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Saudi Arabia will deliver 200 million US dollars to the Palestinian Authority (PA), caretaker Prime Minister Salam Fayyad announced on Monday.
In a press conference at his Ramallah office, Fayyad said that “this generous delivery from Saudi Arabia will enable the PA to fulfill its commitments to the Palestinians who are living under siege, mainly in Gaza.”
The funds are to be transferred to the PA treasury over the coming days, he said.
Hoping to satisfy as wide a constituency as possible, the Palestinian delegates to the Fatah conference, scheduled to conclude here on Tuesday, have tried to broadcast a message both peaceful and militant.
It was a delicate balancing act for Fatah, the mainstream Palestinian nationalist party, as it sought to rise above past failures, rejuvenate itself and head off the challenge from Hamas, the Islamic group that is Fatah’s rival.
But it remains an open question whether the weeklong conference, Fatah’s first in 20 years, has hastened or slowed the prospect of a Palestinian state.
THE two-state solution has welcomed two converts. In recent weeks, Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, and Khaled Meshal, the head of Hamas’s political bureau, have indicated they now accept what they had long rejected. This nearly unanimous consensus is the surest sign to date that the two-state solution has become void of meaning, a catchphrase divorced from the contentious issues it is supposed to resolve. Everyone can say yes because saying yes no longer says much, and saying no has become too costly.
Marwan Barghouti, jailed for life in Israel on charges of organizing the killing of Jews, was elected to a top post in Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah group on Tuesday, initial results showed.
Barghouti, 50, who denies the charges, is a popular and articulate figure among many Palestinians and was once seen as a successor to Yasser Arafat.
Some members of the Fatah "Old Guard" lost their positions when the faction elected a new executive body, the initial results showed after more than 90 percent of votes had been counted for the 18-member Central Committee.
A bipartisan group comprising 71 U.S. senators is urging President Barack Obama to lean on Arab states to normalize relations with Israel.
In a letter addressed to Obama on Monday, the senators praised Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for lobbying the Arab states to take steps toward supporting the Palestinian Authority, though more was needed to advance peace.
Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas' Fatah party elected a new generation of leaders at its first congress in 20 years, including a popular militant jailed in Israel, according to results on Tuesday.
Marwan Barghouti, who is serving five life sentences in Israel, was among those elected to Fatah's governing body at the landmark conference aimed at rejuvenating a party weakened by internal rifts.
“I’ve known Israeli consuls general for the last 30 years or so. And I don’t think Israel has had a more effective leader in New England in that time than Nadav Tamir," former president of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee Steve Grossman told the Boston Globe Monday.
Tamir has been summoned to Israel by Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman after a confidential memo he wrote criticizing the way Israel was handling its relations with the US was leaked to the media. He is scheduled to land in the country Tuesday.
Defense Minister Ehud Barak said Monday he believed negotiations with the Palestinians could progress within weeks. Barak also rejected remarks by Ministers Eli Yishai and Avigdor Lieberman, who spoke in favor of construction in settlements.
The defense minister said in closed talks that "there is a good chance to further the peace process" and that "the dialogue with Washington will produce an American plan for an inclusive settlement within weeks".
Former Palestinian security commander Mohammed Dahlan, who was apparently elected Tuesday to Fatah's Central Committee, said that he would allow no one to negotiate with Israel unless a deadline for peace talks is announced in advance, according to Israel Radio.
Fatah elected a group of younger leaders to its top council, according to preliminary voting results.
"This election is setting a new future for the movement, a new democratic era," added the 47-year-old Dahlan.
Younger leaders have gained powerful posts in Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah faction, early results from its first poll in 20 years show.
Mr Abbas remains the head, but several veterans apparently lost seats on the powerful central committee.
Popular jailed leader Marwan Barghouti, and influential Mohammad Dahlan, who is disliked by supporters of rival faction Hamas, were both set to gain seats.
Young members wanted to depose an "old guard" seen as divided and corrupt.
Well over a million of Israel's population come from the former Soviet Union (FSU), representing more than 15% of the total population – hence the political views of the Russian immigrant community are not easily brushed under the carpet. Their collective stance on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is credited with sweeping Avigdor Lieberman and his Yisrael Beiteinu party into the upper echelons of power at the last election, and on the strength of the latest poll from the Israel Democracy Institute, it's not hard to see why Lieberman has become the poster boy of the Russian right.
A number of recent reports from Gaza have given cause for concern about the direction the Hamas government is taking with regard to social freedoms and a religiously driven "virtue" promotion campaign. Specific incidents, coupled with public declarations by high-ranking officials, suggest a trend of increasing, forced "Islamisation".
Seven Israeli human rights groups wrote to President Obama supporting the choice of Mary Robinson as a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
"Mrs. Robinson deserves this honor for a lifetime of unflagging support to the cause of human rights in its many dimensions," the leaders of B'Tselem, Physicians for Human Rights-Israel, Association for Civil Rights in Israel, Binkom-Planners for Planners Rights, Gisha-Legal Center for Freedom of Movement, Hamoked-Center for the Defense of the Individual and Yesh Din-Volunteers for Human Rights said in their letter to the president.
The “National Palestinian Liberation Movement” (Fatah) has since its establishment distinguished itself from the remaining organizations and factions due to two essential and interrelated characteristics: the first is that it has represented and reflected the aspirations of the Palestinian people as a whole, with its diverse social groups and political tendencies, thus reflecting the image of this people, equally in the occupied interior and in lands of exile.
It is clear that Israel has succeeded casting doubt on the existence of a Palestinian partner with whom it can make peace.
Implicit in Israel’s argument is the fact that it has been anxiously awaiting for a Palestinian leader who would lead the people on the road to peace. Yet the irony is that Israel has failed miserably to elect leaders who can effectively lead Israel down the road of historical reconciliation with the Palestinians and with the Arab world, even while genuine peace initiatives have been presented - to which Israel failed to respond.
In 1997, at a time when I travelled frequently from Israel, where I was living, to Jordan, I was invited to give a talk to the Amman World Affairs Council, composed of distinguished, educated and cosmopolitan retired judges, ambassadors and other prominent Jordanians. I chose as my topic “Israeli fears,” because then, as now, I was convinced that fear is the most important underlying – and underrated – reason for the intractability of the Middle Eastern conflict. The audience was not pleased. One member told me angrily, “You’re equating the oppressors with the oppressed!”
Links:
[1] http://www.americantaskforce.org/print/8327
[2] http://www.americantaskforce.org/printmail/8327
[3] http://www.americantaskforce.org/printpdf/8327
[4] http://www.americantaskforce.org/rss/wpr
[5] http://www.americantaskforce.org/donate_online
[6] http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=218122
[7] http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/11/world/middleeast/11fatah.html?_r=1&ref=middleeast
[8] http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/11/opinion/11malley.html?_r=1&ref=opinion
[9] http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1106735.html
[10] http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1106744.html
[11] http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3760345,00.html
[12] http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3760143,00.html
[13] http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3760100,00.html
[14] http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1249418574302&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
[15] http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8194552.stm
[16] http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/aug/11/israel-palestine-immigration
[17] http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/aug/10/hamas-gaza-islam
[18] http://jta.org/news/article/2009/08/10/1007154/israeli-human-rights-groups-back-robinson-pick
[19] http://www.daralhayat.com/portalarticlendah/46150
[20] http://www.jordantimes.com/?news=19105
[21] http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=10&categ_id=5&article_id=105139
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