PRINT ALL
EMAIL TO A FRIEND
DOWNLOAD TO PDF
RSSEvents | Daily News | About Us | Resources | Contact Us | Donate | Site Map | Privacy Policy
[5]
JERUSALEM — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu [7] and the chairman of the opposition Kadima Party struck a deal early Tuesday morning to form a unity government, a surprise move that staves off early elections and creates a new coalition with a huge legislative majority.
The newly formed unity government was created to advance the main issues facing Israel today, including a "responsible peace process," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a joint press conference with Kadima head Shaul Mofaz on Tuesday, while the leader of Israel's Labor Party Shelly Yacimovich - thought likely to be become leader of the opposition - slammed the pair's pronouncements in her own press conference later on Tuesday.
Kadima Chairman Shaul Mofaz [10]'s decision to join Benjamin Netanyahu [11]'s government caught many in the Palestinian Authority by surprise but did not raise hope that the political change will lead to a resumption of peace talks.
RAMALLAH, May 8 (Xinhua) -- A Palestinian official on Tuesday said he has no big hope in reviving stalled peace talks with Israel after the latter's parties agreed to form a unity government.
Considering the deal an Israeli internal affair, Nabil Shaath of the Palestinian mainstream Fatah party said this agreement " will bring nothing new to the Palestinian-Israeli relations as long as Benjamin Netanyahu's policies remain in place."
JERUSALEM — Israel [14]’s Supreme Court on Monday rejected appeals for the release of two Palestinian [15] prisoners who have been on a
Media Outlet:
Associated Press
RAMALLAH, West Bank — A senior medical official says a top Palestinian peace negotiator has been hospitalized after suffering a heart attack.
Dr. Ahmed Bitwai, head of Ramallah hospital in the West Bank, says Saeb Erekat had a "sharp" attack early on Tuesday and was taken to the hospital for a heart catheterization.
He says the 57-year-old Erekat will remain in hospital for three days for supervision.
Erekat has been a leading negotiator with Israel in talks over Palestinian independence during the past two decades.
JERUSALEM — Israel's Supreme Court has set a new deadline for the demolition of an unauthorized Jewish outpost in the West Bank.
The court on Monday ruled that the Ulpana outpost must be dismantled by July 1.
A May 1 deadline for its removal was postponed so that the court could hear an appeal by the government, which asked for a 90-day delay.
About 30 Jewish families live in Ulpana. The court has ruled that the outpost was illegally built on private Palestinian land.
RAMALLAH, May 8 (Xinhua) -- Israeli forces on Tuesday seized computers and cameras from the office of a Palestinian organization that organizes public activities against Jewish settlement activities, Palestinian witnesses said.
The soldiers smashed the doors of the Public Campaign against Settlements and Wall's headquarters in the West Bank city of Ramallah, seized the equipment and left. The incident took place before the workday started.
Israel's Supreme Court on Monday rejected the appeals of administrative detainees Bilal Diab, 27, from Jenin, and Thaer Halahla, 33, from Hebron -- who have refused food since Feb. 29.
A new Palestinian Authority cabinet is expected to be announced within the next 48 hours, sources in Ramallah said Monday evening.
They said that the new cabinet will be headed by current Prime Minister Salam Fayyad.
The sources said that Nabil Qassis, the former president of Bir Zeit University in the West Bank, will replace Fayyad as finance minister.
The new cabinet will be formed in accordance with an agreement recently reached between Fayyad and PA President Mahmoud Abbas.
It's a simple dictum, but one that many still have trouble accepting: Israelis and Palestinians have to talk to each other if they're going to get anywhere.
A "prime ministers' forum" was held as part of the unity government of 1984-1990: Shimon Peres, first as prime minister, later as vice-prime minister and foreign (or finance minister); Yitzhak Shamir, first as former and future prime minister and then as incumbent; and Yitzhak Rabin, as former prime minister and incumbent defense minister.
Israelis don't change, unless someone or something creeps up on them from a direction they never look, and slips the comfort zone rug out from under them. The rug may be frayed to the floor, faintly gummy to the touch, it may be mined with thorns and shards of shattered glass. But they'll hang onto it for what passes for dear life.
Unless …
For years, Sderot was a city under siege, the target of non-stop rocket attacks launched by Palestinian terrorists from Gaza. School was halted, synagogues were silenced and in a community defined by courage, the fragments of rockets and mortars – the vehicles of attempted murder aimed at innocent Israelis – were plain for all to see. Sderot became a living museum of terror.
