February 1, 2012

Middle East News: World Press Roundup

NEWS: The PA and PM Fayyad face a backlash over tax hikes. Fatah officials say Palestinian leaders may agree on a new government by Thursday. UNSG Ban is on a peace mission to the Middle East. PM Netanyahu is reelected Likud chief. Religious extremists deploying harsh rhetoric are coming to the forefront of both Israeli and Palestinian discourse. Palestinians clash with Israeli forces in occupied East Jerusalem. Hackers target Palestinian news websites. Released Palestinian prisoners are adapting to life in Qatar. Growing lawlessness in Sinai may threaten the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty. COMMENTARY:Ha'aretz says Netanyahu's new committee on settlements would not be necessary if the government followed the law. Douglas Bloomfield says Hamas is running away from Syria like rats fleeing a sinking ship. Josh Nathan-Kazis says concerns about Israel have replaced racial anxieties as the main obstacles Pres. Obama must overcome with Jewish voters. Rami Khouri says he's not impressed with the apparent rapprochement between Hamas and Jordan and thinks it should be put to a referendum. Osama Al Sharif says it's not clear how much Hamas really being brought out of the cold, but distancing it from Tehran has to be a good thing. Efraim Inbar says the Amman talks are another exercise in total futility. Elliott Abrams says designating 70 settlements as “national priority” areas is a foolish move by Israel but is actually Washington's fault. John Whitbeck says Israel is using carefully crafted language to assert ownership of East Jerusalem and other occupied areas. APN interviews Yossi Alpher on the Amman negotiations. Robert Staloff urges American politicians to stop speaking in terms of “ironclad commitments” to Israel.

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Support for Palestinian Authority Erodes as Prices and Taxes Rise

RAMALLAH, West Bank — For many Palestinians and their international supporters, the one bright spot in an otherwise dreary political landscape has been the nation-building efforts of Salam Fayyad, the prime minister of the Palestinian Authority, who has restored law and order and encouraged economic growth in the West Bank.

Salam Fayyad, prime minister of the Palestinian Authority, is under increasing pressure.

Abbas, Mashaal Expected to Agree to New Govt Thursday

BETHLEHEM (Ma'an) -- President Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas chief Khalid Mashaal are expected to agree on the structure of a Palestinian national unity government during their meeting in Cairo on Thursday.

Secretary-general of Fatah Revolutionary Council Amin Maqboul told Ma'an Monday that failure to appoint a new government was the main obstacle to elections in the West Bank and Gaza.

Mashaal, who lives in exile, arrived in Jordan on Sunday where he met King Abdullah II, his first visit since being expelled from the country in 1999.

UN Chief Urges Israel to Halt Settlement Construction in Bid to Salvage Mideast Peace Efforts

JERUSALEM — U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon pressed Israel on Wednesday to do more to get flagging Mideast peace efforts back on track, calling for a halt in West Bank settlement construction and urging the Israelis to submit concrete proposals on the key issues of borders and security ties with a future Palestine.

Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu Re-Elected Likud Party Chairman

REPORTING FROM JERUSALEM -- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was re-elected chairman of the ruling conservative Likud Party in a primary election Tuesday. The move secures Netanyahu's position as the party's candidate for the premiership in Israel's next general elections.

Netanyahu defeated the only other candidate, Moshe Feiglin, by a wide margin. Feiglin heads the hawkish, ultra-national "Jewish leadership" stream of Likud and has challenged party leadership several times.

Religious Trash Talk Goes Mainstream in Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

With the Israeli-Palestinian peace process suspended, religious fundamentalists on both sides of the conflict are gaining wider influence. Palestinian and Israeli analysts alike warn that the trend could further complicate prospects for a resolution by turning a nationalist clash over territory into more of an absolutist religious war.

Palestinians, Israeli Officers Hurt in Jerusalem Clash

JERUSALEM (Ma'an) -- Palestinian youths sustained injuries overnight in a confrontation with Israeli soldiers and police officers in al-Isawiya in occupied East Jerusalem, a Ma'an reporter said.

One young man sustained serious injuries, witnesses said.

Confrontations began Tuesday afternoon in the center of al-Isawiya after Israeli forces broke into the home of Ayyoub Ubeid and detained him under the pretext that he hurled stones at Israeli soldiers in the town.

Hackers Target Palestinian News Sites

BETHLEHEM (Ma'an) -- Hackers temporarily shut down two Palestinian news websites in the occupied West Bank late Tuesday, the latest targets in a string of hacks on Mideast websites.

There was no immediate indication of who was behind the attacks on Wafa, the Palestinian Authority's official news agency, and several websites affiliated with Ma'an Network including its news page.

Freed Palestinian Prisoners Adapt to Qatar Exile

As part of the deal to free the captured Israeli soldier Sgt Gilad Shalit last year, more than a 1,000 Palestinian prisoners were released from Israeli jails.

