October 8, 2009

Middle East News: World Press Roundup

The UN Security Council will debate the Goldstone report on the Gaza war, with the support of the PA, on October 14. Israel's Foreign Minister Lieberman reportedly dismisses the idea of a peace agreement in the near future, but Jordan's King Abdullah warns that there is no future without two states. International promises to rebuild Gaza remain unfulfilled, and Gaza residents may have lost up to $500 million in fraudulent tunnel schemes. Arab commentaries assess the political damage to the PA from the Goldstone affair. Hussein Ibish argues that only a determined de-escalation of tensions can prevent an explosion in the occupied territories, especially East Jerusalem.

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Furor Sends Palestinians Into Shift on U.N. Report

JERUSALEM — Faced with a torrent of criticism at home and abroad, the Palestinian leadership abruptly reversed course on Wednesday by endorsing a Security Council debate on a United Nations report accusing Israel of possible war crimes in Gaza.

The report, produced by a panel of investigators led by an internationally respected jurist, Richard Goldstone, found extensive evidence that both Israel and Palestinian militant groups took actions amounting to war crimes during last winter’s Gaza war.

Israeli foreign minister: No chance for peace deal

JERUSALEM — Israel's powerful foreign minister declared Thursday that there is no chance of reaching a final accord with the Palestinians any time soon, casting a pall over the U.S. Mideast envoy's latest effort to get peace talks moving again.

Peacemaking policy in Israel is decided by the prime minister's office, and not the foreign ministry. But Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman carries significant weight in Israeli decision-making, and his is a sentiment common among confidants of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Hamas Finds Gaza Tunnels’ $500 Million Loss Worse Than Madoff

Oct. 7 (Bloomberg) -- Investment opportunities are rare in the Gaza Strip. So when Nabila Ghabin saw one last year, she pawned her car and jewelry and put $12,000 into a network of tunnels that brought in supplies smuggled from Egypt.

She was one of about 4,000 Gazans who gave cash to middlemen and tunnel operators in 2008 as Israel blocked the overland passage of goods. Then Israeli warplanes bombed the tunnels before and during the Dec. 27 to Jan. 18 Gaza offensive and the investments collapsed.

Global promises to restore Gaza `dreams, illusion'

GAZA CITY, GAZA–Almost 10 months after the end of fighting between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, a cherry-red bulldozer is scooping up huge chunks of concrete and twisted metal struts at what used to be the Palestinian security forces headquarters.

While some of the rubble has been cleared and trucked to southern Gaza, many half-destroyed buildings are still standing and almost no reconstruction has been done.

According to United Nations estimates, some 4,000 homes were destroyed in the 22-day Israeli bombardment and 17,000 were partially destroyed.

US: Prospect of peace talks trumps Goldstone report

Bethlehem - Ma’an - US State Department spokesperson on the Middle East Ian Kelly refused to comment Wednesday on whether or not the US would use their veto in the Security Council over the issue of the Goldstone report.

Fayyad: Road to statehood will not be of flowers

Ramallah – Ma’an – “Building the road to the establishment of an independent state will not be furnished with flowers,” Palestinian Prime Minister of the caretaker government in Ramallah Salam Fayyad said Wednesday.

Europe's top soccer official touts sport in West Bank

Bethlehem – Ma’an – The head of Europe’s football governing body visited the West Bank on Wednesday in a continuing Mideast tour where he has promoted the sport as peace building tool.

UEFA President Michel Platini toured the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem in the morning before heading to Ramallah for talks with caretaker Prime Minister Salam Fayyad.

Jordan's king to Haaretz: Without two states, there is no future

Jordan's King Abdullah II has asked Haaretz to relay a message to the Israeli public that it disavow the illusion that the status quo can be perpetuated, because as a result of the diplomatic impasse, "We are sliding back into the darkness.

"Is Israel going to be fortress Israel or is it going to be part of the neighborhood? Because if there is no two-state solution, what future do we all have together?" he asked in an exclusive interview on Tuesday at his palace in Amman at the height of the disturbances in East Jerusalem.

Only gall and nothing more

Is the discourse we are conducting - if indeed we are conducting any discourse among ourselves and with our interlocutor - legitimate at all? Ever since the territories were occupied a public debate has been going on here about their future and what is being done there. The questions have come and gone, all of them in the same cursed vein: To give? To concede? Under what conditions? In exchange for what?

Restraint in a delicate place

The growing tension surrounding the Temple Mount threatens to undermine the calm Israel has enjoyed for the past few months. Some of the incidents of the past few days have been routine, such as Jews and Muslims worshipping and the annual Jerusalem March; others not, such as the visit by French tourists to the mosque area and the rumor of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu having dinner in Silwan. Either way, they underlay the recriminations and mutual threats, the diplomatic intervention by Jordan and the United States, and the street protests by masked Palestinians in East Jerusalem.

Hamas considering delaying reconciliation

The Hamas movement is considering asking Egypt to delay a meeting of rival Palestinian factions and the signing of a reconciliation agreement scheduled for October 26, following the Palestinian Authority's decision to defer a United Nations Human Rights Council vote on the Goldstone Report, which accused Israel and Hamas of committing war crimes in Gaza.

Palestinian U-turn on Gaza report

The UN Security Council is set to discuss whether to hold an emergency session on the Goldstone report, which accuses Israel and Hamas of war crimes.

A senior PA politician has said last week's request to defer discussion of the report was a "mistake".

The PA decision sparked an outcry among Palestinians.

Libya, the only Arab state on the 15-member body, will request the UN session in a closed-door meeting.

UN body to debate Gaza 'crimes'

Arab states say the 14 October debate must tackle a report which criticised Israel, after the US argued against a emergency session dedicated to it.

The UN Human Rights Council delayed its debate on the findings of the Goldstone report following a Palestinian request.

Libya's envoy to the Security Council said its aim was to "keep momentum".

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has come under sharp criticism at home for requesting the UNHRC delay, which followed intense pressure from the US.

The Palestinian Authority and the Battle of Position and legitimacy

What would have happened if the Human Rights Council had voted in favor of referring Goldstone's report to the Security Council? Certainly, the United States would have practiced its veto power to prevent the completion of the report which accuses Israel and Hamas of committing "war crimes" during the aggression on the Gaza Strip. In other words, the result would have been the same if the Palestinian Authority had not requested to delay the voting until next March.

Lessons from the Goldstone issue

The angry political and public reaction to the decision by the Palestinian leadership to postpone discussions of the Goldstone war crimes report requires a sober look at the reasons and lessons that need to be learned to avoid repetition.

The dragons of 'progressive' delusion

By coincidence, I happened to pick up another book while reading Hussein Ibish’s excellent, precise dismantling of the agenda for a single Jewish-Arab state in the area of historical Palestine.

'Fayyadism' tests the narrative of Palestinian dispossession

The forthcoming United Nation’s conference commemorating the 60th anniversary of UNRWA (The UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees) could not come at a better moment. The restitution of lands occupied in 1967 will obviously continue to be indispensable to resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but it is the legacy of the 1948 war that both parties to the conflict have now put at the center of the debate.

Palestine on the brink: only a quick de-escalation can prevent an explosion

We are facing a perfect storm of provocations, grievances, outrage and mutually reinforcing escalations that have pushed the situation in the occupied Palestinian territories, particularly Jerusalem, to the brink of an eruption. Indeed, it would be no exaggeration to call the present situation uncannily and very disturbingly reminiscent of the build up to the unleashing of the second intifada, which created disastrous consequences for the Palestinian people.

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