March 2, 2012

Middle East News: World Press Roundup

NEWS: Upcoming meetings between Pres. Obama and PM Netanyahu will focus on Iran. Pres. Peres says the US should put all options on the table regarding Iran and promises the Catholic Church to protect Christian sites in Jerusalem. Hamas again confirms its political headquarters is no longer in Damascus. Another hunger striking Palestinian prisoner held without charge by Israel says she will not stop until her demands are met. Hundreds participate in a marathon race in Gaza. Israel is preparing to test a next-generation missile system. FM Lieberman says Israel's military and settlers must stay in the Jordan Valley. Most Americans see Iran as a threat, but most Israelis oppose a military attack. Experts are seeking ways to both calm Israel and contain Iran. UNRWA faces much skepticism and misunderstanding in the United States. COMMENTARY: Aaron David Miller says Iran, Israel and Turkey are the driving powers in the Middle East now. Ha'aretz says Israel should consider amending its national anthem to include non-Jewish sentiments, and Noah Klieger says it's unreasonable to expect any Arab, even the most loyal citizen of Israel, to sing a song about Jewish national aspirations. Yoel Marcus says Israel is becoming a footnote in American politics. Aluf Benn says Netanyahu's Washington trip will be the most momentous of his career. Alex Fishman says Israel should be very concerned about growing Palestinian despair. Jill Jacobs says the Jewish National Fund is involved in human rights abuses in the occupied territories, but its CEO, Russell Robinson, denies this. George Hishmeh says Israel's policies are a dangerous course of action. Ahmad Nagi says Palestinians face a bleak future. Shawqi Issa says the issue of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails is important and complex. Yossi Alpher says it behooves Israel to treat all suspected terrorists equally.

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For Obama and Netanyahu, Wariness on Iran Will Dominate Talks

JERUSALEM — Nearly four years ago, when Senator Barack Obama was running for president and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel was head of the opposition, they met here in what aides described as a warm atmosphere.

President Obama and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in the Oval Office last July, will meet again on Monday.

“Senator,” Mr. Netanyahu said to Mr. Obama, “as president, many things will cross your desk, but the most important, by far, will be stopping Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons.”

Peres Says U.S. Must Put All Iran Options on Table

Days before Israel’s president, Shimon Peres, was to meet with President Obama, Mr. Peres said on Thursday that the United States must make clear to Iran that “all options are on the table,” but he acknowledged that there was disagreement over where to draw the “red line” that would set off military intervention.

President Shimon Peres says the White House must be resolute or Israel may have to go it alone.

Israeli President to Protect Christian Sites

JERUSALEM — Israel's President Shimon Peres has promised the Roman Catholic Church that the country will step up efforts to combat the vandalism of Christian holy sites by suspected Jewish extremists.

Pierbattista Pizzaballa, who is the Vatican's custodian of religious sites in the Holy Land, asked the president earlier this week to intervene following the spraying of graffiti on two Christian churches in Jerusalem in February.

Hamas Deputy: Political Operations Out of Damascus

BETHLEHEM (Ma’an) -- Speaking from Cairo, the deputy head of Hamas' politburo said Thursday that Hamas' offices would remain in Syria despite the relocation of all political and media activities out of Damascus.

The violent crackdown on protests by Syria security forces have prompted Hamas to review its headquarters in Syria, and the movement's leaders-in-exile have steadily moved out of the country.

Shalabi 'patient, steadfast' until demands met

Palestinian hunger striker Hana Shalabi said Thursday from Hasharon prison that she is continuing her open hunger strike and remains patient and steadfast until her demands are met.

A Palestinian prisoner society lawyer, Fawaz Shalludy who visited Shalabi, said the prisoner had suffered as the Israeli prison administration put her in an open area in the cold in Ofer detention center.

Shalludy pointed out that the prisoner’s spirits are high although there are signs of fatigue and weakness on her because of the strike.

She thanked everyone who is supporting her, he said.

