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For years, the imposing black gate that sealed the border between Egypt and Gaza symbolized the pain and isolation that decades of conflict have wrought on this tiny coastal strip, especially under Hamas in recent years.
President Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas chief Khalid Mashaal will meet in Cairo this week despite the unrest rocking Egypt, Hamas and Fatah officials said on Tuesday.
Egypt has been shaken in recent days by renewed protests calling for the ruling military council to step aside and allow an interim civilian government to take power.
But officials of the rival parties said the unrest would not derail a planned meeting between Mashaal and Abbas later this week.
The upcoming meeting between Palestinians' rival parties Fatah and Hamas slated for Thursday in Cairo has sufficient drive towards implementing a reconciliation pact the two sides inked earlier in May.
Since the Palestinian division widened in June 2007 when Hamas seized control of the Gaza Strip, dialogues between the two parties have so far failed to achieve substantive reconciliation on the ground.
Israel expects a "grave erosion" in its peace agreement with Egypt and is even preparing for the possibility of the historic deal collapsing altogether, a Cabinet minister said Wednesday, in the first official assessment of the unrest rocking Israel's southern neighbor.
The comments by Matan Vilnai, the minister for civil defense and a retired military general, reflected the government's grave concerns that Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood could make major gains and even win elections in Egypt that begin next week.
In the midst of escalating violence between Egyptian protesters and security forces, former Deputy Chief Staff of Israeli Defense Forces Uzi Dayan is calling for the creation of an Israeli “intervention force” to fight terrorism in Sinai if necessary, the Israeli daily Yediot Aharonot reported Wednesday.
“We must prepare for the worst-case scenario whereby the Islamists come to power,” said Dayan. "In the first stage, we have to prepare for increased terror in Sinai. There are worrying signs of terrorist Islam in Sinai already.”
Top Egyptian figures have delivered conciliatory messages to Jerusalem in the past two days, insisting that Egypt is committed to its peace accord with Israel, and will act to uphold it. Senior Foreign Ministry figures say these messages were relayed to outgoing Ambassador Yitzhak Levanon during a farewell visit he paid to Cairo on Sunday and Monday.
Palestinians suspected in the killing of a West Bank resident and his infant son wished to avenge the '"price tag" torching of a nearby mosque, an indictment submitted to an Israel Defense Forces court said on Tuesday.
In September, Israel Police confirmed that a road accident that killed Asher, who was 25-years-old and his one-year-old son Yonatan Palmer near Kiryat Arba, may have occurred after a rock was thrown at their vehicle.
UN chief Ban Ki-moon has called on Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to hand over tax payments owed to the Palestinian Authority and to stop settlement activity, his spokesman said.
The UN secretary general "stressed the need to de-escalate" Israeli-Palestinian tensions that have heightened since the Palestinian bid to become a member of the United Nations, said spokesman Martin Nesirky, giving an account of telephone talks between Ban and Netanyahu Tuesday.
One of the Israeli government's press advisers, Eva Berger, has resigned because she claims journalistic freedom is being eroded.
Berger, a member of the government press office's advisory council (GPO), said: "The council's objective is to grant its approval of an old wrong, in the guise of democracy - and I will not lend my hand to this."
She linked her resignation to government proposals that many see as restricting freedom of expression and creating obstacles to press freedom.
The Palestinians can raise their flag alongside those of 194 full-fledged nations at UNESCO after signing a document Wednesday finally giving them a voice within the vast U.N. system — bringing pride across the Arab world yet hobbling the agency's pro-democracy projects around the globe.
Last month's decision by the Paris-based U.N. education and cultural organization to give Palestine membership triggered an immediate funding cutoff by the U.S. that will force UNESCO to scale down literacy and development programs in countries like Iraq, Afghanistan or the new nation of South Sudan.
“In dreams begin responsibilities,” wrote Yeats in 1914. These words resonate with lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people who have witnessed dramatic shifts in our relationship to power. After generations of sacrifice and organization, gay people in parts of the world have won protection from discrimination and relationship recognition. But these changes have given rise to a nefarious phenomenon: the co-opting of white gay people by anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim political forces in Western Europe and Israel.
How does Israel expect to explain itself after this? How are people who support Israel supposed to understand the Black Flag legislation which has expropriated the business of the Knesset?
Fortunately, the language of the Bible now has a word for all of it. It's spelled Bet Vav Lamed Shin Yud Tet. Sometimes written bull****.
Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman is threatening to break up the coalition if the illegal outposts Migron and Givat Assaf are evacuated. "Migron is not an illegal outpost," the minister said Monday. "It's a community where then-Defense Minister Moshe Arens and the GOC Central Command stood beside the cornerstone at its founding. How did it suddenly become illegal?"
