February 13, 2012

Middle East News: World Press Roundup

NEWS: Gaza Hamas leader Zahar says “no one in the organization was consulted” about the agreement with Pres. Abbas, that it “cannot be implemented,” and is “a mistake” and “a real crisis.” Hamas' de facto PM Haniya visits Tehran and insists relations remain strong. Iranian leaders urge Hamas to continue armed resistance against Israel, and Haniya agrees. Hamas bans a rally in Gaza in favor of the Syrian opposition. Settlers in an “unauthorized outpost” agree with the government they can stay for at least 2 more years despite a Supreme Court order to vacate. Israeli police block a right-wing extremist from marching on holy sites in occupied East Jerusalem. A new poll finds Palestinians are most concerned about jobs and financial security. A UN special rapporteur says Israel is enacting a discriminatory housing policy against Palestinians in Israel and the occupied territories. An Israeli diplomat is wounded in a New Delhi car blast. PM Netanyahu blames Iran and Hezbollah for the attacks on Israeli diplomats. Israel bans 35 Palestinian doctors from taking Israeli certification exams on grounds that Al-Quds University cannot be considered a "foreign university." One Palestinian was killed and 3 injured in an Israeli airstrike on Gaza. Israeli extremists again vandalize Palestinian/Jewish school in occupied East Jerusalem with anti-Arab hate slogans. COMMENTARY: Akiva Eldar says Israelis who maintain Palestinians rejected 'generous peace offers' are playing into Hamas' hands. Yigal Caspi says Abbas has to choose between Hamas and peace. Barry Rubin says Israel is continuously “saved” by its enemies. Leonard Fein says settlement activity in Jerusalem is designed to destroy prospects for a two-state solution. Husam Itani says the Syrian regime will no longer be able to exploit the Palestinian cause. Naseem Tarawnah says for Jordan, Palestine is a domestic issue, but Hassan A. Barari says it is frustrated by the impasse at the Amman talks.

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Palestinian unity deal a mistake: Gaza Hamas leader

CAIRO — Senior Hamas official Mahmud Zahar slammed a Palestinian unity deal as a "mistake" that has thrown the Islamist movement into crisis, in an interview with Egypt's official MENA agency published on Sunday.

Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal signed an agreement with Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas earlier this month placing Abbas at the head of an interim government charged with organising elections later this year.

The decision to have Abbas head the government "is a mistake," Zahar told MENA. "No one inside the Hamas movement was consulted."

Hamas Premier Visits Iran in Sign of Strong Relations

GAZA — Ismail Haniya, the prime minister of the Hamas government in Gaza, arrived in Iran on Friday for a visit that suggested that relations between Hamas and Iran remained good despite reports of tensions over Syria.

Iran urges Hamas to continue fight against Israel

TEHRAN, Iran — Iran's leaders urged the Hamas prime minister of Gaza to continue the Islamic militant group's resistance against Israel and promised support, state TV reported on Sunday.

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei told Hamas' Ismail Haniyeh that Iran would always stand by the Palestinian "resistance" against Israel and warned him against "compromisers." President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for his part said it was Iran's "duty" to stand by the Palestinians.

Hamas' Haniyeh: Armed resistance is the only way to fight Israel

The only path in the Palestinian struggle against Israel is the path of armed resistance, Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh said during a visit to Iran on Monday, adding that the "gun is our only response to Zionist regime."

Haniyeh's comments came following recent reports of a change in Hamas' declared strategy in the fight against Israel, with some of the group's officials indicating that Hamas was headed toward a path of nonviolent resistance.

Hamas police bans pro-Syria opposition rally in Gaza

GAZA, Feb. 12 (Xinhua) -- Hamas police on Sunday prevented dozens of activists from demonstrating in solidarity with Syrian people in the Gaza Strip, witnesses said.

The policemen peacefully stopped the protest shortly after it started in front of the Hamas-dominated Palestinian Legislative Council in Gaza city.

The demonstrators, nearly 30 of them, waved Palestinian and Syrian flags, with banners supporting the Syrian anti-government protest, before they left.

Settlers: Israel drafts deal to delay evacuating rogue settlement, despite eviction order

JERUSALEM — Israeli settlers from an unauthorized West Bank outpost said Monday they reached a deal with the country’s government to allow them to stay put for two more years, despite Israeli Supreme Court orders to evacuate them next month.

The Migron settlement, built in 2001 on what authorities say is private Palestinian land, is seen as a test case for the Israeli government’s resolve — or lack thereof — concerning unauthorized settlement outposts.

Police close Al-Aqsa, block right-wing leader

JERUSALEM (Ma’an) -- Israeli police closed access to Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa compound on Sunday morning, saying they feared unrest after leaflets were distributed around the city calling to remove "Israel's enemies" from the site.

Police also blocked far-right Israeli politician Moshe Feiglin from entering the holy compound "for security reasons," Israeli police spokesman Mickey Rosenfeld said.

Feiglin, who was the sole rival to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in their Likud's party leadership contest last month, said earlier this week he intended to tour the Al-Aqsa compound.

Poll: Palestinians most concerned about economic future

BETHLEHEM (Ma'an) -- A poll conducted by the Palestinian Center for Public Opinion has found that a majority of Palestinians are most concerned about their jobs and financial status, and support opposition to proposed PA tax reforms currently on hold after widespread outcry.