Gaza Marathon Draws Hundreds in Rainy Weather

KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip — Some 2,200 school children and 300 adults ran a relay race Thursday traversing the Gaza Strip north to south, roughly the distance of an Olympic marathon, to raise money for U.N. summer camps.

The race, sponsored by the U.N. aid agency for Gaza refugees, was held in rainy and unusually cold weather. The children ran segments of one kilometer (0.6 miles), while some of the adults ran full marathons, said Adnan Abu Hassna, a spokesman for the U.N. agency.

Israel to Soon Test Next-Generation Missile Defense System

JERUSALEM, March 1 (Xinhua) -- Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) is ready to conduct the first test of the Arrow 3 missile defense system, the state-owned defense contractor announced in a statement released Thursday evening.

"The initial trial of the advanced Arrow 3 will be performed in the near future to confirm the interceptor's effectiveness," Itzhak Kaya, head of the Arrow Missile Program at IAI, said in a military and aviation exhibition earlier Thursday near Tel Aviv, according to the statement.

Israeli FM Says Military, Civilians Must Stay in Jordan Valley

JERUSALEM, March 1 (Xinhua) -- Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said that upheavals in the Arab world prove the need for Israel to retain a military and civilian presence in the Jordan Valley, The Jerusalem Post reported Thursday.

"I am looking at what is happening in Syria and the whole region," Lieberman said, adding that "We can not secure the state of Israel without maintaining control of the Jordan Valley."

The Jordan Valley has been under Israeli military and civilian control according to the 1993 Oslo Accords.

Polls: Most in U.S. See Iran as Threat; Majority of Israelis Against Iran Strike

WASHINGTON (JTA) -- A poll showed 87 percent of registered American voters believe that Iran’s suspected illegal nuclear weapons program is a threat to the United States.

The poll commissioned by The Israel Project also found that 88 percent of respondents believed that Iran is a threat to Israel.

Calm Israel, Contain Iran

Foreign policy experts and politicians will be scrutinizing US President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu next week for signs of disagreement as they sequentially address the American Israel Public Affairs Committee in Washington.

Will Obama sound sufficiently hawkish to placate the audience at the annual conclave of the Israel lobby, or will he leave a gap that will frustrate some Israeli supporters and be exploited by US Republican presidential candidates?

Tough Sell For U.N. Palestinian Agency

Washington — Twice a year Filippo Grandi, Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, comes to Washington to make the case for continuing funding for his organization, and the job only gets tougher.

The U.N. agency, which is the primary provider of education, healthcare and housing for Palestinian refugees throughout the Middle East, was never an easy sell on Capitol Hill and UNRWA has been working hard to convince lawmakers and administration officials that the cause is worthy.

Move over, Egypt, Iraq and Syria

For the better part of the last century, three Arab states — Egypt, Iraq and Syria — dominated Middle East politics in matters of war and peacemaking and shaped the region's relations with the great powers.

The kings of Jordan and Morocco — and, of course, Saudi Arabia (and the Persian Gulf states) when it came to oil — had their say too. But it was the three pseudo-republics, authoritarian military regimes really, that threw their collective weight around.

Israel should consider altering its anthem to include non-Jews

Supreme Court Justice Salim Joubran has the right not to sing the national anthem, "Hatikva." The law doesn't oblige him to do so, and the song's lyrics don't enable him to do so. As a loyal citizen of his country, the justice did not want to betray his conscience during the new Supreme Court president's inauguration by singing a song whose words are alien to every Arab citizen of Israel. And the uproar that erupted following Joubran's refusal damaged the delicate fabric of Israeli democracy far more than his silence did.

Arab judge, Jewish words

I just cannot understand the major assault on Supreme Court Justice Salim Joubran, who refrained from singing our national anthem, HaTikva, in an official ceremony at the courthouse earlier this week.

What do they want from him? After all, he is not Jewish, and the thing about our anthem is that its words are “blatantly Jewish.”

