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Days into my tenure as mayor of Chicago, with my focus on keeping our city’s streets safe, our schools strong and our finances stabilized, I expected my attention to be in the Midwest, not in the Middle East. But as an American and the son of an Israeli immigrant, I have a deep, abiding commitment to the survival, security and success of the state of Israel.
Six Israeli police officers and five settlers were injured Thursday in clashes that erupted as police dismantled an illegal settlement outpost, a police spokesman said.
Police moved in to the Ali Ayan outpost in the West Bank, north of Ramallah, early on Thursday, spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said.
"Police, border police, and the army moved in there in the early morning in order to take down four illegal buildings that were built recently," he said. "Immediately upon arriving in the area there was a strong response from settlers, who threw stones."
The doctors' union has threatened to submit mass resignations in response to a decision by the Palestinian government in Ramallah to refer an ongoing strike in the medical sector to court.
Jawad Awad, head of the union, said “the decision taken by the government to go to court ... is a stab in the heart of democracy and citizens’ rights, which grant all workers a right to strike."
Awad called on President Mahmoud Abbas to intervene in order to end the crisis.
The French foreign minister says he's inviting Israeli and Palestinian leaders to Paris this month to relaunch peace talks.
Alain Juppe says "there's a sense of urgency. The status quo is unsustainable."
Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, who met with Juppe in the West Bank city of Ramallah on Thursday, would not say whether the Palestinians would accept the invitation.
Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev said he would not comment before Juppe meets with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu later Thursday in Jerusalem.
Thousands of Palestinians in Syria who have never seen their original homes before are preparing to travel on June 5 to the Golan Heights two thirds of which are under Israeli control.
Sixty-three years have passed since they were displaced from their homes. However, Palestinian refugees in Syria are still determined to return home.
"We want to cross the borders peacefully to return to our fathers and ancestors' home," said Hasan Hijazi, a Palestinian man who managed to cross the borders and get to Jaffa on May 15.
Nobody has caught me saying a good word about Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Not during his first term and not during his second one. In a "conciliatory conversation" between his two terms, mediated by his friend Dr. Gabi Picker, Bibi accused me of contributing to his downfall as prime minister.
The 45th year of occupation is now beginning. The depth of the entanglement, from which there is apparently no way out without bloodshed, is as great as the obedience of the intelligentsia: Just as European colonialism was collapsing once and for all, the local intelligentsia found a way to collaborate with the claims of Israel's governments, leaving us today with both a right-wing coalition and a right-wing opposition.
Toward the end of May 1967, the Egyptian army had deployed in eastern Sinai, the Straits of Tiran were blocked to Israeli shipping and transport of oil to Eilat, the reserves were called up, the economy was paralyzed, shelters were dug in backyards and public parks were readied to serve as temporary cemeteries. Great excitement prevailed in the whole Arab world. Fiery speeches and Cairo Radio broadcasts informed the masses that the end of the "Zionist entity" was near. On the Israeli home front, the sense of isolation and existential foreboding only grew.
Defense Minister Ehud Barak met on Friday with French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe to discuss a French initiative involving a peace conference in Paris next month. The conference would be scheduled to precede September's contentious Palestinian state bid at the UN.
During their meeting at Barak's office in Tel Aviv, the defense minister reiterated to Juppe that Israel would be unable to negotiate with Hamas since the group does not either recognize Israel nor denounce terrorist attacks against its civilians.
Where six modest homes of the Abu Eid family once stood rest piles of rubble, refrigerators and personal belongings.
Demolitions that target Arab homes are certainly not a new issue inside Israel: as many as 800 were destroyed last year, according to the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD). Because many lack the difficult-to-obtain housing permits, tens of thousands more are at risk for demolition.
Bassam El-Najjar once made his living from the seas off Gaza's coast. For two decades he set out each morning to catch tuna, sardines and mackerel from the waters of the eastern Mediterranean.
Not any longer. Now El-Najjar drops his nets into a large fish pool dug in the earth of a 0.5 hectare farm near Khan Younis in the central Gaza Strip. "The sea is closed," he says, scooping a handful of pellets and scattering them across the water. Freshwater tilapia come to the surface, swallowing the feed.
These must be heady days for Palestinians, certainly most, if not all, of those who live inside their usurped homeland and among the Palestinian diaspora in the Middle East or western countries.
There were lots of good news lately, now topped by the endorsement by the Arab League of the Palestinian intention to ask the UN General Assembly in September to recognise the State of Palestine, a course that does not necessarily guarantee smooth sailing thanks to US and Israeli objections.
The European Union stands ready - if asked - to resume its Border Assistance Mission (EUBAM) at the Rafah crossing, or take up other similar new tasks there, according to Christian Berger, EU Representative to the Palestinian Authority.
In an interview in his East Jerusalem headquarters last Friday, and again in a joint appearance with Palestinian Authority (PA) Foreign Minister Riyad al-Malki in Ramallah on Monday, Berger said the EU welcomed the reopening of the only crossing point between Egypt and Gaza.
“We’ve always said that all crossing points have to be open,” he added.
The Israeli army has been accused of leaving dangerous munitions near Palestinian homes after two boys were seriously burnt when they picked up a mysterious silver canister which exuded toxic white fumes.
A second canister, discovered nearby less than a week later, was destroyed by the army in a controlled explosion
Around half of Israelis, Palestinians, and some other key Arab publics, according to various opinion polls taken in the past decade, support something like the Arab Peace Initiative of 2002, whose basic concept is peace and Arab recognition of Israel in exchange for Israel's full withdrawal from the territories it captured in the 1967 war.
Links:
[1] http://www.americantaskforce.org/print/19451
[2] http://www.americantaskforce.org/printmail/19451
[3] http://www.americantaskforce.org/printpdf/19451
[4] http://www.americantaskforce.org/rss/wpr
[5] http://www.americantaskforce.org/world_press_roundup/20110603t000000
[6] http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/obamas-commitment-to-israel/2011/06/02/AGj0NZHH_story.html
[7] http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=393376
[8] http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=393381
[9] http://www.statesman.com/news/nation/france-invites-israel-palestinians-to-peace-talks-1512315.html
[10] http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/world/2011-06/02/c_13908205.htm
[11] http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/despite-it-all-bibi-still-deserves-a-chance-1.365644
[12] http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/get-rid-of-zionism-1.365648
[13] http://www.haaretz.com/weekend/week-s-end/the-old-man-s-day-of-horrors-1.365716
[14] http://www.jpost.com/DiplomacyAndPolitics/Article.aspx?id=223494
[15] http://www.thenational.ae/news/worldwide/middle-east/in-lod-destruction-of-homes-may-be-harbinger-of-more-woes-for-israels-arabs
[16] http://www.thenational.ae/news/worldwide/middle-east/israeli-navy-forces-gazan-fishermen-to-cast-nets-inland
[17] http://gulfnews.com/opinions/columnists/time-for-israel-to-wake-up-1.816693
[18] http://www.almasryalyoum.com/en/node/462183
[19] http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jun/03/israel-palestinians-west-bank-canister
[20] http://www.bitterlemons-api.org/inside.php?id=66
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