The European Parliament on Wednesday endorsed the Goldstone Report and urged its 27 members to monitor the Israeli and Palestinian probes into alleged war crimes committed during the Gaza War.
Israel’s reaction was harsh. The spokesman for the Israeli mission to EU, Yoel Mester, said:
We find this resolution flawed and counterproductive. While other players are striving to support the peace process and to start the proximity talks between Israel and Palestinians, it is regrettable that the European Parliament chooses to concentrate on a highly controversial issue.
White House’s spokesman Robert Gibbs, condemned Jerusalem’s announcement from the White House. U.S. Vice President Joe Biden said:
I condemn the decision by the government of Israel to advance planning for new housing units. The substance and timing of the announcement, particularly with the launching of proximity talks, is precisely the kind of step that undermines the trust we need right now.
The European Union’s foreign-policy director, Catherine Ashton, said on Wednesday, “May I join Vice-President Biden in condemning the decision to build 1,600 new houses.”
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon also condemned Israel’s plan. Then, according to the Ma’an news agency, the Palestinian Authority’s leader Mahmoud Abbas warned that the move would derail negotiations before they had even begun and said:
It is apparent that the Israeli government does not want negotiations, nor does it want peace. The American administration must respond to this provocation with effective measures.
Israel’s Interior Minister Eli Yishai apologized on Wednesday for causing domestic and international distress and stated that he was uninformed of the district committee’s plan, because the matter was simply a routine, technical authorization. Yishai added:
If I’d have known, I would have postponed the authorization by a week or two since we had no intention of provoking anyone. It is definitely unpleasant that this happened during Biden’s visit. If the committee members would have known that the approval would have escalated to such a situation, they would have informed me.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu assured his guest Biden that the programme, which had been drafted three years ago and only received initial authorization that day, could take several months to be granted final approval.
After the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers on September 2008, there were other bank collapses. One of these was of an Iceland bank, Icesave, which held substantial accounts from overseas clients, including in Britain and the Netherlands.
The British and Dutch Governments eventually agreed with Icelandic officials that Reykjavik would repay money to depositors. In December 2009, Iceland’s Parliament approved Bill to reimburse more than 3.8 billion Euros. However Iceland’s President Olafur Ragnar Grimsson refused to sign the Bill. On Sunday, a public referendum was held to decide whether Iceland should repay.
The voters — by a margin of 93 to 2 percent — said No.
“Do you know what it’s like living in Gaza?” a friend of mine asked. “It is like walking on broken glass tearing at your feet.”
On January 21, fifty-four House Democrats signed a letter to President Obama asking him to dramatically ease, if not end, the siege of Gaza. They wrote:
The people of Gaza have suffered enormously since the blockade imposed by Israel and Egypt following Hamas’s coup, and particularly following Operation Cast Lead…. The unabated suffering of Gazan civilians highlights the urgency of reaching a resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and we ask you to press for immediate relief for the citizens of Gaza as an urgent component of your broader Middle East peace efforts…. Despite ad hoc easing of the blockade, there has been no significant improvement in the quantity and scope of goods allowed into Gaza…. The crisis has devastated livelihoods, entrenched a poverty rate of over 70%, increased dependence on erratic international aid, allowed the deterioration of public infrastructure, and led to the marked decline of the accessibility of essential services.
EU on Dubia Assassination: On Monday, the European Union is expected to issue a statement which will include three key elements: the EU’s condemnation of the use of European passports by members of the assassination team, an expression of support for the UAE government and investigators in Dubai, and a commitment to investigate the passport forgeries and theft identities as quickly as possible.
Senior officials from Germany, France, Britain, Ireland, and the EU reportedly met Sunday to agree the language of the statement. Ireland is taking the hardest line among all EU members by demanding that the statement explicitly refer to Israel. However, according to a senior European diplomatic source, the statement will not directly cite Israel, nor is it expected to link Israel with the assassination or the forging of passports.
Meanwhile, a senior EU diplomat said on Sunday that Israel’s suspected role in the slaying of a Hamas militant in Dubai and the killers’ alleged use of forged EU passports will harm Israel’s relations with the European bloc.
Could this be a Balkans breakthrough? Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu announced that Bosnia will open an embassy in Belgrade as the result of a trilateral meeting held in Turkey this week.
Serbian, Bosnian, and Turkish foreign ministers gathered for the fifth time since October, with Turkey mediating to repair the diplomatic ties between two Balkan countries. There have been diplomatic relations between Serbia and Bosnia, but they were frozen for three years after Belgrade rejected Bosnia’s ambassador. While low-level diplomacy had been conducted, the restoration of full relations is crucial for bilateral ties. Bosnian Foreign Minister Sven Alkalaj said, “The appointment of the ambassador is a concrete result. We’re looking for this achievement to continue. This is very important for prosperity and stability in the Balkans.”
Davutoglu said the meetings will continue, with discussions in Sarajevo next month and in Belgrade in April. He added that the aim is to make the Balkans the center of cooperation and stability: “Balkanization will mean stabilization in the future.”
2150 GMT: A Quiet Night. For the first time in days, a noticeable drop in news and chatter. So we may close shop early and welcome you to a new day in several hours.
1910 GMT: We Take It All Back — No Rest for Ahmadinejad. Remember how we said (1225 GMT) that Ali Larijani’s statement on Iran’s uranium programme yesterday — which could have just as easily been given by the President — indicated a possible easing of tensions between Ahmadinejad and his conservative/principlist opponents?
Well, forget that. Member of Parliament Ali Motahhari, who has taken the point in the challenge to the President, has resumed the attack, and he has done so in the Larijani-affiliated Khabar Online:
We cannot claim the crisis is totally over until both sides make up for their mistakes. The differences of opinion between the government and [the opposition] might have been eased to some extent, but they still exist. Our statesmen should not imagine that people’s massive presence in the Thursday rally reflects the approval of their performance…. The presence of political elite in the rally does not mean there is no longer any criticism or objection towards the regime.
Motahhari declared that the Government must stop banning the press and should release all political prisoners. And he made clear that Larijani’s apparent conciliation on the nuclear issue was more of a demand that Ahmadinejad stick to a hard line against the United States:
People expect their governments not to seek compromise with big powers. The government should be honest with people and tell people if it is engaged in behind-the-scenes negotiations with big powers. Nor should the government tie Iran’s nuclear issue to normalization of ties with the United States.
After eight months, Moscow has found more space for its initiative, welcoming Hamas’s Khaled Meshal on Monday. Amidst the inability of the Obama Administration to make headway on the peace process, Kremlin has remembered and upheld one of the actors “forgotten” by Washington and the European Union.
On the one hand, this tells the Israelis that Russia’s relationship with Palestinian factions cannot be broken easily and, on the other hand, it sends a signal to Washington that Moscow’s can influence the course of the process in the region. Israeli officials could not summon Moscow’s Ambassador “on a lower chair” but had to send a letter of protest asking Moscow to clarify its intentions.
The Kremlin said that Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was the highest-level official Meshal would meet. Its ambassador assured Israel that the visit did not signal a swing in Moscow’s policy toward Hamas, and he said that Lavrov would reiterate its stance that the Islamist movement must abide by conditions to recognize Israel, give up violence, and honor past peace accords.
Meanwhile, Meshal declared:
I don’t see any prospects on the Palestinian, the Syrian or any other track of the Middle East process because the Israeli leadership is a leadership of war, aggression and occupation.
It’s enough that Moscow tells the world that Hamas is a movement of freedom fighters, not a terrorist group.
Entries (RSS)