The vast majority were allowed back into the West Bank and Gaza Strip, but 40 prisoners were forced to leave the region entirely, deemed by Israel to be a continuing security threat.

The releases were enormously controversial in Israel, where some of the prisoners were seen as mass murderers.

A two-bed flat not far from the cornice in Qatar's capital, Doha, is now home for 47-year-old Ibrahim Shammasina from Ramallah.

Deep in the Sinai, a looming Crisis Threatens Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty

CAIRO // The owner of a Sinai Peninsula holiday resort taken over by a group of armed Bedouin is refusing to pay the four million Egyptian pound (Dh2.4m) ransom the tribesmen are demanding.

Hesham Nessim, proprietor of the Aqua-Sun Resort 30km south of Egypt's border with Israel, says he will wait them out or retake his property with police help.

His brother Fouad says the Bedouin should expect a long stand-off. "It would be easier to go to the moon than to get that money from my brother," he told The National.

Netanyahu’s unnecessary committee on settlements

In the Likud leadership contest, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has portrayed himself as the antithesis of his challenger, the Jewish Leadership faction's Moshe Feiglin, who represents extremists among West Bank settlers. But Netanyahu's policy on settlements and unauthorized West Bank outposts, as with his "peace policy," shows that he deserves the loyalty of those extremists no less than Feiglin does.

Washington Watch: Rats deserting the sinking ship

After more than a dozen years of safe sanctuary in Syria, Hamas is pulling up stakes and looking for a new home as that country becomes engulfed in a bloody uprising.

Over the past several days one door closed and another opened for Hamas.

Assad & Son, a brutal enterprise with a long history of killing its own people, has given Hamas and other Palestinian terror groups protection, training camps, diplomatic cover, financing and weapons to carry out their war against Israel. They, in turn, have helped Syria retain its un-coveted status as a state sponsor of terrorism.

Israel Replace Race as Obama Fear

Boca Raton, Fla. — In 2008, comedian Sarah Silverman recorded a web video urging young Jews to go to Florida and convince their grandparents to vote for Obama. If Obama lost, Silverman warned, she would “blame the Jews.”

Silverman was joking, sort of. But she was also responding to rumors, then rampant among older Floridian Jews, that Obama was a Muslim — and to the widespread belief that these rumors would hurt his election bid.

Obama went on to earn 78% of the Jewish vote nationally and to win Florida, including the heavily Jewish Florida counties of Broward and Palm Beach.

Put Hamas-Jordan amity to a referendum

Why am I not impressed by the statement by Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal after meeting with Jordan’s King Abdullah II in Amman Sunday. Meshaal declared, “We are happy with this good new start ... With this new chapter in relations with Jordan. We hope Jordanian and Palestinian interests will be served.”

Bringing Hamas in from the cold

Most of Hamas senior officials, including Meshaal, are Jordanian citizens. Prime Minister Awn Al-Khasawneh has described their deportation to Qatar 12 years ago as “a constitutional” error. And since the former international jurist took over as premier he has been keen on mending state relations with the country’s Muslim Brotherhood (MB) leadership. Jordan’s recent rapprochement with Hamas, a powerful Palestinian faction currently ruling Gaza Strip but with special links to Jordan’s MB, ends more than a decade of cool and sometimes troubled relationship between the two.

Another exercise in futile diplomacy

Few should be surprised by the failure of the Amman talks, which constituted an additional attempt by the international Quartet to restart negotiations between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization. These meetings were intended to break the impasse in the peace process, after the Palestinians decided to relinquish the option of negotiations with Israel and to adopt instead a unilateral approach to attain their goals.

Israeli Settlements: Errors Beget Errors

On January 29, Israel’s cabinet approved new “housing benefits” for “national priority areas.” The exact application of these benefits to communities in the West Bank is unclear, to me at least, but the cabinet statement says, “The decision is designed to encourage positive migration to the communities.” News reports suggest that of the 557 communities eligible for the aid, 70 are in the West Bank: “The list of qualifying settlements include major enclaves that would likely remain in Israeli hands under a peace deal.

Words matter: A new language for peace

The words which people use, often unconsciously, can have a critical impact upon the thoughts and attitudes of those who speak and write, as well as those who listen and read. Dangerously misleading terminology remains a major obstacle to Israeli-Palestinian peace.

Hard Questions, Tough Answer with Yossi Alpher – January 30, 2012

Alpher discusses the Israeli-Palestinian pre-negotiation talks in Amman, interim conclusions from the "Arab spring" one year after the outbreak of the revolution in Egypt and the meaning of the 2009 survey just published on Israeli attitudes towards religiosity.

Q. The Israeli-Palestinian pre-negotiation talks in Amman adjourned after a meeting last Thursday without agreement to continue. What have we learned?

The Monitor, Merrimac, and Middle East

"Our ironclad commitment -- and I mean ironclad -- to Israel's security has meant the closest military cooperation between our two countries in history."

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