^ you hit the nail on the head there nick.

 

yeah you see this all as a one side thing gareth. if i'm not mistaken it takes two to tango?

 

so you don't really seem to care for the fact that hizbollah has a monopoly in the lebanese education system, and then theres the fact that the government is a puppet government of syria, who killed even a former lebanese president because he began to speak against the syrians.

 

but no, lets blame it on israel because its a jewish state, and of course the jews are such aggressive, violent people. hey, at least we've been doing it the last couple hundred years, why stop the bigotry now?

 

pffffft. biased.

I dont blame Gareth that much....its a culture issue like ive said before....he shares some blame yes but not all of it. Its been in his culture for along time.

Mrfool says "Iran wants another attack. Sadly Lebanon is caught between a bunch of terrorist and Israel and they're paying the heavy price for Irans and extremist muslims hatred of other religions" - fucking hell, that's like the most obvious case of 'US horse shit in mouth' disease I seen for a while.

 

Well, shit......You guys know nothing. As you've both just demonstrated.

 

I do talk a bit but you both know nothing about how I see things actually because I generally don't want to hang about discussing the in-depths with you. all the time.

 

You pick up the absolute crap that you both generally type right out of a big fat pile of horse shit.

 

I'm sorry but it's true.

Mrfool says "Iran wants another attack. Sadly Lebanon is caught between a bunch of terrorist and Israel and they're paying the heavy price for Irans and extremist muslims hatred of other religions" - fucking hell, that's like the most obvious case of 'US horse shit in mouth' disease I seen for a while.

 

Well, shit......You guys know nothing. As you've both just demonstrated.

 

I do talk a bit but you both know nothing about how I see things actually because I generally don't want to hang about discussing the in-depths with you. all the time.

 

You pick up the absolute crap that you both generally type right out of a big fat pile of horse shit.

 

I'm sorry but it's true.

 

I guess the fact you think you're not baised makes you guilty of your hatred. I was wrong. We know alot more then you ever could. How many flu shots have you gotten this year?:lol:

 

See we have a understanding for the world...you want to have that based on your personal views...you want the world to be your story where you write it and know all the facts. Sadly your need to be different to feel better about yourself makes you a mindless moron more obessed with how you want the world to be then how it is.

You make up your reality based on how you want it to be. You're need to be right leads you to make it up, with no regards for facts or logic.

No, no.

 

I'm backing off from this stupid exchange.

 

It's actaully an insult to my own intelligence to care about what you think.

No, no.

 

I'm backing off from this stupid exchange.

 

It's actaully an insult to my own intelligence to care about what you think.

 

It doesnt feed your pathetic ego and sad version of reality:laugh3:

Top Israeli court upholds killing policy

 

By MARK LAVIE, Associated Press Writer

JERUSALEM - The Israeli Supreme Court on Thursday upheld Isreal's policy of targeted killings of Palestinian militants, allowing the army to maintain a practice that has drawn widespread international condemnation.

 

The unanimous ruling from a three-judge panel fixed some legal limits, but it did not insist on prior court approval for the attacks, leaving the limits only theoretical and endorsing the killings in practice.

 

Israel has defended the practice as necessary to prevent terror attacks, including suicide bombings. But the original justification of stopping "ticking bombs" has been expanded over the years to targeting militant leaders, including field commanders and the founder of Hamas.

 

Palestinians and human rights groups, who have denounced the killings as assassinations and summary executions without trial, criticized the court for giving legal legitimacy to the practice.

 

During the last six years of conflict, Israel has routinely targeted militants in airstrikes. The Israeli human rights organization B'tselem estimates that 339 Palestinians were killed in the targeted operations since 2000. Of those, 210 were the targets and the rest were bystanders.

 

Israel has not carried out such an airstrike since a cease-fire went into effect in Gaza at the end of November.

 

Targeted killings are usually carried out by attack helicopters or unmanned drones firing missiles at cars, acting on intelligence information from agents and informers on the ground. The tactic has since been adopted by the U.S. and its allies in Afghanistan and Iraq.

