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As the Obama administration tries to broker a resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, there is a dark truth lurking: force has produced clearer results in this dispute than talk.
The results of the violence may prove short-lived — and possibly counterproductive; condemnation of Israel and Hamas is likely to grow after the United Nations Human Rights Council voted Friday to endorse a report detailing evidence of war crimes in Gaza.
For centuries, olive harvesting here has been a mostly local industry.
Farmers, their relatives and neighbors beat the trees with sticks or strip the olives from branches by hand, then cart them to a local press and sell or trade the oil in nearby markets. Harvest workers keep a share of the crop for their labor, and olive press owners keep a share of the oil -- a testament to the small-scale, bartered nature of the undertaking.
Al-Jazeera Arabic played a mocking parody of the once Palestinian national anthem “My Homeland,” titled “It was my homeland” during an interview with Fatah and Hamas leaders from a Beirut studio Saturday, angering Palestinians.
The lyrics of the song, originally a poem written by Palestinian poet Ibrahim Touqan put to music by Lebanese artist Mohammad Flaifel, served as the national anthem until the late 80s. The poem was an ode to the land, the people, the holy sites and the trees of Palestine. The opening lyrics of the song Al-Jazeera played were as follows:
My homeland, My homeland
The extremist fringe of West Bank settlers is growing, a senior officer on the Israel Defense Forces General Staff warned this week.
Though most West Bank settlers are law abiding, the officer said, recent years have seen an upswing in violent attacks by extremist settlers against both IDF troops and neighboring Palestinians.
The defense and interior ministers agreed on Monday to appoint a task force to facilitate construction in the West Bank.
A similar team, which was responsible for establishing the ownership of West Bank lands, operated until about three years ago under the auspices of the Israel Defense Forces' Civil Administration. Officials say the team's work is essential to issuing building permits in the West Bank.
The Cabinet is set to convene Tuesday morning in order to debate the international battle waged by Israel against the reverberations of the Goldstone Report, which claims Israel committed war crimes in Gaza.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has not yet announced whether he will order the establishment of an inquiry committee on Operation Cast Lead. Meanwhile Defense Minister Ehud Barak and IDF Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi have expressed their objection to such a move while the Justice Ministry said it may lend its support.
The security cabinet on Tuesday did not discuss the matter of establishing an independent inquiry into Operation Cast Lead in Gaza last winter, at the request of Defense Minister Ehud Barak. Barak opposes an Israeli probe into the offensive as a response to the Goldstone Commission's report.
Goldstone in Gaza.
During the meeting, the security cabinet discussed different ways to deal with the report. Attorney-General Menahem Mazuz gave the cabinet a number of options, including putting together a commission of inquiry.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has suffered a serious blow to his standing versus Hamas in recent weeks, but he should be able to recover that ground, according to a top Palestinian pollster.
Recently reported surveys show Abbas having lost support to Hamas Prime Minister in Gaza Ismail Haniyeh, with them each now commanding about 16 percent of the Palestinian public as opposed to a month earlier when Abbas pulled twice that figure.
Israeli spying devices that were planted during the 2006 war with Hezbollah have been discovered in southern Lebanon, the UN has said.
UN peacekeepers discovered the buried devices when they were blown up by remote control by Israel on Sunday.
Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora accused Israel of blatantly violating the UN Security Council resolution that led to the end of fighting.
Israel has declined to comment directly on the matter.
It may be inferred from the statements given by the spokesman for the U.S State Department that Washington will not allow the Goldstone report to be presented before the UN Security Council, and that in case this report made its way there, the United States will use its veto power to nix any possible resolution endorsing the report’s recommendations.
The Palestinian and Arab public campaign against the Palestinian Authority’s (PA) withdrawal of the request to discuss Judge Richard Goldstone’s report and to transfer it to the UN Security Council or the International Court of Justice in The Hague had a number of various outcomes.
A negative outcome is that it weakened the PA’s reputation and status, and even destabilized its internal status, especially after it was heavily criticised by its own apparatuses and cadres.
Imagine that heavily-armed neighbourhood thieves break into your house, steal your property and shoot a family member. Naturally, you would call law enforcement. You know the names of the criminals and expect the police to arrest them. But what if the police hear the murderers' names, look embarrassed, shrug their shoulders, say ‘sorry, can't help you,' and simply walk away?
Now even the United Nations Human Rights Council is “anti-Semitic.” Well, that’s the view of Israel’s Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz, who is outraged that the body rubber-stamped the Goldstone Report on war crimes committed in Gaza. Some years ago, that accusation would have had enormous shock-value, whereas, nowadays, the label has been so propagandized the only thing it elicits is a yawn.
This year has seen a dramatic shift in American Jews' attitudes toward Israel. In January many liberal Jews were shocked by the Gaza war, in which Israel used overwhelming force against a mostly defenseless civilian population unable to flee. Then came the rise to power of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, whose explicitly anti-Arab platform was at odds with an American Jewish electorate that had just voted 4 to 1 for a minority president.
There are plenty of reasons why the Israeli-Palestinian peace process has not yet been restarted through American mediation. Israeli PM Binyamin Netanyahu's manipulations and his coalition are one; the weakness of the Palestinian Authority and PLO under Mahmoud Abbas are another. The moderate Arab states have done precious little to help. But right now US President Barack Obama's mistakes are the most glaring.
The most recent public opinion poll conducted in the Palestinian territories by the Jerusalem Media and Communications Center has shown a dramatic decline in the Palestinian public's evaluation of the Obama administration's role in promoting peace in the Middle East.
Links:
[1] http://www.americantaskforce.org/print/9481
[2] http://www.americantaskforce.org/printmail/9481
[3] http://www.americantaskforce.org/printpdf/9481
[4] http://www.americantaskforce.org/rss/wpr
[5] https://www.americantaskforce.org/civicrm/contribute/transact?reset=1&id=1
[6] http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/20/world/middleeast/20mideast.html?ref=middleeast
[7] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/19/AR2009101903480.html
[8] http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=232980
[9] http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1122324.html
[10] http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1122322.html
[11] http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3792485,00.html
[12] http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1255694852717&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
[13] http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1255694848496&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
[14] http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8314352.stm
[15] http://www.daralhayat.com/portalarticlendah/67979
[16] http://www.aawsat.com/english/news.asp?section=2&id=18536
[17] http://gulfnews.com/opinions/columnists/time-and-again-us-backs-israel-1.516709
[18] http://www.arabnews.com/?page=7&section=0&article=127579&d=20&m=10&y=2009
[19] http://www.thenation.com/doc/20091102/horowitz_weiss
[20] http://www.bitterlemons.org/issue/isr1.php
[21] http://www.bitterlemons.org/issue/pal1.php
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