April 27, 2012

Middle East News: World Press Roundup

NEWS: The PA Communications Minister is resigning after criticizing a crackdown on websites critical of the government. The PA is continuing with its crackdown on criticism. DM Barak says chances are “low” that Iran can be dissuaded from developing a nuclear weapon. The Israeli government asks for a 90 day extension of a court order to demolish an “unauthorized” settlement outpost. PLO officials say Israel settlement activity proves it's not interested in a two-state solution based on the 1967 borders. The CSM looks at growing ties between Israel and Azerbaijan. Palestinian officials say better tax enforcement has increased PA revenue. Pres. Abbas and Hamas leader Mishaal have a telephone conversation about rallying support for hunger striking Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails. The US House of Representatives is moving to approve $680 million in more aid for Israel's “Iron Dome” antimissile system. Israeli officials disagree about what PM Netanyahu meant when he told CNN he was in favor of a “contiguous” Palestinian state. VP Biden says no president has done more for Israel since Truman than Obama. COMMENTARY: Yossi Sarid says the Israeli military remains unreformed. Lyn Julius says the issue of Jewish refugees from Arab countries is important. Uri Savir says the EU needs a common approach on the Middle East and especially Israeli-Palestinian issues. The Forward says Israel's national anthem could easily be rewritten to reflect the aspirations of all its citizens. Alan Phillips says despair about the plausibility of a two-state solution is leading some serious observers, especially in Europe, to look at fresh ideas. George Hishmeh says there are real grounds for doubting whether a second term Pres. Obama would seriously attempt to reengage with Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts. Dylan Evans looks at the possibility of another war between Israel and Hezbollah. Ben Lynfield says the occupation is having a very corrosive effect on Israeli society. The Arab News says Israel's settlement outpost activities amount to “official larceny.” Frida Ghitis says if Netanyahu is serious about really engaging the Palestinians in peace negotiations, he should make them a serious offer.

---

---

[5]

---

PA Communications Minister to Resign

BETHLEHEM (Ma'an) -- The Palestinian Authority communications minister intends to resign from Salam Fayyad's government, according to sources in Ramallah.

Fayyad was expected to accept Mashour Abu Daka's resignation Thursday, the sources said. A Palestinian Authority spokesman could not confirm Fayyad's position.

In his letter of resignation, seen by Ma'an, the minister said Fayyad's government had already resigned. He called the decision personal and "necessary to put an end to the waiting."

The minister said it had been "a great privilege" to serve in the cabinet.

Palestinian Government Cracks down on Critics

JERUSALEM — The government of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has moved to silence critics, raising new concerns about freedom of expression in the West Bank.

Abbas' communications minister, Mashour Abu Daqa, said late Thursday that the attorney general's office ordered several websites shut down over the past six months. The sites belong to an Abbas rival, former Gaza strongman Mohammed Dahlan.

Defense Minister Adds to Israel’s Recent Mix of Messages on Iran

JERUSALEM — One day after Israeli newspapers reported that the nation’s top general had said economic and diplomatic pressures against Iran were beginning to succeed, his superior, Defense Minister Ehud Barak, said Thursday that the chances “appear low” that the Iranian government would bow to international pressure and halt its nuclear program.

Israel asks to defer demolition of settler homes

JERUSALEM — The Israeli government has asked the nation's Supreme Court to defer next week's deadline for demolishing an unauthorized West Bank settlement outpost.

The request Friday said the government needs 90 more days to consider a court order to destroy the 30 apartments there.

It is not clear whether the court will agree. Critics of the proposed delay accuse the government of trying to flout the rule of law.

The state previously agreed to destroy the apartments in the Ulpana outpost because they were erected on privately owned Palestinian land.

Mansour: Settlements prove Israel rejects 1967 borders

BETHLEHEM (Ma'an) -- The PLO ambassador at the United Nations on Wednesday condemned Israeli settlement activity in a series of letters to senior UN officials.

"There have been confirmations by the UN Security Council and General Assembly, Human Rights Council and the Social and Economic Council on the illegality of all settlement activity in a number of resolutions which are still available, and we are still calling on Israel to respect and implement the resolutions," Mansour said.

What’s the Israel-Azerbaijan connection?

The burgeoning relationship between Israel and Azerbaijan is raising eyebrows throughout the Middle East, not least of all because Azerbaijan is Iran’s neighbor to the north and shares close cultural and demographic ties with Iran.

VAT director: Drop in Tax Evasion Boosts PA Revenues

HEBRON (Ma’an) -- Top VAT official Ahmad al-Helou told Ma'an on Tuesday that better enforcement of tax procedures has boosted the Palestinian Authority's budget.

The Ministry of Finance VAT Director said VAT revenues increased from 2.4 billion shekels ($638 million) in 2008 to 3.3 billion shekels ($878 million) in 2011.

Updated equipment in Palestinian shops and the use of tax receipts has increased enforcement of tax collection, he said.

Mashaal, Abbas discuss prisoner hunger strike

Hamas political chief Khaled Mashaal and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas spoke by telephone Thursday about rallying Palestinians to support Palestinian prisoners in their hunger strike against certain Israeli prison policies, such as administrative detention, Palestinian news agency Ma'an reported Friday, citing a Hamas statement.

