Palestine: Israeli Military Order Threatens Mass Deportation

A new military order aiming at "preventing infiltration" through deportation and/or punishment of thousands of Palestinians in the West Bank will come into force this week. Those whose ID cards bear home addresses in the Gaza Strip --- not only people born in Gaza but any of their children born in the West Bank --- those born in the West Bank or abroad who have lost their residency status, and foreign-born spouses of Palestinians are "infiltrators". They are subject to deportation, a fine of NIS 7500, and/or a jail sentence of up to seven years.

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Despite this violation of the Oslo Accords, Palestinians with Gaza addresses have been defined since 2000 as illegal sojourners, as if they were citizens of a foreign state. Many of them, including those born in the West Bank, have been "deported" to Gaza.



Since 2007, Palestinians with Gaza addresses have had the right to request a permit to stay in the West Bank. Indeed, since 2009, residents of East Jerusalem have no need for permission to enter Area A, which is under the control of the Palestinian Authority. This new order not only supersedes these regulations but, broadening the definition of "infiltration", and brings more Palestinians into the category of potential criminals. The term infiltrator will also be applied to Palestinian residents of Jerusalem, citizens of countries with whom Israel has friendly ties (such as the US), and Israeli citizens, whether Arab or Jewish.

Who is to judge whether someone is an "infiltrator"? Israel Defense Forces commanders in the field. So who can determine who can reside in Jericho, Ramallah, Nablus, or Hebron? Israeli commanders or the Palestinian Authority?

With this measure, Israel is provoking the "other", violating its agreements and doing its best to delegitimize the Palestinian leadership, in the eyes of both Palestinians and Israelis. It is a contradiction of Israel's official expectation that the West Bank authorities will come to the table as a "partner state"; curtailed and publicly belittled, this is a half-partner lacking the basic functions of a Government.

And so West Jerusalem, at the level of the practical rather than Washington's invocation of the rhetorical, blocks the peace process itself.

Middle East Inside Line: Palestine Money to Israel?, Obama's Peace Plan, Netanyahu's Confession, and More

Palestinian Money Channelled into Israel?: Haaretz reports the Justice Ministry’s intervention between the Finance Ministry and the Civil Administration in Area C of the West Bank. The dispute is whether the Civil Administration in the West Bank should be compensated for hundreds of millions of shekels, to be used for operational expenses as well as for infrastructure and welfare services for Palestinians, collected in the West Bank and given to the State of Israel. According to international law, an occupying power is prohibited from claiming the benefits of economic activity in an occupied territory.

A lawyer at the Military Advocate General's Office said the transfer of such funds to the state was improper and should cease. The Civil Administration has requested that the money again be given directly to it. However, the Finance Ministry claims that in the past 15 years the state has invested in the West Bank more than double the amount it has collected.



New Peace Plan on the Way?: Speaking to columnist David Ignatius on Wednesday, two top officials in Washington stated that President Barack Obama is weighing the possibility of submitting a new American Middle East peace plan by this fall.

All core issues are to be discussed with the beginning of negotiations. One of the officials, with reference to Camp David in 2000, claimed that "90 percent of the map would look the same.”

It was also stated that the planned peace plan would be linked with other regional problems. One official told Ignatius:

We want to get the debate away from settlements and East Jerusalem and take it to a 30,000-feet level that can involve Jordan, Syria and other countries in the region.

Netanyahu's Confession on East Jerusalem: On the anniversary of his government’s coming to power, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday he has not yet worked out his differences with Washington over a disputed construction project in East Jerusalem.

In response, Kadima criticized Likud and Netanyahu harshly:

Netanyahu lives in Bibiland, not in Israel.

Netanyahu’s trickery is meant to throw sand in the eyes of the public and artificially blur the crushing failure of the most over-sized and wasteful government in Israel's history.

Unclenching Fists With Obama: Religious terms such as "Islamic extremism" are to be removed from the National Security Strategy document under President Obama. Breaking from the Bush Administration's language that “the struggle against militant Islamic radicalism is the great ideological conflict of the early years of the 21st century”, the strategy document is being re-written without any phrase that can target Islam.