 

This was the last decision before retirement by Supreme Court Chief Justice Aharon Barak, who has often set judicial standards for human rights.

 

Barak and his two colleagues ruled that "it cannot be determined in advance that every targeted killing is prohibited according to customary international law," while also noting that the tactic was not necessarily legal in every case. Every case needs to be evaluated individually to determine its legality, the court said.

 

Israeli army Col. Pnina Sharvit, head of military's international law department, told The Associated Press that "everything in the decision is compatible with our existing policy."

 

Two human rights groups, the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel and the Palestinian Society for the Protection of Human Rights and the Environment petitioned the court to ban the policy in 2002, but the court repeatedly delayed issuing a decision.

 

Ismail Radwan, a spokesman for the Islamic militant Hamas group, criticized the decision, saying it "gives judicial cover for terrorist practices by the government."

 

Hamas has carried out dozens of suicide bombings that killed hundreds of civilians in Israel over the past decade.

 

The Israeli military began carrying out targeted killings of Palestinian militants after the breakdown of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks and the subsequent outbreak of violence in 2000, saying the tactic was the most effective way to stop Palestinian bombers targeting Israeli population centers.

 

In July 2002, the air force dropped a one-ton bomb that killed Salah Shehadeh, a top Hamas operative wanted for masterminding suicide bombings, along with his bodyguard and 13 bystanders, including nine children. The Shehadeh killing led some international human rights groups to call for criminal charges against Israeli officers, including the current chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz, who was the air force commander at the time.

 

In 2004, an Israeli airstrike killed the leader of Hamas, the wheelchair-bound cleric Ahmed Yassin. A few weeks later, another airstrike killed his successor, Abdel Aziz Rantisi.

 

In two important decisions released Tuesday and Wednesday, Barak angered Israelis on both ends of the political spectrum: He drew ire from hard-liners by ruling that Israel had to pay reparations for damages caused by some military operations in Gaza and the West Bak, and from doves by ruling that a section of Israel's separation barrier that juts into the West Bank near Jerusalem can be left in place.

We didn't disappear

 

Arabs in Israel call for a "state of all its citizens" to replace Jewish-only policies, writes Jonathan Cook in Nazareth

 

The official political leadership of Israel's more than one million Palestinian citizens issued a manifesto in Nazareth last week demanding a raft of changes to end the systematic discrimination exercised against non-Jews by the state since its creation nearly six decades ago.

 

Included in the manifesto -- the first ever produced by the community's supreme political body, known as the High Follow-Up Committee -- are calls for Israel to be reformed from a Jewish state that privileges its Jewish majority into "a state of all its citizens" and for sweeping changes to a national system of land control designed to exclude Palestinian citizens from influence.

 

The document is likely to further increase tensions between the Israeli government and the country's Palestinian minority, and has already been roundly condemned in the Hebrew media.

 

Although individual Arab political parties have made similar criticisms of the state before, it is the first time in its history that the High Follow-Up Committee -- a cautious and conservative body, mainly comprising the heads of Arab local authorities -- has dared to speak out. The committee is seen as setting the consensus for Israel's one in five citizens who are Palestinian.

 

The most contentious issue raised in the document, called "The Future Vision of the Palestinian Arabs in Israel", is Israel's status as a Jewish state. The authors -- leading academics and community activists -- argue that Israel is not a democracy but an "ethnocracy" similar to Turkey, Sri Lanka and the Baltic states.

 

Instead, says the manifesto, Israel must become a "consensual democracy" enabling Palestinian citizens "to be fully active in the decision-making process and guarantee our individual and collective civil, historic and national rights."

An editorial in Israel's liberal Haaretz newspaper denounced the document as "undermining the Jewish character of the state" and argued that it was likely its publication would "actually weaken the standing of Arabs in Israel instead of strengthening it".

