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The body of a Hamas official was found in his home on Wednesday night, bearing marks of torture. A colonel in the Palestine Liberation Army was sprawled in his car on Tuesday, fatally shot near his home. Three Palestinians were shot down in the alleyways of a refugee camp late last Sunday by a group of unidentified gunmen.
The Palestinian self-rule government has detained some 200 people, including security officers, in recent weeks in the biggest crackdown on illegal weapons in the West Bank in five years, a spokesman said Monday.
Officials say the campaign is unusual because it targets include alleged vigilante gunmen linked to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah movement. Previously, security forces went mainly after armed supporters of rival groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
Yitzhak Shamir was a fighter for the Jews long before Israel's creation, an underground leader who led militias against the Arabs and British.
He made no apologies and no compromises — not as an underground fighter, an intelligence agent who hunted Nazis, and as one of Israel's longest-serving prime ministers who refused to bargain for land.
A scheduled high-profile meeting between Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Vice Prime Minister Shaul Mofaz has been postponed indefinitely, a senior Palestinian official said Saturday.
The rare high-level talks would have been a step toward resuming formal peace negotiations, although expectations were low that they would produce any breakthrough.
The Palestinians on Friday persuaded the U.N. cultural agency to list the Church of the Nativity — the place where Christians believe Jesus was born — as an endangered World Heritage site despite misgivings by churches in charge of the basilica.
The Palestinians hailed the nod by UNESCO as a step forward in their quest for global recognition of an independent Palestine in the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem, captured by Israel in 1967.
Hamas suspended voter registration in the Gaza Strip on Monday in a setback to Palestinian plans for parliamentary and presidential elections and to forging unity with President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah movement.
Hamas, the Islamist group that seized the enclave from Fatah forces in 2007, cited the continued arrest of its members in the West Bank by security forces of the Palestinian Authority, which is led by Abbas.
Israel's Supreme Court on Sunday granted the state a four-month extension to remove five apartment blocks built illegally on Palestinian-owned land in a Jewish settlement on the occupied West Bank.
The court had ruled the homes, in the Ulpana neighbourhood of the Beit El settlement, must be torn down by July 1.
The 30 families who lived in the buildings moved out last week to nearby temporary accommodation under a deal with the government to go quietly after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledged to construct 851 new settler homes in the West Bank.
Palestinian protesters said security forces used brutal force Sunday during the second demonstration in as many days protesting Palestinian Authority policy.
Police attacked protesters with batons, beating and injuring at least seven people. Another seven protesters were taken to a police station along with at least two journalists, a Ma'an correspondent said.
Protesters shouted against police brutality, and the police responded by beating them. Journalists were also attacked for the second day in a row, the correspondent reported.
The Palestinian National Authority (PNA) on Monday opened an investigation into clashes between demonstrators and police in the West Bank city of Ramallah.
At least 15 people were injured, including six journalists, when the PNA forces repressed demonstrations Sunday and Saturday when protestors called on President Mahmoud Abbas not to receive Israeli Deputy Vice Premier Shaul Mofaz in Ramallah.
Mofaz's visit has been canceled.
During the inauguration of Egypt' s newly elected president last weekend, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's envoy met with Egyptian high-level military and intelligence officials in a secret visit to Cairo, local media reported on Monday.
Yitzhak Molcho met with Hussein Tantawi, head of the ruling Supreme Council of Armed Forces, and director of Egyptian military intelligence, according to the report.
Unknown militants shot and wounded a senior member of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah party in the West Bank city of Jenin, security sources said Sunday.
Shami al-Shami, also a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC), got two gunshots in his right leg, the sources added.
The shooting came at a time of intensive campaign by forces of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) to restore order in the city, which has slid into militia chaos for months.
Israel recently asked the International Monetary Fund for a bridge loan of a $100 million dollars that it planned to transfer to the Palestinian Authority to help prevent its financial collapse, but the IMF turned down the request.
The PA, which is not a state, cannot ask the IMF for help on its own. The plan therefore, was for Israel to take the loan on the Palestinians' behalf, have the PA repay the loan to Israel, and Israel would repay the IMF.
Ahmad Majdalani urged Arab nations to fulfill their financial pledges to the PA in order to allow salary payments.
He said cabinet ministers had tasked the finance minister with preparing a report on the PA's financial crisis and potential solutions, which will be presented at the government's weekly meeting on Tuesday.
Sitting in this city, where the echoes of the Holocaust are everywhere, Palestinian Authority envoy Salah Abdel Shafi told a group of Israeli journalists last week that in his mind “the Holocaust is the biggest crime in human history.”
“This was a human tragedy that hit humanity,” said Abdel Shafi, who has headed the PA mission in Germany for the past two years.
After struggling to pursue sport for years because of the impact of the conflict with Israel, Palestinians now have a rare chance to celebrate success.