Turkish-Israeli Relations: The tension between Turkey and Israel remains along with the continuation of defensive alliance between two countries. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Wednesday that “Israel is the main threat to peace in the Middle East.”

Erdogan said that it is impossible to praise a country that exerted such excessive force in Gaza, including the use of phosphorus weapons. He also criticized Israel for not signing the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, saying Israel should not be exempt from international supervision of its nuclear facilities.

On the same day, a ceremony was held in Turkey to mark the completion of a project in which the Israeli defense contracting firm Elbit upgraded 170 tanks for the Turkish army.

Middle East Inside Line: Jordan's Warning; Lieberman's Threat; Gaza's Unity; Turkey's Israel Tension

King Abdullah's Warning to Israel: In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Jordan’s King Abdullah warned on Tuesday that “Israel’s long-term future is in jeopardy unless there is permanent solution to the Middle East conflict”. He continued:

Over the Israeli-Lebanese border, if you spoke [to some Lebanese] today they feel there is going to be a war any second. [It] looks like there is an attempt by certain groups to promote a third intifada, which would be disastrous. Jerusalem as you are well aware is a tinderbox that could go off at any time, and then there is the overriding concern about military action between Israel and Iran.

So with all these things in the background, the status quo is not acceptable; what will happen is that we will continue to go around in circles until the conflict erupts, and there will be suffering by peoples because there will be a war.



The job of Jordan and the other countries in the international community is to keep common sense and keep hope alive until America can bring its full weight on the Israelis and the Palestinians to get their act together and move the process forward.

Lieberman's Threat over Ramallah's Plan: With no concrete steps towards the confidence-building measures demanded by the Netanyahu government, the Palestinian Authority’s chief negotiator Saeb Erekat told Voice of Palestine radio on Tuesday that Washington has reached a dead end in its attempts to revive Middle East peace talks. Erekat pointed to Israel’s failure to give guarantees, demanded by the US, that it not issue any more tenders to build on land where the Palestinians aim to establish a state, including East Jerusalem.

Meanwhile, referring to Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad’s statement that there would be a Palestinian state by 2011, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman warned the PA against plans to declare independence unilaterally, saying such a move could prompt Israel to annex parts of the West Bank and annul past peace agreements.

The Gaza Factions Meet: The four Palestinian factions in the Gaza Strip --- Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and the Popular and Democratic Fronts for the Liberation of Palestine --- met on Sunday, as a senior Egyptian official said that Cairo is concerned that the recent escalation of tensions on the Gaza border could lead to another Israeli invasion. On the same day, all factions said that they will cease firing Qassam rockets at Israel.

Israel-Turkey War of Words Continues: At a ceremony to mark the opening of an Arab-language television and radio company,  Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that Turkey will come to the defense of Muslims around the world:

We cannot be indifferent to the problems of the Islamic world of Jerusalem.

Our task is the integration with the Western world but we did not turn our back to the East. Arabs and Turks are brothers and we share the same values.

We cannot watch the murder of children in Gaza with indifference. We worry about the Gaza children but our hearts are also for the children of Haiti and Chile.

The Israeli Foreign Ministry’s response was immediate.  A statement issued in West Jerusalem said:

Israel is not interested in confrontation with any country, including Turkey. The impression that is being created is that the Turkish prime minister is seeking to integrate with the Muslim world at Israel's expense.

We suggest he find a more creative way, and to try to integrate with both the Muslim and Western worlds without turning into an extremist leader in the style of Hugo Chavez.

The Israelis also advised Erdogan to “be equally concerned for the killing of innocent civilians in Pakistan and Iraq at the hands of terrorist groups.”

Ankara's Search for "Balance of Power": In an interview with French newspaper Le Figaro, Erdogan repeatedly called Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad his “dear friend”, as he sent two messages to two different fronts. On the one hand, Erdogan reminded his “dear friend” that there should be no arms race in the region. On the other hand, he criticized countries pushing for another round of sanctions in the United Nations Security Council:

We consider that this question should be resolved diplomatically. Sure, sanctions are an issue at the moment, but I don't think that the ones being discussed can bring results.