At the end of the day, the thing that will be remembered from Benjamin Netanyahu’s second premiership term is the harm to Israel’s democracy, freedom of expression, the media and the courts. In his three years in office, Israel's democracy went back 30 years. Instead of flourishing, it’s becoming defensive and pale.
The prime minister is undermining the power of regular folk and boosting politicians at the people's expense. This is the entire aim of the so-called silencing law and of the series of laws against the court. No more and no less than that.
Leading is not easy. Leading Israel is certainly not a simple task. It is not surprising that many leaders of Israel, maybe even most of them, have made decisions in office that go against what they preached and believed in before they sat in the prime minister’s seat. As the saying goes, “what you see from here is not what you see from there.”
Real leadership is measured when one is faced with real-life situations that place diametrically opposed values and principles on the scales of decision making.
His Majesty King Abdullah’s visit to Ramallah for talks with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is the second, in time, but first in importance.
The Palestinians are passing through difficult circumstances, so there couldn’t be a better time to stand by them in solidarity.
The Monarch reassured the Palestinians that Jordan stands by them and that support for their steadfastness in unwavering, no matter how challenging the current developments in the Middle East are.
On September 30, a group of Jewish Israelis from the activist groups Solidarity and Ta'ayush set out on a visit to support the Palestinian al Rifai family in the West Bank. The family's claim to their land has been recognized by the Israeli Supreme Court, but the settlement of Anatot is nevertheless built upon it. Al Rifai family members have faced harassment for years while insisting on their right to access private land. The settlers of Anatot, enraged by the Israeli support of the Palestinian family, violently attacked the family and activists alike.
We should all be "celebrating," in a few short months, the tenth anniversary of the Arab Peace Initiative, a collective Arab offer championed by then Saudi Crown Prince (and current king) Abdullah to help bring about a permanent resolution to the Arab-Israeli conflict. Instead, the fate of the plan is more precarious than ever.
It may seem misdirected to insist on there being in place a credible effort to settle the Israeli-Palestinian conflict when there is so much turmoil in neighboring states. There is, however, a critical case for not letting that effort stay dormant. There is even an argument that the situations in some neighboring states would become more coherent if an Israeli-Palestinian peace effort promised a stable and just resolution.
Jordan's King Abdullah is not an innovative leader. But last week he surprised Arab leaders and the whole world by becoming the first Arab ruler to call on Syrian President Bashar Assad to resign. "If I were in his shoes, I'd step down," he told the BBC.
Links:
[1] http://www.americantaskforce.org/print/22213
[2] http://www.americantaskforce.org/printmail/22213
[3] http://www.americantaskforce.org/printpdf/22213
[4] http://www.americantaskforce.org/rss/wpr
[5] https://www.americantaskforce.org/civicrm/contribute/transact?reset=1&id=1
[6] http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/23/world/middleeast/hamas-gains-momentum-in-palestinian-rivalry.html?_r=2&ref=middleeast
[7] http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=438785
[8] http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/world/2011-11/23/c_122320499.htm
[9] http://www.statesman.com/news/nation/israel-girding-for-possible-trouble-for-egypt-pact-1989496.html
[10] http://www.almasryalyoum.com/en/node/517675
[11] http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/egypt-committed-to-israel-peace-deal-despite-revived-unrest-officials-say-1.397159
[12] http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/palestinians-charged-with-killing-west-bank-man-baby-to-avenge-price-tag-attack-1.397138
[13] http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4151966,00.html
[14] http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/greenslade/2011/nov/22/press-freedom-israel
[15] http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jvklDkhKsXRG0pXSDf6TnOrV9SUQ?docId=49392f9c953b45e5bb4c0d69f16a62ad
[16] http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/23/opinion/pinkwashing-and-israels-use-of-gays-as-a-messaging-tool.html?ref=opinion
[17] http://www.haaretz.com/blogs/a-special-place-in-hell/over-netanyahu-s-new-israel-the-b-s-light-is-on-1.397088
[18] http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/netanyahu-must-choose-the-rule-of-law-over-lieberman-1.397177
[19] http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4151827,00.html
[20] http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Columnists/Article.aspx?id=246460
[21] http://www.jordantimes.com/?news=43553
[22] http://www.cnn.com/2011/11/22/opinion/rebecca-vilkomerson-opinion-piece/index.html
[23] http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2011/11/the-death-of-the-arab-peace-initiative/248910/
[24] http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11327/1191908-374-0.stm
[25] http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/features/jordan-seeks-palestinian-respect-by-offering-hamas-a-new-home-1.397183
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