US House Panel adds $68om. For Iron Dome

WASHINGTON – A US House subcommittee voted Thursday to dedicate an additional $680 million in funding for Israel’s short-range missile defense system.

The move by a House Armed Services subcommittee adds the funding for the Iron Dome program on top of nearly $100m. in US assistance for medium- and long-range missile defense and $3.1 billion in other military assistance that comes from the State Department budget.

PM stance on Palestinian contiguity debated

Government officials played down Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s comments in a CNN interview this week expressing a seeming willingness for Palestinian contiguity, saying he was referring to the West Bank, and not necessarily a physical link from it to Gaza.

Netanyahu, the officials said, has not publicly articulated a position on what he believes a link or “safe passage” between the West Bank and Gaza should look like in a possible future agreement.

Biden: No president since Truman has done more for Israel than Obama

WASHINGTON (JTA) -- Vice President Joe Biden said "no president since Harry Truman has done more for Israel’s security than Barack Obama."

Biden delivered an attack Thursday on the foreign policies of Mitt Romney, the likely GOP candidate for president, a day after a top Romney surrogate, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), had launched a broadside on Obama's foreign policies. The exchange was seen as the launch of the 2012 general election season.

The 'rehabilitated' IDF

I won a bet recently over Lt. Col. Shalom Eisner. My friend said to me, "That lieutenant colonel is going to be booted from here to kingdom come." And I said, "He'll be suspended, so that he can stay on."

I won. Because nowadays, the chief of the General Staff doesn't run the Israel Defense Forces; it's run by the generals of Judea and Samaria - its activists and rabbis - and Eisner is one of their favorite sons.

Jewish refugee rights is an unsolved human rights issue

Refael Bigio remembers the moment in 1962 that the regime of Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser seized his family's property. Police had cordoned off the Bigio bottling plant at 14 Aswan Street in the Cairo suburb of Heliopolis. A policeman barked at Bigio and his father: "Hand over the keys!"

The European Union and the peace process

Who would have believed only 65 years ago that the main international support in last week’s French presidential election President Nicolas Sarkozy – Charles de Gaulle’s successor – would be the chancellor of Germany?

For centuries war and antagonism characterized Franco-German relationships, coming to a climax with the Nazi occupation of Paris. And yet there is probably not a single Frenchman or German who believes that war between these former foes is realistic in the foreseeable or distant future.

An Anthem for All?

There are times when beautiful, soulful music can transport us to a new and challenging place, a place we might never have visited were we not swept along with song. Neshama Carlebach performs that sort of music — when, for instance, she mixes ancient Jewish tropes with the pulsating rhythms of an African American Baptist choir, creatively pushing the boundaries of expectation.

The Forward thought there was no better artist to launch a musical conversation about whether and, if so, how the words of “Hatikvah” could be altered to include all Israel’s citizens.

Hopelessness of a two-state solution leads to fresh ideas

No one is paying much attention to the Palestine issue these days. Coverage in the global media is perfunctory. What used to be a major issue in US-Israeli relations is now relegated to a sideshow by Iran and the Obama administration's focus on getting re-elected without any new Middle Eastern entanglements.

As Filippo Grandi, the Commissioner General of UNRWA, the United Nations agency that provides services for Palestinian refugees, put it last week in London: "Over the past seven years I have never seen all the avenues for political progress closed as they are now."

Obama’s missteps

Why did Barack Obama have to go the Holocaust Museum in Washington to criticise an Arab government, Syria’s, much as the country’s long-serving leadership is the target of international and Arab criticism for its brutal policies?

Is it reasonable to believe that he did not have any other option in America’s spacious capital city which has several university campuses, institutions and government halls than the controversial museum which raised eyebrows when it was founded, since the US and American citizens had no role in the dastardly act of the Nazis?

War isn’t always a rational outcome

Will there be another war between Israel and Hezbollah? Over the past few months I’ve put this question to many experienced commentators in Lebanon, and most of them doubt that there will be a conflict any time soon. The most common reason they give for their optimism is that starting a war is not in the interest of either party. Israel risks greater political isolation if it attacks Lebanon, while Hezbollah handsomely benefits financially from the calm.

Being an occupier has a destructive effect on Israel

With international attention distracted by Iran and Syria, Israel’s fateful entanglement in the West Bank hardly gets a mention in the news these days.

Israeli official larceny

Israel's timing was predicable. With the world’s gaze focused on the horrors in Syria and the Obama administration increasingly diverted by November’s presidential election, it chose this week to declare “legal” three fortified West Bank settlements which had been originally been erected by fanatical Zionists in contravention of their country’s own laws.

The low bar for peace in Israel

After months of having no top-level contacts, Israelis and Palestinians had planned a symbolic event. At the end of Passover, Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad would visit Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Fayyad, the plan went, would come bearing a letter from Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. The letter would restate the Palestinian demand that Israel cease all settlement activity as a pre-requisite for talks.

Nothing new, but a little movement. The bar could not go much lower.

---

---