Earthquake in Turkey: At least 41 people are dead and about 100 are wounded in the eastern Turkish province of Elazıg early Monday after a 6.0-magnitude earthquake.
Israel-Palestine ”Proximity Talks:” On Sunday, the Palestine Liberation Organization’s executive committee approved a proposal allowing the Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas to begin indirect negotiations. However, there are two conditions for the four months of indirect talks: the outlines of a border deal with Israel and a complete Israeli settlement construction freeze.
U.S. Vice President Joe Biden will arrive in Israel on Monday afternoon. U.S. Mideast special envoy George Mitchell is still in Israel, and he is expected to have another meeting with PM Benjamin Netanyahu before going to Ramallah on late Monday. After their meeting on Sunday, Netanyahu said: “If there is a desire to get to direct talks through a corridor, then I think the sooner the better.”
Haaretz says that the most recent visit to Damascus by Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs William Burns on February 17 was unsatisfactory, with Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad denying American claims that his regime was providing military aid to Iraq, Hezbollah, and other Palestinian groups.
No ICC Date for Israel: A former International Criminal Court official, legal attorney Nick Kaufman, told Haaretz on Sunday that the claims of alleged war crimes in the Goldstone Report on the Gaza War will not reach the ICC at the Hague, since the US will veto such a move.
Clashes on Temple Mount in Jerusalem: Four policemen were wounded and a dozen protesters were hurt in clashes between security forces and Palestinians at the Temple Mount on Sunday. Seven people were arrested on suspicion of hurling rocks.
Saturday’s press briefing by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu:
MODERATOR: Good evening, and we welcome Secretary of State Clinton. We shall start with a few words, and then we’ll take two questions from each side. Prime Minister, please.
PRIME MINISTER NETANYAHU: It’s my pleasure to welcome Secretary of State of the United States Hillary Clinton to Jerusalem. Welcome, Hillary. You are a great friend and a great champion of peace. I think that we owe a vote of thanks to you, to George Mitchell, to your staffs, and of course, to President Obama and the entire Obama Administration for the tireless efforts to re-launch the peace process – the peace process between us and the Palestinians, and between us and the Arab world – following the President’s vision of a regional peace. Read the rest of this entry »
On Sunday, Palestinian youths and Israeli policemen clashed on the Temple Mount, as police twice stormed the compound. Three Israeli police and at least twenty-five Palestinians were wounded, and 16 Palestinians were arrested including the advisor to Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas on Jerusalem affairs, Hatam Abd al-Qadir.
After mass protests and clashes this month between Israeli police and Palestinians in East Jerusalem, the prospect of a “Third Intifada” has re-emerged.
According to Israel Radio, after leaders had urged Palestinians and Israeli Muslims to defend Jerusalem against “Jewish conquest”, a call which triggered a response for Israeli Jews to visit the Temple Mount, Israel’s police stated that it will strengthen their forces around the Temple Mount on Sunday.
Haaretz’s Zvi Bar’el write about the possibility of a Third Intifada, sharing the thoughts of Egyptian thinker Kamal Gabriel. According to Gabriel, Palestinians lack both a universally shared ideological authority and a leadership that is convinced of its ability to conduct another rising. Religious activism is not enough to trigger a new Intifada. Bar’el concludes that the deepening division between Hamas and Fatah and the increasing tension in the East Jerusalem makes the Intifada an event which is always “possible” but never occurs.
Meanwhile, Haaretz, passing on areport in the London-based Al-Quds al-Arabi, says Sultan Abu al-Ghneim, who represents Fatah in the refugee camps of Lebanon, gave a speech last week at a Ramallah rally calling on Fatah to resume suicide bombings against Israel. Given the assessment that an Intifada is not imminent, the question arises: what purpose does Ghneim’s statement serve?
Earthquake in Turkey: At least 41 people are dead and about 100 are wounded in the eastern Turkish province of Elazıg early Monday after a 6.0-magnitude earthquake.
After mass protests and clashes this month between Israeli police and Palestinians in East Jerusalem, the prospect of a “Third Intifada” has re-emerged.
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