 

The campaign among Israel's Arab parties for a state of all its citizens began in the mid-1990s after it was widely understood that under the terms of the Oslo Accords Israel's Palestinian population would remain citizens of the State of Israel. Until then the minority had kept largely out of the debate about its future, fearing that expressing a view would prejudice negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian leadership.

 

The demand for a state of all its citizens has wide backing among the Palestinian minority: a recent survey by the Mada Al-Carmel Centre revealed that 90 per cent believed a Jewish state could not guarantee them equality, and 61 per cent objected to Israel's self-definition.

 

However, Israeli prime ministers, including Ehud Barak and Ariel Sharon, have always characterised the call for a state of all its citizens as tantamount to sedition. In a speech last week, Avigdor Lieberman, the new minister of strategic threats, repeated a similar line, telling policy-makers in Washington: "he who is not ready to recognise Israel as a Jewish and Zionist state cannot be a citizen in the country."

 

As well as highlighting the various spheres of life in which Palestinian citizens are discriminated against, the manifesto makes several key demands that are certain to fall on stony ground.

 

The High Follow-Up Committee argues that the Palestinian minority must be given "institutional self-rule in the field of education, culture and religion". Israeli officials have always refused to countenance such forms of autonomy.

 

Instead, the separate and grossly under-funded Arab education system is overseen by Jewish officials; the status of the Arabic language is at an all-time low; and the government regularly interferes in the appointment of Muslim and Christian clerics, as well as controlling the running of their places of worship and providing almost no budget for non-Jewish religious services.

 

The manifesto also demands that Israel "acknowledge responsibility for the Palestinian Nakba " -- the catastrophic dispossession of the Palestinian people during Israel's establishment in 1948 -- and "consider paying compensation for its Palestinian citizens".

 

As many as one in four Palestinian citizens are internal refugees from the war, and referred to as "present absentees" by the Israeli authorities. They were stripped of their homes, possessions and bank accounts inside Israel, even though they remained citizens. Most homes were either later destroyed by the army or reallocated to Jewish citizens.

 

An internal government memorandum leaked several years ago showed that most of the internal refugees' money, supposedly held in trust by a state official known as the Custodian of Absentee Property, had disappeared and could no longer be traced.

 

Another controversial demand is for a radical overhaul of the system of land policy and planning in Israel, described in the manifesto as "the most sensitive issue" between Palestinian citizens and their state. Israel has nationalised 93 per cent of the territory inside its vague borders, holding it in trust not for its citizens but for the Jewish people worldwide. The land can be leased, but usually only to Jews.

 

Israel's Palestinian citizens, on the other hand, are restricted to about three per cent of the land, although they do not control much of the area nominally in their possession. Gerrymandering of municipal boundaries means that Arab local authorities have been stripped of jurisdiction over half of their areas, which have been effectively handed over to Jewish regional councils.

 

The manifesto calls for an end to other discriminatory land practices: the exclusion of Palestinian citizens from planning committees; the refusal of such committees to issue house- building permits to Palestinian citizens; the enforcement of house demolitions only against Palestinian citizens; and the continuing harmful interference by international Zionist organisations, particularly the Jewish Agency and the Jewish National Fund, in Israel's land and planning system.

 

The chairman of the High Follow-Up Committee, Shawki Khatib, said: "We've already seen the reality of which the Arab public says to the Jewish public, 'I want to live together, and I really mean it', but the Jewish public has still not reached the same conclusion. This document is a preliminary spark. Its importance is not in its publishing, but in what happens after it."

 

The High Follow-Up Committee was established in 1982, in the wake of Land Day in 1976 when six unarmed Palestinian citizens were shot dead by Israeli security forces during demonstrations against a wave of land confiscations by the state to advance its official goal of "Judaising" the Galilee.

 

The Follow-Up Committee has lost much of its status over the past decade, widely seen as too unwieldy a body to represent the Palestinian minority's needs effectively. Members, drawn from the heads of local authorities and major Israeli Arab organisations and parties, do not have to submit to direct election and reach their decisions through consensus, which has often paralysed the committee into inaction. The manifesto is viewed as an attempt to reassert the committee's authority.

