March 12, 2012

Middle East News: World Press Roundup

NEWS: Cross-border violence between Israel and militants in Gaza continues. It began with the assassination of a noted Gaza militant by Israel. 21 Palestinians have been killed in the outbreak so far. The PLO envoy at the UN condemns Israeli "terrorism." Many rockets and missiles have also been launched at southern Israel. Former Mossad head Dagan says an Israeli attack on Iran would be pointless and the response devastating. Israel is still planning to demolish Palestinian solar energy plants in the occupied territories. Settlers in a major "unauthorized" outpost seem to have agreed on a plan to leave. COMMENTARY: Akiva Eldar says PM Netanyahu needs to define what he thinks Israel is. Ha'aretz says Israel needs an anthem that can represent its Arab as well as Jewish citizens, but Michael Sussman defends the current one. Amos Harel and Avi Issacharoff say the new violence between Israel and Gaza will likely wind-down by mid-week. Jeff Barak says a true friend of Israel would have acted towards it exactly as Pres. Obama has. Harriet Sherwood looks at weddings in Gaza. Jay Sekulow and Robert Ash says Israel has a legal case for attacking Iran but Adel Safty says Netanyahu has not made any convincing arguments. The National says Palestinian disunity is a crucial failure. Khaled Diab says cultural changes are making occupied East Jerusalem more livable. Rami Khouri says Israel's vision is walls and wars.

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Fighting between Israel, Gaza continues for 3rd day

GAZA CITY — Cross-border fighting between Gaza and Israel, touched off by Israel’s killing of a top Palestinian militant leader, showed no signs of letting up after three days Sunday. Gaza militants fired dozens of rockets at Israeli towns, hitting an empty school, and Israeli airstrikes killed three Gazans, including a boy and a farm guard.

Egypt tried to mediate but failed to end the violence, the worst in more than a year. The fighting has killed 18 Gazans, all but two of them militants, and disrupted the lives of about 1 million Israelis living within range of rocket fire from Gaza.

Gaza militant assassinated by Israel, sparking fears of wider violence

An Israeli air strike today killed the chief of the Popular Resistance Committees (PRC), a pro-Hamas militant group that today declared it will no longer honor the tenuous cease-fire with Israel.

PRC Secretary-General Zuhair al-Qaissi and his aide, Mohammed Hannani were instantly killed when their car was targeted by Israeli rockets in Gaza City's densely populated Tal al-Hawa neighborhood. Witnesses said unmanned drones were flying overhead just before the attack.

5 killed, 46 injured in fourth day of Gaza airstrikes

GAZA CITY (Ma’an) -- Israeli airstrikes killed two Islamic Jihad militants and three civilians on Monday, bringing the death toll since Friday to 23 people, medics and Ma'an's correspondent said.

An airstrike on Monday afternoon in Beit Lahiya killed Muhammad al-Hasoumi, 65, and his daughter, 30, medical spokesperson in Gaza Abu Salmiya said.

Earlier, hospital officials said a 15-year-old schoolboy was killed in a separate air strike during the day on Monday. Nayif Shaaban Qarmout was killed in Beit Lahiya, north Gaza, Ma'an's correspondent said.

PLO envoy at the UN condemns Israeli 'terrorism'

BETHLEHEM (Ma’an) -- The PLO ambassador at the UN on Sunday sent a letter to UN officials to update them on the current round of violence in the Gaza Strip.

Riyad Mansour condemned Israel's "violence and terrorism against the Palestinian people," saying the latest escalation threatens stability in the region.

The fragile situation in Jerusalem and the occupied Palestinian territories is getting worse, he said.

Mansour sent notifications to UN secretary-general Ban ki-Moon, among other officials.

Gaza rockets strike 40 km south of Tel Aviv, on fourth day of heavy barrage

Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip fired more than 40 rockets at Israel on Monday, as the heavy cross-border barrage continued into its fourth day. Two of the rockets fired Monday exploded near Gedera, just 40 kilometers south of Tel Aviv, and another struck inside the southern city of Ashdod.

A woman and one other person sustained light to moderate shrapnel wounds as a result of a grad rocket striking Ashdod. The woman was evacuated to Rehovot's Kaplan Hospital. Four Israelis were also treated for shock. Damage was caused to store buildings and cars in the city.

Ex-Israeli spymaster: Iran response to Israeli attack would be devastating

Former Mossad chief Meir Dagan said that an Israeli strike on Iran would lead to a missile attack on Israel that would have a "devastating impact" on the country, in an interview that aired Sunday on CBS's 60 minutes.

According to Dagan, an attack will start a regional war. “And wars, you know how they start. You never know how you are ending it," he said.

“I think that Israel will be in a very serious situation for quite a time,” Dagan told 60 Minutes reporter Lesley Stahl, when asked about a possible Israeli response to an Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear program.

Palestinian solar power: why Israel may turn out the lights

She'b El Buttum, West Bank

Israeli scientists defying military occupation restrictions have brought a great leap forward to the lives of traditional Palestinian herders in a remote corner of the West Bank.

