PRINT ALL
EMAIL TO A FRIEND
DOWNLOAD TO PDF
RSSEvents | Daily News | About Us | Resources | Contact Us | Donate | Site Map | Privacy Policy
[5]
Struggling to stem protests from the Arab world, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Monday reiterated that the Obama administration still wanted Israel to freeze construction of Jewish settlements, even if it regarded Israel’s compromise offer as “unprecedented.”
Arab officials expressed alarm that the United States seemed to be easing pressure on Israel after Mrs. Clinton said in Jerusalem on Saturday that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s proposal of restrained settlement building was better than anything previous Israeli governments had offered.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton tried to soothe Arab uneasiness Monday over weekend statements she made praising the Israeli government's offer to "restrain" growth in Israeli settlements in the West Bank, saying it "falls far short" of the Obama administration's hopes and is "not enough."
Palestinian elections are scheduled to be held in less than three months, but the prime minister of the Palestinian Authority (PA), Salam Fayyad, isn't concerned about running for office.
Rather, he's set his sights on a longer-term platform: establishing a Palestinian state by 2011 – a goal he outlined recently in a clear, well-organized booklet titled "Palestine: Ending the Occupation, Establishing the State."
Following US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's visit here this weekend, Palestinians are reacting with frustration over what appeared to be a shift in the Obama administration's policy toward Israeli settlement growth in the West Bank.
Although Secretary Clinton had previously insisted that the US wanted a total freeze on West Bank settlement expansion, she said during her meetings here this weekend that Palestinians should return to negotiations without preconditions – and lauded Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's steps toward limiting settlement growth as "unprecedented."
The Palestinians remained pessimistic about the likelihood of relaunching peace talks with Israel despite US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's attempt to clarify earlier remarks about settlements.
During a visit to Morocco, Clinton told Arab leaders that Washington remained opposed to all Israeli settlement activity after she had praised an Israeli offer to ease construction as "unprecedented" during a visit to Jerusalem.
The Obama Administration's bid to relaunch an Israeli-Palestinian peace process is falling apart faster than you can say settlement freeze — in no small part because President Obama began his effort by saying settlement freeze. On Monday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton found herself struggling to persuade skeptical Arab foreign ministers to see the silver lining in Israel's "No, but ..." answer to the U.S. demand that Israel halt all construction in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.
Israeli settlers arrogated the home of the Al-Kurd family in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of East Jerusalem on Tuesday, residents of the area said.
About 30 settlers were seen entering the house and throwing the family's furniture into the street. The settlers have refused to leave the building and Israeli police blocked members of the Al-Kurd family from entering the area. Witnesses also reported heated arguments between police and Palestinian residents.
Born in Nablus in 1952, Dr. Salam Fayyad remembers his early school years in Tulkarem, when doing well at school was not the main thing (as it continues to be today), it was the only thing. Well, almost the only thing. Back then, after-school street football was also a daily routine and a prominent item on his agenda.
Hamas operatives in the Gaza Strip possess in their military arsenal a missile that is capable of striking Tel Aviv, the army's top military intelligence officer told a parliamentary panel in Jerusalem on Tuesday.
The head of Military Intelligence for the Israel Defense Forces, General Amos Yadlin, told the Knesset foreign affairs and defense committee on Tuesday that Hamas has recently tested a missile capable of reaching targets at a distance of 60 kilometers.
The statements and condemnations of the Palestinian Authority, which is insisting the U.S. change its stance regarding a settlement freeze, appear to have paid off.
In Israel on Saturday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton praised Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's stance on limiting settlement construction and calling for a resumption of negotiations with the Palestinians.
However, in Morocco Monday, she sought to tone down her statements.
A joint French-British UN initiative would call on Israel and the Palestinians to hold immediate, independent investigations into war crimes allegations stemming from the war in Gaza, as part of a bid to send the Goldstone report back to Geneva and out of the hands of the Security Council or the International Criminal Court at The Hague.
The proposal comes before the United Nations General Assembly is scheduled Wednesday to deliberate on the Goldstone report on the war in the Gaza Strip earlier this year.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has said that Washington has not changed its stance against Israeli settlements in the West Bank.
She has been meeting Arab foreign ministers in Marrakech in Morocco.
On Saturday, Mrs Clinton urged the Israelis and Palestinians to restart talks as soon as possible.
This appeared to endorse an Israeli position that talks could start before a settlement freeze which the Palestinians are demanding.
On Saturday, she met Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, in a new US drive to restart the peace talks.
Jerusalem has played host to a two-day arts festival with a difference as part of Palestinian attempts to celebrate the city's year of being Capital of Arab Culture. The BBC Arabic Service correspondent in the city, Ahmad Budeiri, joined the audience.
A group of about 100 specially invited guests gathered at Jerusalem's Damascus Gate for the evening's programme to begin.
It’s official: forget Cairo. Fold up the speech and throw it in the bin, or put it in that already bulging folder marked “Bad Faith & Broken Promises”.
That seems to be the unintended but unavoidably obvious message of the about-face by the US president Barack Obama and his decision last weekend to press ahead with Israeli-Palestinian talks despite Arab and Palestinian demands that Israel halt West Bank settlement construction first.
Sakher Habash, the Palestinian revolutionary and intellectual who died on Sunday after a stroke aged 70, devoted the greater part of his life to the Palestinian struggle.
Known by his nom de guerre Abu Nizar, Habash was a founding member of the Fatah Party and although he supported the Oslo process of talks with Israel in the mid-1990s, he never rejected armed resistance. Violence, he argued, was a legitimate way for Palestinians to struggle for their rights.
To the end, like his lifelong compadre Yasser Arafat, Habash donned the revolutionary uniform.
Ramallah, Asharq Al-Awsat-Well-informed sources have told Asharq Al-Awsat that PLO factions are studying a proposal by Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas to run in the forthcoming presidential and legislative elections as one list to confront Hamas, which achieved a sweeping victory in the previous elections four years ago, when it won majority seats in the Palestinian Legislative Council [PLC].
Palestinians and Israelis are locked in a relationship of deep mistrust. A credible outside force must intervene to break up an enduring cycle of despair. In the foreseeable future, there seems to be no Middle East miracle cure, spontaneous recovery, inspiration, powerful leadership or any of those signs of self-generated breakthroughs.
Links:
[1] http://www.americantaskforce.org/print/9705
[2] http://www.americantaskforce.org/printmail/9705
[3] http://www.americantaskforce.org/printpdf/9705
[4] http://www.americantaskforce.org/rss/wpr
[5] https://www.americantaskforce.org/civicrm/contribute/transact?reset=1&id=1
[6] http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/03/world/middleeast/03diplo.html?ref=middleeast
[7] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/02/AR2009110203450.html
[8] http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/1103/p06s01-wome.html
[9] http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/1102/p06s04-wome.html
[10] http://www.france24.com/en/node/4916447
[11] http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1934119,00.html
[12] http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=236978
[13] http://www.thisweekinpalestine.com/details.php?id=2931&ed=175&edid=175
[14] http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1125561.html
[15] http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1125512.html
[16] http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1125513.html
[17] http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8338141.stm
[18] http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8338316.stm
[19] http://www.thenational.ae/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20091103/FOREIGN/711029816/1011
[20] http://www.thenational.ae/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20091103/FOREIGN/711029820/1011
[21] http://www.aawsat.com/english/news.asp?section=1&id=18672
[22] http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=10&categ_id=5&article_id=108237
Front Page Features