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[5]
RAMALLAH, West Bank — President Mahmoud Abbas [7] of the Palestinian Authority [8] said Saturday that his security forces were struggling because
Article Author(s):
Donald MacIntyre
Tony Blair has stepped into the crisis triggered by a mass hunger strike of Palestinian prisoners, pressing Israel to take steps to prevent the "tragic" outcome of any of them dying.
JERUSALEM — Egyptian and Palestinian officials said Sunday they were close to reaching a deal with Israel that would end a mass hunger strike by Palestinians in Israeli jails.
Some 1,600 Palestinian prisoners are on strike, most for a month, but three have refused food for more than 70 days. They launched the strike to press their demands for better conditions and an end to detention without trial.
KUFR RAI, West Bank — For the thousands of Palestinian families who have a relative in Israeli detention, a photograph is the only real contact with their loved ones.
In homes, the images are usually decked in elaborate frames alongside the portraits of dead ancestors, marking the conspicuous absence of the prisoners.
JENIN, West Bank — Palestinian security forces detained a prominent ex-fighter Sunday, stepping up a campaign of arrests following the death of the governor of the northern West Bank district of Jenin, residents said.
Masked security men seized Zakariya Zubeidi in Jenin after halting his car, blindfolding him and shackling him before bundling him into another car and speeding away, residents said.
TEL AVIV — With the acquisition this month of a sixth German-made submarine, Israel is seeking to position itself as the region's undisputed naval powerhouse.
From spying on enemies to intercepting illegal arms shipments to blockading the Gaza Strip, Israel's naval capabilities are playing a more prominent role in the nation's security. The latest advanced German sub, with a price tag of more than $500 million, is Israel's most expensive piece of military equipment.
RAMALLAH (Reuters) -- The formal response of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Palestinian grievances over frozen peace negotiations contains nothing that could revive the talks, Palestinian officials said on Sunday.
Netanyahu's reply on Saturday to a letter he received last month from Mahmoud Abbas rejected the Palestinian president's demand to halt Jewish settlement building in occupied territories and repeated a call for an unconditional return to talks that collapsed in 2010, according to the officials.
A Palestinian elementary school was shut down last week after Israel's Civil Administration confiscated the vehicle used to transport teachers to it.
Teachers initially tried coming to the school, located in the Jinba cave village in the southern Hebron hills, by donkey, but this proved disruptive since they were often late.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered the evacuation of a Hebron home taken by settlers last month after being informed that the expropriation of Palestinian homes and lands could complicate Israeli officials in war crimes litigation, Haaretz learned on Sunday.
AIN AL-HILWEH, Lebanon: In the run-up to next week’s annual commemoration of the Nakba – the Palestinian catastrophe of 1948 – the enthusiasm of refugees is mixed about heading to the border and staging a protest on the edge of their homeland.
This year, the event will be marked north of the Litani River, as with the commemoration of Land Day at the end of March – no angry gatherings are expected to take place next to the border fence.
JERUSALEM — Israel demolished dozens of Palestinian homes, water cisterns and farm buildings built with European funds in 2011, and over 100 such structures are at risk, aid groups said in a report on Monday.
The figures, compiled by a group of local and international NGOs chaired by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), were published just ahead of a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels.
The closing ceremony of the fifth Palestine Festival of Literature (aka Palfest) was overshadowed by politics as writers who returned from a trip to the Gaza Strip gave their testimony on the situation there and described Hamas’s “repressive rule.”
At the Palfest closing ceremony, which was held in Cairo on Friday at the Rawabet Theatre, writer Ahdaf Soueif presented the Egyptian and Arab guest writers, including Khaled El-Khamisi, Sahar El-Mougy, poet Amin Haddad, Tunisian writer Khaled Najjar and Palestinian Poet Tariq Hamdan.
I do not need anyone to teach me about the Palestinian Nakba. It is the defining moment of my existence. I do not need anyone to lecture me about it either.
The Palestinians refused to see the UN Partition Plan, which was approved by a majority of the General Assembly on November 29, 1947, as the international community saw it: as a way to correct an injustice through an amendment to the British Mandate of 1922, which stripped them of their right to self-determination. They rejected all division or unification proposals that recognized the national rights of the Jewish people.
As someone who devoutly wishes to see the end of Binyamin Netanyahu as Israel’s prime minister, I was nevertheless delighted with last week’s turn of events which have all but guaranteed his remaining in power until the end of 2013 when this government’s official term of office expires.
The dramatic announcement that Israel was going to have a new unity government instead of national elections scrambled the political calculus in the Knesset, left a shrunken opposition rudderless, and proved once again that Benjamin Netanyahu is one heck of a politician.