Over the last several months, tent dwellers in this hamlet on a rocky hillside south of Hebron have been brought out of the dark ages by Comet-Middle East, a German-funded project headed by two Israelis that affords them electricity for the first time through solar panels and wind turbines.

West Bank Jewish settlers agree to relocate from Migron

Settlers at the Migron outpost will be moved to a nearby hill and the current site will be put under Israeli military control, Israel radio said.

The Israeli Supreme Court had ordered the Migron outpost, north of Jerusalem, to be demolished by the end of March.

Campaigners against Jewish settlements said the relocation was "a disgrace".

The deal follows months of talks between settlers and Benny Begin, a minister without portfolio in the Israeli government.

He said the agreement would avoid further clashes between settlers and Israeli security forces.

Israel's Red Riding Hood and the Arab wolf

During a quiz show on Channel 2 television last week, a contestant was asked which of three towns - Kalansua, Tul Karm or Jenin - was located within the Green Line. The contestant, a nurse with an M.A., hesitated for quite a while and then said she thought the answer was Tul Karm. In order to verify her answer, she requested the assistance of 71 fellow contestants. Seventeen of them - almost one in four - responded that either Tul Karm or Jenin was an Israeli town.

Israel needs an anthem that represents Arabs and Jews

It turns out that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sent a message of support to Supreme Court Justice Salim Joubran after the jurist chose not to join in singing the Israeli national anthem at the recent ceremony marking the installation of Asher Grunis as the court's new president. In his message, which was transmitted by diplomatic envoy Isaac Molho, Netanyahu informed the justice that he didn't expect an Israeli Arab like Joubran to sing lyrics such as "a Jewish soul yearns," which are in "Hatikva."

Jewish identity and democratic values

Since its inception, democracy, or more specifically an elected government, freedom of speech, freedom of expression, freedom of religion, as well as equal rights have been the cornerstone of the identity of the State of Israel.

To quote the Declaration of Independence: “it [Israel] will be based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel; it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture.”

This round will likely go to Israel

Fewer rockets were fired at Israel on Sunday, but the fact that Katyushas did nonetheless fall in Be'er Sheva spurred tough talk from Israel, which threatened to continue attacking the Gaza Strip.

Still, if there are fewer launches Monday, Israel will likely reduce its attacks, and this round of hostilities will wind down by midweek, much as last year's periodic flare-ups did.

Reality Check: A true friend

At the risk of sounding like a teenage magazine agony aunt, here’s my definition of a true friend: A true friend is someone who will always look out for you, will protect your best interests and, when the situation demands it, tell you straight to your face a truth you might not particularly want to hear.

In other words, a true friend will act exactly the way US President Barack Obama has acted toward Israel throughout his entire presidency.

A typical Gaza wedding

She slips through the door resembling any other Gaza girl, head scarf and jilbab concealing her hair and body, and emerges three hours later looking like a beauty queen. But before Aya Abu Shoqa steps outside the salon in her wedding finery, she dons a hooded ivory satin cape, complete with opaque veil.

Israel has a legal case for striking Iran

WASHINGTON (JTA) -- In a world where nuclear weapons could soon be in the hands of a rogue nation like Iran, an Israeli preemptive strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities would be fully justified. Despite its ban on aggressive war, Article 51 of the United Nations Charter clearly recognizes a state’s inherent right of self-defense. Thus, Israel has full authority to act unilaterally or collectively in its self-defense.

Netanyahu's flawed arguments for war

The Iranian crisis has given rise to another duel between US President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel. The public platform for the confrontation of the two men was provided by the powerful American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac) policy conference which the two men addressed separately last week.

They duelled in the past over how to achieve peace in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. At the Aipac policy conference, they publicly duelled about waging another war in the Middle East.

Political disunity of Palestinians is a critical failure

When it comes to Palestinian politics, every step forward seems inevitably followed by two steps back.

On Friday, a day after Hamas had rejected the idea that it would at any point strike Israel on behalf of Iran, Israeli air strikes on Gaza killed 12 and wounded a dozen others. Hamas once again finds itself on the defensive, both from Israel and from factions within the Occupied Territory.

‘Reel freedom’ helps make Jerusalem more livable

In East Jerusalem, the Israeli occupation has affected the city’s cultural landscape. Chronic underinvestment, expanding settlements and a massive wall – which Israel says it has constructed for security purposes and Palestinians allege is a land grab – have had the effect of squeezing the life out of Palestinian quarters and shifting the cultural center of gravity to Ramallah in the West Bank. In addition, it seems many Palestinian Jerusalemites have not been able to shake off the curfew mentality of the intifada, which ended almost seven years ago.

For Israel, it is about walls and war

The recent visit of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to the United States received the lion’s share of publicity about Israel’s position in the Middle East and the world. However, the real story about the Palestinian-Israeli conflict rests elsewhere.

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