Speaking to Ma’ariv, Israel’s Industry, Trade, and Labor Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer (Labor Party) said over the weekend:
In the current sociopolitical situation, only a leader from the Right could pass a peace process through the nation.
[Prime Minister Menachem] Begin returned the Sinai. Could a Labor leader do that? Could a Labor leader have dared evacuate Gaza and destroy the settlements?
[Prime Minister Yitzhak] Rabin was killed just for Oslo [1993 accords with the Palestine Liberation Organization]. Does anyone think I could have evacuated Gaza? Only a leader from the Right could bring such a change. There is nothing we can do. That’s the reality. Take it or leave it.
In Ben-Eliezer’s mind, the relationship between Israeli right and left is almost independent from each other. The left can show no progress while the right has given all the “concessions” for the sake of the peace process. Indeed, he accused Labor of having a “self-destructive virus” and of failing to develop a new generation of leaders.
Ben-Eliezer praised Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the close relationship between the premier and Defense Minister Ehud Barak: Read the rest of this entry »
On Thursday, Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas said,”I have told our brethren in the Palestine Liberation Organization…that I have no desire to run in the forthcoming election” on 24 January.
The head of the PLO Executive Committee, Yasser Abed Rabbo, quickly announced that the committee had rejected Abbas’ announcement. Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri jumped in to allege Abbas was bluffing, urging his Western friends to put pressure on Israel. Zuhri suggested an alternative course, “We advise him to…face the Palestinian people and tell them frankly that the path of negotiations has failed. Halt negotiations with the occupation and take practical steps toward reconciliation.” Read the rest of this entry »
On Friday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu criticized the endorsement by the United Nations Human Rights Council of the Goldstone Report, which claimed both Israel and Hamas had committed war crimes during the Gaza War in December-January. Netanyahu warned the Israeli nation to be prepared for a protracted struggle. Declaring “the delegitimization [of Israel] must be delegitimized”, he added, “The UN has returned to the dark days during which it equated Zionism with racism.”
Netanyahu’s statement is in line with his Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman’s leaked memorandum calling for a “zero-tolerance” policy for anti-Semitic expression around the world. But does the Prime Minister also back Lieberman’s strategy of a move from “lone dependence” on Washington to the “neglected” parts of the world?
The was the only Security Council member that voted against the Goldstone resolution in the UNHRC. Yet Ha’aretz correspondent Aluf Benn believes the Obama Administration will use the diplomatic arena to get more Israeli concessions on the expansion of settlements:
Operation Cast Lead in Gaza was perceived in Israel as a shining victory. Rocket fire from Gaza was brought to a halt almost completely. The Israel Defense Forces emerged from its failure during the Second Lebanon War and deployed ground forces with few casualties. “The world” let the operation continue and did not impose a cease-fire. A wonderful war. Read the rest of this entry »
On Friday, Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas spoke to the UN General Assembly, blaming Israel for its continued construction of settlements and of the separation wall isolating Jerusalem from the West Bank. While praising Washington’s active policy in the region, he said that time was running out for a resolution and the cost of peace was increasing. Moreover, he depicted Hamas, without mentioning the group’s name, as the perpetrators of a coup in Gaza, while assuring the Assembly that Palestinians will form a unity government with the assistance of Egypt.
Transcript of Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas’s speech at the United Nations General Assembly:
Mr. President, excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, the suffering of the Palestinian people as a result of Israel’s colonial occupation is crystal clear to the world.
Last week, Farouk al-Kaddoumi (pictured), a senior Palestine Liberation Organization leader, told al-Jazeera that Palestinian Authority chief Mahmoud Abbas played a role in Yassir Arafat’s death in 2004. He said that he had protocols from a 2004 meeting between Israeli, American and PA representatives that clearly indicated a plan to poison Arafat. He added that former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Mohammed Dahlan, the former Palestinian security chief in Gaza, were involved in the plot.
The first reaction to the story came last Wednesday. Mahmoud Abbas suspended the operations of al-Jazeera in the West Bank. The Information Ministry stated that the station’s operations were halted until a court ruled on the case. Walid Al Omary, Al-Jazeera’s bureau chief in Jerusalem, said: “We are sorry about this decision, which we consider a violation of freedom of expression and freedom of the press in this country.”
On Thursday, Abbas rejected the accusations and said that “Kaddoumi claims to be in possession of five-year-old documents that prove (his allegations), so why did he not reveal them immediately?” Abbas added that the “lie” was aimed at torpedoing the sixth Fatah Party General Congress, scheduled to convene August 4. He continued, “He (Kaddoumi) knows full well that this information is false; he has released it to undermine the convention, but we are continuing with the preparations.”
While the Palestinian Authority was having problems with the Qatar-based station, the political risks of Abbas’s decision increased with the entry of Hamas into the discussion. Fawzi Barhoum, a Hamas spokesman, accused the West Bank government of trying to silence the media and “cover up what is going on in the West Bank”. Thus, the Arafat conspiracy theory was converted into a current political manoeuvre: Hamas is the “democratic” party seeking truth while its rival engages in “tyranny”.
Lebanese security sources are saying that Kamal Medhat (Kamal Naji), the Palestinian Liberation Organisation’s deputy representative in Lebanon killed on Monday in a bombing, was ” “a victim of [an] inter-Palestinian feud, due to a clear split within Fatah movement ranks”. The Lebanese daily As-Safier said the dispute arose from new arrangements to separate the management of the organisation in Lebanon from Fatah’s military wing, which Medhat was to lead.
Another Lebanese source, however, implied that the Islamist group Fatah al-Islam might have had a hand in the assassination. He warned that the Mieh Mieh camp in southern Lebanon, which Medhat was visiting, must not become “another Naher el-Barid camp”.. Naher el-Barid, in the north of the country, was destroyed in 2007 in fighting between the Lebanese Amy and Fatah al-Islam.
As yet more reports, this time from Israeli soldiers and from the United Nations Human Rights Council, document the extent of Israeli abuses and killing of Gazan civilians, Enduring America takes a look back at the Israeli explanations — and denials — during the war:
On 27 December, Israel began bombing the 360 square kilometres of Gaza, in which 1.4 million Palestinians live. A day later, On 28 December, 2008, Tim Marshall of Sky News interviewed Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni:
10 p.m. Hamas has started paying out compensation in cheques, rather than cash, to families whose houses were destroyed in Israeli attacks. About 2700 families have received 4000 euros ($5000).
Because of the shortage of banknotes in the area, it is unclear if the cheques can be cased.
Speaking to Ma’ariv, Israel’s Industry, Trade, and Labor Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer (Labor Party) said over the weekend:
On Friday, 
Last week, Farouk al-Kaddoumi (pictured), a senior Palestine Liberation Organization leader, told al-Jazeera that Palestinian Authority chief 
Lebanese security sources are saying
As yet more reports, this time from Israeli soldiers and from the United Nations Human Rights Council, document the extent of Israeli abuses and killing of Gazan civilians, Enduring America takes a look back at the Israeli explanations — and denials — during the war:
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