Israel-Palestine Analysis: Welcoming a 3rd Intifada?

Is a Third Intifada On Way?: Haaretz's Zvi Bar'el considers the possibility of a third Intifada. He states that there is no one on the "other" side to take reins of such an uprising, since the Palestinian Authority is looking forward to "progress" from the Obama Administration and Hamas is locked inside the Gaza Strip, yet he says that an uprising cannot be predicted in advance and may surprise everyone.

Middle East Inside Line: Washington Reverses on Settlements?; US & Ahmadinejad on Gaza

Bar'el then makes a critical point, "An outbreak of violence will certainly do wonders for Israeli interests". He continues:

There's nothing like a murderous terror attack to give Israel back its image of being the victim; it would give us an excellent excuse to stop the fake freeze on settlement construction and show Barack Obama who the real culprit is. Enough with playing games, bring it on. Save us with an intifada.

Is the international community ready for those Israeli pretexts to shelve any talks or negotiations with Palestinians? If Israeli's politicians believe so, is their optimal course to sustain tension with Palestinian "radicals"?

Meanwhile, that tension played out in a statement by Hamas political leader Khaled Meshaal that all options against Israel remain open, including war: "We will do everything to obtain the rights stolen from us, including confrontation with the enemy."

Israel's Army Radio reports that Hamas also called for Palestinian Authority President Salam Fayyad to be put on trial for comments  in an interview with Haaretzr. Fayyad had stated that, by 2011, there would be a Palestinian state by which refugees would be absorbed. Hamas officials responded:

Fayyad is a person without legitimacy, who has stolen control in the West Bank and whose hands are contaminated with the suffering of thousands of martyrs in the West Bank.

And on another front,  a report submitted to French President Nicholas Sarkozy by his two top diplomats supposedly gives no chance to renewed peace talks between Israel and Syria.

Patrice Paoli, director of the North Africa and Middle East desk at the French Foreign Ministry, and Nicolas Gallas, a special adviser to Sarkozy on Middle East affairs, had been in Israel and talked to top officials. Their report concludes that Israel is not ready to fully withdraw from the Golan Heights, while Syria is not prepared to cut ties with Iran and Hezbollah.

Middle East Inside Line: Washington Reverses on Settlements?; US & Ahmadinejad on Gaza

Washington Calms Down US Jewish Community, Reverses Position on Settlements?: On Friday, the top National Security Council official for the Middle East, Dan Shapiro issued a message to U.S. Jewish community leaders: Barack Obama is a friend of Israel and there is no disagreement between Israel and the US.

Shapiro called recent tension a result of "bad timing" and said that the US did not intend to insist that Israel halt settlement construction in East Jerusalem. He said that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's recent meeting with Obama in Washington was open and honest, during which they reached agreements on the building in East Jerusalem, negotiations with the Palestinian Authority, and Iran's nuclear program.

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Middle East Inside Line: Gaza Tension; Palestinian State by 2011?; Israel’s Hebron Show

Response to Gaza Tension: The US State Department released a statement Friday night that there is no “military solution” to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Spokesman P.J. Crowley said:

The Israelis have a right to self-defense. At the same, as we've said many times, we don't ultimately think there is a military solution to this.

Our message remains to the Israelis and Palestinians that we need to get the proximity talks going, focus on the substance, move to direct negotiations and ultimately arrive at a settlement that ends the conflict once and for all.

We are always concerned that steps taken by either side, legitimate or otherwise, can be misconstrued, can be twisted and end up causing turbulence that can be an impediment to progress.

Iran's Ahmadinejad Warns Israel: On Saturday, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told Israel and world leaders that attacks on Gaza would cost "too much":

One more time I warn the leaders of arrogant powers and the supporters of Zionist regime to not make a new mistake in the Middle East -- attacking Gaza will cost you too much.