It has also opened up opportunities for American Jewish dialogue on Israel.
While incumbents around the world are struggling to hold on, one is thriving. By bringing the rival Kadima party into his ruling coalition, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has become “king of Israel,” in Aaron David Miller’s phrase. He has an unusual, perhaps unique, opportunity to use his new power to secure Israel’s future.
Several weeks before Passover 2011, a factory in the industrial area of Mishor Adumim received an unusual request: a Palestinian client urgently ordered more than 80 prefab structures. The factory's owner had never encountered such a large, urgent order before, but succeeded in meeting the deadline. Several weeks later, when the inspectors of the civil administration were enjoying their Passover vacation, hundreds of Palestinians congregated in the area of the Keidar channel under Maale Adumim and erected all the prefab structures within a short time period.
In the three meetings Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held with Kadima chairman Shaul Mofaz on May 7, the two discussed at length the issue of Iran's nuclear program. Netanyahu sought to clarify whether Mofaz supported his policy on the issue and his position on the way to stop the Iranian race toward a nuclear bomb.
With the hunger strike of Palestinians imprisoned by Israel gathering momentum, I wanted to know names, look closely at faces, read biographies.
A few weeks ago, after much soul-searching, I reluctantly accepted an invitation to a meeting about the peace process with Palestinian colleagues, held under the auspices of a veteran third-party convener who is truly dedicated to the cause of Israeli-Palestinian understanding and reconciliation. I have been turning down such invitations regularly for several years now, ever since concluding that the meetings had become pointless and were not worth the price I would pay in pure frustration.
"Track II" or informal diplomacy played its most significant and constructive role in the history of Israeli-Palestinian relations prior to the Oslo breakthrough when the Palestine Liberation Organization started direct negotiations with the Israeli government. The reason track II talks flourished at that time--the late eighties and early nineties--was that Israel was refusing to deal directly with the Palestinian leadership.
Links:
[1] http://www.americantaskforce.org/print/25524
[2] http://www.americantaskforce.org/printmail/25524
[3] http://www.americantaskforce.org/printpdf/25524
[4] http://www.americantaskforce.org/rss/wpr
[5] https://www.americantaskforce.org/civicrm/contribute/transact?reset=1&id=1
[6] http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/13/world/middleeast/palestinians-and-israelis-in-talks-to-end-hunger-strike.html?_r=1&ref=middleeast
[7] http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/a/mahmoud_abbas/index.html?inline=nyt-per
[8] http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/p/palestinian_authority/index.html?inline=nyt-org
[9] http://topics.nytimes.com/top/ne</p
[10] http://www.statesman.com/news/nation/deal-looks-near-to-end-palestianian-hunger-strike-2354215.html
[11] http://www.statesman.com/news/nation/palestinian-prisoners-portraits-underscore-absence-2354067.html
[12] http://www.statesman.com/news/nation/palestinian-forces-seize-ex-fighter-in-west-bank-2353820.html
[13] http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-israel-navy-qa-20120511,0,1694820.story
[14] http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=485318
[15] http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/idf-closes-palestinian-school-to-make-way-for-west-bank-training-zone-1.430233
[16] http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/netanyahu-ordered-evacuation-of-hebron-home-over-fears-of-war-crimes-suits-1.430185
[17] http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Local-News/2012/May-12/173159-lebanons-palestinians-wary-of-nakba-march.ashx#axzz1upzkbHxi
[18] http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hzG0fTr6sqqDxnuMtDcsBLisiI2Q?docId=CNG.605297c60c7fe4592c03dee29f28e996.cd1
[19] http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContentP/18/41545/Books/Arab-writers-return-from-Gaza,-overshadow-literatu.aspx
[20] http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/05/11/the-lessons-of-the-nakba.html
[21] http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/who-s-afraid-of-nakba-day-1.430261
[22] http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Columnists/Article.aspx?id=269786
[23] http://forward.com/articles/156104/if-its-okay-for-mofaz/
[24] http://www.dailystar.com.lb/Opinion/Commentary/2012/May-14/173278-israel-is-strong-but-does-netanyahu-want-peace.ashx#axzz1upzkbHxi
[25] http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/culture/2012/05/the-palestinian-version-of-the-o.html
[26] http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/security/01/05/assessments-mofaz-and-netanyahu.html
[27] http://www.egyptindependent.com/opinion/their-hunger-palestinian-strikers-are-acquiring-names
[28] http://www.bitterlemons.org/inside.php?id=236
[29] http://www.bitterlemons.org/inside.php?id=237
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