I was questioned under caution! Not in a gloomy cellar, without blinding projectors like in the movies, and without Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) interrogators who shouted and caressed alternately.
The questioning was conducted by officials from the Interior Ministry’s Construction Inspection Unit in Jerusalem. The suspicion – “illegal construction” that I allegedly carried out in east Jerusalem, and on more than one occasion.
Everyone is in agreement; this election season will be about social justice. Shaul Mofaz has suddenly discovered the economy and wants to be the hero of the under classes in Israel. Shelly Yacimovich had propelled into the public eye and has doubled the support for the Labor Party by being the champion of the working class. Yair Lapid wants to parade in front of the middle class camp.
Shas always claims to represent the Israeli poor.
Binyamin Netanyahu wants to convince us how much better off we are economically now than three years ago with him at the helm.
Having created one surprise in pushing for an early general election, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has now delivered an even greater bomb-shell.
The plan for early elections has been abandoned. Instead a new broadly-based governing coalition has been called into existence with the opposition centre-right Kadima party of Shaul Mofaz joining the government.
Many of Kadima's members of parliament were facing defeat in any early general election: they will breathe a great sigh of relief.
NEW YORK (JTA) -- The intellectual food fight over Israel that has played out over the Op-Ed pages of virtually all Jewish and many mainstream newspapers in recent weeks may have settled down, but the passion of the discussion has made one thing very clear: The boundaries dividing American Jewish opinion on Israel, and its policies regarding Palestinians, have become as contentious as the borders between Israel and the West Bank.
There is no cause dearer to my heart than that of the Palestinians and it saddens me that international efforts towards a Palestinian state are on the backburner. Since the 1980s when I got together with Emirati friends to form associations committed to supporting the Palestinians, their right of return is less viable now than it was then. Unfortunately, the idea of a Palestinian state is at the point of being shelved as a mythical Shangri-La unless we take advantage of space in a closing window.
This is the first time that former chiefs of Israeli security Meir Dagan of the Mossad and Yuval Diskin of the General Security Services (GSS or Shin Bet) have issued such a scathing warning about flawed analyses of major security risks. This is also the first time that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak have been accused of "messianic impulses" and of portraying a false picture of the situation.
Links:
[1] http://www.americantaskforce.org/print/25409
[2] http://www.americantaskforce.org/printmail/25409
[3] http://www.americantaskforce.org/printpdf/25409
[4] http://www.americantaskforce.org/rss/wpr
[5] https://www.americantaskforce.org/civicrm/contribute/transact?reset=1&id=1
[6] http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/09/world/middleeast/shaul-mofaz-agrees-to-join-benjamin-netanyahus-coalition.html?_r=1&ref=middleeast
[7] http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/n/benjamin_netanyahu/index.html?inline=nyt-per
[8] http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/netanyahu-stunning-israel-by-forging-unity-bloc-defends-move-as-pro-stability-1.428972
[9] http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4226429,00.html
[10] http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3584230,00.html
[11] http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4187902,00.html
[12] http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/world/2012-05/08/c_131575626.htm
[13] http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/08/world/middleeast/israeli-court-rejects-appeal-for-palestinians-release.html?_r=1&ref=middleeast
[14] http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/israel/index.html?inline=nyt-geo
[15] http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/p/palestinians/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier
[16] http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/04/world/middleeast/pa</p
[17] http://www.statesman.com/news/nation/israeli-supreme-court-orders-outpost-demolished-2344127.html
[18] http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/world/2012-05/08/c_131575547.htm
[19] http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=483570
[20] http://www.jpost.com/MiddleEast/Article.aspx?id=269040
[21] http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/05/07/we-need-to-talk.html
[22] http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/mofaz-netanyahu-cabinet-may-pave-the-way-for-an-israeli-strike-on-iran-1.428950
[23] http://www.haaretz.com/blogs/a-special-place-in-hell/netanyahu-s-next-israel-bad-for-the-right-good-for-the-jews-1.429003
[24] http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/iron-dome-israeli-necessity-american-priority-strategic-imperative-1.428982
[25] http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Op-EdContributors/Article.aspx?id=269054
[26] http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Columnists/Article.aspx?id=269058
[27] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-17988577
[28] http://www.jta.org/news/article/2012/05/07/3094881/op-ed-moderate-middle-must-be-heard-on-israel-debate
[29] http://gulfnews.com/opinions/columnists/plan-b-needed-to-halt-palestinian-suffering-1.1019670
[30] http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/politics/2012/05/we-do-have-a-partner.html
Front Page Features