Jimmy Carter to meet Hamas leaders after criticising Israeli PM
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- Written by Rory McCarthy in Jerusalem Rory McCarthy in Jerusalem
- Published: 15 June 2009 15 June 2009
- Hits: 3309 3309
Jimmy Carter to meet Hamas leaders after criticising Israeli PM
• Former US president to travel to Gaza
• Netanyahu raised new obstacles to peace, Carter says
The former US president Jimmy Carter will visit Gaza for a rare meeting with senior Hamas officials following his criticism of a key speech by Israel's prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, on Sunday night.
Carter, who has been in Israel and the occupied West Bank over the past week, will be one of the most senior western figures to meet the Hamas leadership in Gaza in recent years. He is expected to meet, among other Hamas officials, Ismail Haniyeh, the former Palestinian prime minister.
Last month in Damascus he met Khaled Meshal, the head of the Hamas political bureau and the group's effective leader. Carter has been meeting Israeli officials and travelled to a Jewish settlement on the West Bank at the weekend as part of his private diplomatic efforts. His visits are not always welcomed by the Israeli government, which has been angered by his meetings in recent years with Hamas.
On Sunday Carter criticised a policy speech given by Netanyahu, in which the Israeli prime minister, responding to weeks of pressure from Washington, gave carefully worded approval for a future Palestinian state under strict conditions, but insisted "normal lives" should continue in Jewish settlements in east Jerusalem and the West Bank.
"My opinion is he raised many new obstacles to peace that had not existed under previous prime ministers," Carter said during a visit to the Knesset in Jerusalem.
"He still apparently insists on expansion of existing settlements, he demands that the Palestinians and the Arabs recognise Israel as a Jewish state, although 20% of its citizens here are not Jews. This is a new demand."
But Carter said he had encountered even greater differences with the former Israeli prime minister, Menachem Begin, and had still managed to broker a peace deal between Israel and Egypt.
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Netanyahu convinced Obama seeks clash with Israel to appease Arabs
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- Written by Aluf Benn Aluf Benn
- Published: 09 June 2009 09 June 2009
- Hits: 3288 3288
In Netanyahu's opinion, the Americans believe an open controversy with Israel would serve the Obama administration's main objective of improving U.S. relations with the Arab world, the aides say.
In his speech, Obama called for a "new beginning" in relations between America and Islam, and spoke at length about the Israeli-Arab conflict.
He demanded that Israel recognize the Palestinians' right to a state and freeze construction in the West Bank settlements.
Netanyahu objects to a complete suspension of construction beyond the Green Line. This is Netanyahu's main bone of contention with the Obama administration.
Netanyahu expects Obama to present his plan for peace in the Middle East next month. He fears that the president will present positions that will not be easy for Israel to accept, such as a demand to withdraw to the lines of June 4, 1967. These lines, before the Six-Day War, are at the basis of both the Arab peace initiative and previous American presidents' peace forays.
By telephone yesterday, Netanyahu told Obama of his intention to give a key policy speech on Sunday, in which he would outline his policy to achieve peace and security. Obama promised to listen to the address closely, and the two "agreed to maintain open and continuous contact," the Prime Minister's Bureau said.
Today Netanyahu is to meet the special U.S. envoy to the Middle East, George Mitchell.
Political sources close to Netanyahu say that White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and Obama's senior political consultant David Axelrod are behind the clash between the administration and Israel.
Israel historically has depended on the White House to balance the consensus of officials in the state and defense departments; this consensus usually leans toward the Arab side.
Israeli officials say that under Obama, the White House has become the main problem in relations.
Israel is also having difficulty mustering the support of Congress and the American Jewish community for its demand to continue expanding the settlements.
Defense Minister Ehud Barak, who visited Washington last week, says the Obama administration has no personal problem with Netanyahu and that the Americans do not not seek to undermine the Israeli coalition and topple the government.
Barak says Obama's positions are guided by strategic considerations - he has undertaken to withdraw from Iraq and is striving to end the war in Afghanistan and needs the moderate Arab states' support. This, rather than "political persecution," is behind the administration's attitude toward Israel, he says.
Obama emerged in Cairo as a true friend of Israel
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- Written by Gideon Levy Gideon Levy
- Published: 05 June 2009 05 June 2009
- Hits: 3219 3219
Neither Tel Aviv nor Ramallah held their breaths Thursday as the American president gave a speech in Cairo; the traffic in both crowded cities continued normally. Tel Aviv was indifferent, Ramallah sunk in desperation: Both cities have already had their fill of nice, historic speeches.
Nonetheless, no one can ignore the speech given by Barack Obama: The mountain birthed a mountain. Obama remained Obama. Only the Israeli analysts tried to diminish the speech's importance ("not terrible"), to spread fear ("he mentioned the Holocaust and the Nakba in a single breath"), or were insulted on our behalf ("he did not mention our right to the land as promised in the Bible"). All these were redundant and unnecessary. Obama emerged Thursday as a true friend of Israel.