The poll, conducted by Dr. Nabil Kukali between Jan. 22 and Feb. 4, shows 54.7 percent of Palestinians currently fear the survival of their family during economic hard times in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

UN rapporteur slams Israeli policy of 'Judaization'

BETHLEHEM (Ma'an) -- A United Nations Special Rapporteur said Sunday that Israel is systematically implementing a discriminatory policy of housing and planning in Israel, East Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank.

"From the Galilee and the Negev to East Jerusalem and the West Bank, the Israeli authorities promote a territorial development model that excludes, discriminates against and displaces minorities, particularly affecting Palestinian communities," Professor Raquel Rolnik, UN rapporteur on the right to adequate housing, said on Sunday.

Wife of Israeli diplomat wounded in car blast near New Delhi embassy

The wife of an Israeli diplomat was moderately wounded on Monday when a car bomb exploded outside of Israel's embassy in the Indian capital of New Delhi, Haaretz has learned.

The wounded woman in question is the wife of the Defense Ministry's representative to India.

The incident came one day after the fourth anniversary marking the assasination of Hezbollah's deputy leader, Imad Mughniyeh, which the Islamist organization blames on Israel.

Car bombs 'target Israel envoys' in India and Georgia

Bombers have targeted staff at Israeli embassies in India and Georgia, officials say, with Israel accusing Iran of masterminding the attacks.

An explosion in Delhi injured one diplomat and three other people. Witnesses told local TV a motorcyclist had placed a device on the embassy's car when it stopped in traffic.

A bomb underneath a diplomat's car in Tbilisi was found and defused.

Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu said Iran was behind the two incidents.

"Today we witnessed two attempts of terrorism against innocent civilians," he told a meeting of his Likud party MPs.

Israel bars Al-Quds University doctors from practicing in East Jerusalem

Health Ministry officials refuse to allow 35 Palestinian doctors from East Jerusalem to attend Israeli certification exams - and help relieve a shortage of doctors there.

The ministry claims the doctors, who graduated from Al-Quds University, are not eligible to sit the certification exams, usually taken by doctors who qualified abroad to enable them to practice in Israel. The ministry says Al-Quds cannot be considered a "foreign university" since it holds offices in Jerusalem.

Report: Palestinian killed, three injured in IAF strike on Gaza sites

A man was killed and three others were injured in an attack by the Israeli Air Force on tunnels and a weapons depot in the Gaza Strip on Sunday, described as retaliation for a cross-border rocket launch, the Palestinian news agency Ma’an reported.

The man killed was Abdul Karim Zaytuna (69), according to Ma'an.
An Israel Defense Forces spokeswoman said she had no immediate information about the casualties from Sunday's air strikes.

Lesson in extremism at Israel 'peace' school

A school set up to promote peace and understanding between Arab and Jewish communities in Jerusalem has been hit by vandals who have daubed racist threats on its playground walls, including "Death to Arabs".

Israel's new peace camp is playing into Hamas' hands

There was a time - before Mahmoud Ahmadinejad starred here in the role of Hitler - when the "elites" were Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's number one enemy.

Abbas will have to choose

Hamas and Fatah, the ruling faction in the Palestinian Authority, signed an agreement in Doha, Qatar on 6 February 2012 to form an interim unity government. According to the agreement, PA President and leader of Fatah Mahmoud Abbas will head the government, replacing the current Prime Minister, Salam Fayyad, who is supported by the West.

The move is a further step in implementing the so-called reconciliation agreement that the two Palestinian factions signed in Cairo in May 2011.

Saved by our enemies

President Barack Obama is campaigning on the claim that he is a great friend of Israel despite the fact that this is clearly not true. After all, the announcement of a coalition government between the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Hamas, a genocidally oriented terrorist group that is openly anti- Semitic and rejects all of the agreements with Israel on which the PA is based prompts no US (or European) policy response.

Building Barriers to Two-State Solution

Here’s a “sign of the times” factoid: In recent commentary on Israel’s settlement policy, the number of Jewish settlers beyond the Green Line has ballooned to 600,000 from 350,000 or so. It is as if there had suddenly been a mass immigration to the West Bank. But there has been no such immigration. What there has been, more ominously, is the inclusion in “beyond the Green Line” of two venerable major neighborhoods that had long since come to be regarded as part of Jerusalem proper: Ramot and French Hill, as well as other neighborhoods, such as Gilo, Pisgat Ze’ev, Ramat Shlomo, Har Homa.

The End of the Exploitation of the Palestinian Cause

By drawing up the facets of a new world, the revolutions are reproducing the social and political powers, as well as their structures, and introducing definitions and concepts differing from the ones which prevailed over reality and our way of thinking throughout the past stages.

Jordan re-enters the fray

While King Abdullah has managed to maneuver through the turbulent regional weather of the past decade, hardly a year passes without Jordanians such as myself forced to wonder: what would his father King Hussein have done?

A futile exercise?

Jordan's recent efforts to hold exploratory pre-negotiation talks between the Palestinians and the Israelis could not be more surprising. Over an extended period of time, King Abdullah II has reiterated his conviction that peace, although favorable, is not yet possible. Time and again, he has blamed Israel for the impasse in the peace process. Therefore, the sudden emergence of Amman's diplomatic activism is striking.

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