How can an Arab Israeli, regardless of whether he is Muslim or Christian, sing about a “Jewish soul?” After all, Naftali Herz Imber wrote the words of our national anthem many years before the State of Israel’s inception as an anthem for the Zionist movement.

Israel is becoming a footnote in the eyes of the U.S.

1. President Shimon Peres and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will both be visiting Washington at the same time. Each of them will speak separately with U.S. President Barack Obama, each of them will march proudly on red carpets, and journalists will swoop down on them separately or together. They will be interviewed on television, and Sara Netanyahu will be a star with her finery and her smiles. Although we didn't win the Oscar, there's no question that we are gradually managing to become a footnote in the eyes of the U.S. administration.

Netanyahu and Obama play high-stakes poker over Iran

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's upcoming trip to Washington will be the most important one in his long career as ambassador, politician and national leader. On Monday, Netanyahu will meet President Barack Obama in the White House for a game of diplomatic poker, where the greatest gamble of all will be right on the table: an attack on Iran's nuclear installations. Each of the two players will try to push the other to act. Netanyahu would prefer to see the American superpower, with its vast range of military capabilities, pulverize Iran's nuclear project.

Beware Palestinian despair

“The last chance” – this is how we can characterize the letter sent in recent days by Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and to the International Quartet members.

In his letter, Abbas complained that the PA is expected to conduct itself like a government without being allowed to govern. He further detailed what he views as Israeli failures during the negotiations and finished with a warning: Should Israel fail to commit to genuine actions in March, “all options are open.”

JNF should plant trees, not uproot families

As a child, I proudly brought my spare change to Hebrew school to drop in the little blue boxes. With this money, my teachers told me, the Jewish National Fund would plant trees in Israel. I never imagined that these nickels and dimes would also help to evict Palestinians from their homes.

Last week, Rabbis for Human Rights-North America called on the Jewish National Fund and its partner organizations to issue a public statement that they will no longer evict Palestinians from their homes in eastern Jerusalem.

The campaign against JNF is misplaced

The Jewish National Fund plants trees, builds a nation and unifies a people.

As a child growing up in a small town in Texas, I dropped my coins in the Blue Box in Hebrew school. My parents and grandparents raised me on the importance and the power of the Blue Box. My grandfather would say to me, “If only we had been stronger and more unified, we could have bought more land and had a place for 6 million Jews to go home to.”

Israel on a dangerous course

President Barack Obama appears likely to win a second term since his Republican competitors seem, if nothing else, hopelessly disjointed.

Regrettably, however, he remains treading softly on the Middle East, obviously fearing that any pronouncement on any of the key issues in this region — Iran, Syria, Israel and the Palestinians — might tip the balance against him in the nine months before the presidential election, in November.

What About Palestine?

A couple of weeks ago, amid the boring and ridiculous drama of the NGO crisis and the possible end of US aid to Egypt, MP Essam al-Erian of the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) and head of Parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee made a bold statemement on the question of aid and peace with Israel.

“US economic aid is part of the [Camp David] Accords and if America decided to cut off [aid to Egypt], we will change or cancel the agreement,” said Erian. “Egypt is the first and final decision-maker and no one can pressure it.”

Seeking a new horizon for Palestinian prisoners

The thorny issue of the Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails has numerous angles. First, it is a humanitarian cause. Many of the prisoners have spent decades, some more than 30 years in jail, with all the resulting social and economic ramifications for Palestinian society as a whole. Additionally, Palestinian leaders bear the moral responsibility for the fact that these activists have remained behind bars for periods far longer than logically acceptable. A full 121 of them have languished in prison since before the 1993 signing of the Oslo agreements with Israel.

Holding a mirror to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict

The treatment of Israeli prisoners by Palestinians and Hizballah, and correspondingly the treatment of Palestinian prisoners by Israelis, in many ways hold a kind of mirror to the conflict as a whole.

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