban-iii-state-
[18] http://www.jta.org/news/article/2011/06/01/3087964/israel-considers-options-on-palestinian-statehood-bid
[19] http://www.asharq-e.com/news.asp?section=2&id=25393
[20] http://www.daralhayat.com/portalarticlendah/273362
[21] http://www.jordantimes.com/?news=38078
[22] http://www.bitterlemons-api.org/inside.php?id=67
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