Maher Abu Rmelleh, a judoist, is the first ever Palestinian sportsman to qualify on points to participate in the Olympic Games.
The supporters of the two-state solution are often told that this vision is unrealistic and has become unachievable. Young, idealistic seekers of justice and equality are increasingly offering what they claim is a more "realistic" solution: a single state for all Israelis and Palestinians, including refugees.
The light was still too dim to penetrate the cracks in the shutters when the rooster crowed. For a fraction of a second it felt like a village. But it was the Jenin refugee camp, circa two weeks ago. There, as in other refugee camps, the rooster's wake-up call is something more: nutrition for the unemployed, as well as the longing and the desire to maintain continuity, if only symbolic, with the village that once was, and has since been destroyed.
Israeli-Arab relations witnessed a historic event last week. Modest and hidden from the limelight of the media, it touched everyone who attended it, moving some to tears: Israeli and Jordanian war veterans who fought each other 45 years ago visited together their shared combat zones in Jerusalem, honoring each other and paying tribute to their fallen comrades.
Last week's visit to Jordan by Hamas politburo chief Khaled Meshal, which was under-reported in the Israeli media, reflects the shifting alliances taking place in the Middle East. Meshal received a royal welcome in the palace in Amman, where he dined with King Abdullah.
Now that Gaza has been set aflame once again, Israel's southern towns and villages are one more time under fire, the Sinai Peninsula is turning into a replica of Lebanon and the future of Egypt is still unclear — now is the time to consider a totally new approach — an approach that would provide an effective response to the escalating problems plaguing us and possibly even quell the extremist passions that trigger the barrages of Grads launched from Gaza, the burning of Israeli flags at Tahrir Square and [protest] flotillas like the Marmara.
On Wednesday, I will be visiting Pittsburgh to perform my Pink Floyd hit "The Wall" at Consol Energy Center. By coincidence, the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA) has gathered this week in Pittsburgh.
One issue the Presbyterians will be debating is whether to take action in support of Palestinians living under Israeli occupation in the West Bank, under siege in Gaza and as second-class citizens in Israel under the rule of the apartheid government there.
Those of us who advocate for a just Israeli-Palestinian peace (however defined) make a point of clarifying that each side has seen enormous suffering, and we’re right to do so. There are no angels and very few innocents in this war–there’s far more ugly dehumanization, bloodletting, and endless, inconsolable mourning.
Links:
[1] http://www.americantaskforce.org/print/26368
[2] http://www.americantaskforce.org/printmail/26368
[3] http://www.americantaskforce.org/printpdf/26368
[4] http://www.americantaskforce.org/rss/wpr
[5] https://www.americantaskforce.org/civicrm/contribute/transact?reset=1&id=1
[6] http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/01/world/middleeast/palestinians-in-syria-drawn-into-the-violence.html?_r=1&ref=middleeast
[7] http://www.statesman.com/news/nation/palestinians-detain-dozens-in-weapons-crackdown-2407969.html
[8] http://www.statesman.com/news/nation/former-israeli-prime-minister-shamir-dies-at-96-2407325.html
[9] http://www.statesman.com/news/nation/palestinians-meeting-delayed-with-israeli-vice-pm-2407073.html
[10] http://www.statesman.com/news/nation/palestinians-un-heritage-nod-is-political-victory-2406607.html
[11] http://www.trust.org/alertnet/news/hamas-suspends-gaza-voter-registration/
[12] http://www.trust.org/alertnet/news/deadline-extended-for-israel-settler-homes-removal/
[13] http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=500441
[14] http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/world/2012-07/02/c_131690315.htm
[15] http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/world/2012-07/02/c_131690126.htm
[16] http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/world/2012-07/01/c_131687877.htm
[17] http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/israel-sought-to-borrow-100-million-from-imf-to-prevent-collapse-of-palestinian-authority.premium-1.448125
[18] http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=500085
[19] http://www.jpost.com/NationalNews/Article.aspx?id=276002
[20] http://www.jpost.com/DiplomacyAndPolitics/Article.aspx?id=275851
[21] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-18622400
[22] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ziad-j-asali-md/one-state-solution-israel_b_1638550.html
[23] http://www.haaretz.com/news/features/is-the-pa-afraid-of-a-third-intifada.premium-1.448159
[24] http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/israelis-and-jordanians-ammunition-for-peace-1.448047
[25] http://www.haaretz.com/blogs/east-side-story/hamas-leader-gets-royal-welcome-from-jordan-s-king.premium-1.448130
[26] http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/business/2012/06/the-economy-will-prevail.html
[27] http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/opinion/perspectives/divest-in-israel-presbyterians-should-support-palestinian-aspirations-642882/#ixzz1zSMoV3tx
[28] http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/06/29/palestinian-children.html
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