The prime minister ordered the ministers to say nothing, but of course they could not help but invade the studios. Uzi Landau said that a Palestinian state is tantamount to an "Iranian state." Isaac Herzog appeared even more ridiculous when he said that the problem with the settlements is one of "public relations." In essence, both were busy with the same problem: How can we manage to pull the new America's leg as well? Israeli politicians have never before appeared as pathetic, as small as they did Thursday, compared to the bearer of promise in Cairo.
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Indeed, there was promise in Cairo, of the dawn of a new age. A U.S. president talking about negotiations with Iran without preconditions or tacit threats, even willing to accept Iran having civilian nuclear capability; a president who talked about Hamas as a legitimate organization that represents part of Palestinian society, but that needs to relinquish violence; who spoke with empathy about Palestinian suffering; who spoke, believe it or not, about security not only for Israelis but also for Palestinians; who said that all the settlements are illegal; who called for nuclear disarmament of the entire region. All are sensational messages, headlines whose significance cannot be exaggerated, even if there are those who desperately tried to argue yesterday that "there was nothing new in his speech."
Not enough? Obama also spoke in Cairo (!) against denying the Holocaust, about the rights of women and Copts, and on the need for democracy tailored to each society's culture.
This is the thinking of a great leader, who walked with wisdom and sensitivity between the Holocaust and the Nakba, between Israelis and Palestinians, between Americans and Arabs, between Christians, Jews and Muslims. How easy it is to imagine his predecessor, George Bush the Terrible, in the same position: a complete opposite.
Our right-wingers were disappointed that he did not approve at least of Gush Etzion, and the peace lovers were disappointed that he did not offer a timetable. But a speech is just that, and the time for carrying things out is still to come.
But why waste words? Israeli news shows still opened Thursday with the Dudu Topaz story; that is what really interests Israelis. Never mind Obama; Israel has its own concerns.
URGENT ACTION: House demolition/Forced Eviction/ Access to Water , Over 280 Residents impacted
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- Written by Amnesty International Amnesty International
- Published: 05 June 2009 05 June 2009
- Hits: 3960 3960
Dear Friends,
Please find below our latest Urgent Action. Thank you for forwarding to all relevant activists.
AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL
URGENT ACTION
PUBLIC AI Index: MDE 15/020/2009
05 June 2009
UA 139/09 House demolition/Forced Eviction/ Access to Water
ISRAEL/ Over 280 residents of Ras al-Ahmar and Hadidiya villages
OCCUPIED PALESTINIAN TERRITORIES (OPT)
On 4 June, the Israeli army destroyed the homes of 18 Palestinian families (more than 130 people, many of them children) and their animal pens in the hamlet of Ras al-Ahmar, in the Jordan Valley area of the West Bank in the OPT. The Israeli army confiscated the water storage tank that the villagers rely on as well as the tractor and trailer that they use to bring water to the village. The villagers are now without shelter or source of water during a season of high temperatures.
There is a water-well close to the village which only Israeli settlers are allowed to use. The villagers rely on their tractor and trailer to be able to bring water from various sources, up to 20km from the village, for their survival.
Five other families in the nearby hamlet of Hadidiya are under threat of immediate eviction and at least 12 other families are fighting eviction and demolition orders before an Israeli military court, with little chance of success. In total more than 150 people, most of them children, risk losing their home and being evicted from the area.
Some of these families have had their homes destroyed multiple times in recent years and all of them face the prospect of further displacement because the Israeli army has been increasing its decades-old efforts to force local Palestinian communities out of large areas of the Jordan Valley, most of which it has designated as a “closed military area”. It has denied them access to water, further restricted their movements and put their livelihoods at risk by confiscating their animals. After each previous demolition the families have rebuilt their homes in either the same place or nearby but they are now finding it increasingly difficult to survive in the area.
Israelis Say Bush Officials Agreed to Limited Settlement Growth
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- Written by ETHAN BRONNER, NY Times ETHAN BRONNER, NY Times
- Published: 03 June 2009 03 June 2009
- Hits: 3690 3690
The complaint was the latest in a growing rift between the Obama administration and the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over how to move forward to achieve Middle East peace. Mr. Obama was in Saudi Arabia on Wednesday and due to address the Muslim world from Cairo on Thursday.
The Israeli officials said that repeated and ongoing discussions with Bush officials starting in late 2002 gave unambiguous permission to build within the boundaries of certain settlement blocs as long as no new land was expropriated, no special economic incentives were offered to move to settlements and no new settlements were built. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity about an issue of such controversy between the two governments.
When Israel signed onto the so-called roadmap for a two-state solution in 2003, which says its government “freezes all settlement activity (including natural growth of settlements),” the officials said, it was after a detailed discussion with Bush officials that laid out those explicit limits.
“Not everything is written down,” said one of the officials.
Read more: Israelis Say Bush Officials Agreed to Limited Settlement Growth