 

In recent years Arab political factions have called for direct elections to the Follow-Up Committee, but the Israeli government has intimated that it would consider an Arab "parliament" as an attempt at secession and react harshly.

 

In a related development, the Mossawa advocacy centre presented a position paper at a conference in Nazareth this month, arguing that internal refugees should be allowed to return to villages that existed before 1948. "The move by refugees of 1948 to their villages will not change the demographic balance or endanger the Jews," said Jafar Farah, head of Mossawa. "Unlike the [Palestinian] refugees in Arab states, we are [already] here."

Israeli plan draws U.S. criticism

 

By BARRY SCHWEID, AP Diplomatic Writer

WASHINGTON - In a rare criticism, the Bush administration said Wednesday if Israel proceeds with construction of a settlement on West Bank it would violate its peacemaking obligations.

 

But defending its construction plan, a spokesman for the Israeli embassy said "the settlement is not a new one." It was legally established in 1982, housed an army unit and a school and has had civilians living there for several years, said spokesman David Siegel.

 

The plan is to build within the confines of the existing settlement, he said.

 

A State Department spokesman, Gonzalo R. Gallegos, said, "The U.S. calls on Israel to meet its roadmap obligations and avoid taking steps that could be viewed as predetermining the outcome of future negotiations,"

 

"The establishment of a new settlement or the expansion of any existing settlement would violate Israel's obligations under the roadmap," the U.S. official said.

 

Israel agreed to the roadmap in 2003. It was devised by the United States, the UN, the EU and Russia in an effort to guide Israel and the Palestinians into an agreement that establishes a Palestinian state.

 

No new settlement has been established on the West Bank in 10 years. The plan has drawn Palestinian and European expressions of concern.

 

The Bush administration rarely criticizes Israel's actions and has gained Israel's support for establishment of a Palestinian state.

 

Opponents of Mahmoud Abbas, the moderate president of the Palestinian Authority , have criticized his cooperation with Israel in trying to get peace talks started. They have accused him of yielding to a U.S.-Israeli approach.

 

Gallegos said, "We are seeking an explanation from the Israeli government regarding this development."

 

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is expected to go to the Middle East next month to try to spur peacemaking between Israel and the Palestinians.

It was not clear whether she had approved the statement.

 

"We will continue to work with Israel and the Palestinians to encourge George W. Bush's vision of two states" living side by side in peace, Gallegos said.

 

The settlement plan, approved by Israeli defense minister Amir Peretz, calls for construction on the site of an Army base in the Jordan valley.

 

By contrast, Israel Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has endorsed Palestinian statehood and said he was agreeable to a large-scale Israel pullback on the West Bank to make way for a state.

 

Gallegos said the roadmap states "progress will require and depend upon the good-faith efforts of the parties."

Lieberman calls on Peretz to quit over appointment of first Arab minister

By Mazal Mualem, Gideon Alon and Yoav Stern, Haaretz Correspondents, and Haaretz Service.

MK Raleb Majadele greeting friends in his office in the Knesset on Thursday. (AP)

 

 

Minister for Strategic Affairs Avigdor Lieberman on Thursday called on Amir Peretz to resign the defense portfolio over his appointment of Israel's first Arab minister, saying Peretz was unfit to hold the post.

 

Lieberman said that Peretz had abused his role as defense minister, and used the apparatus of the state for his own ends in the Labor Party primaries, and as such was not worthy of holding the position.

 

Lieberman's comments followed condemnation of the appointment by the chairman of Knesset faction of his Yisrael Beiteinu party, MK Esterina Tartman, who lambasted the move as "a lethal blow to Zionism."

She told Israel Radio that Labor MK Raleb Majadele's appointment as minister of science and technology damages "Israel's character as a Jewish state."

 

"We need to destroy this affliction from within ourselves. God willing, God will come to our help," she said.

 

Tartman's remarks were widely condemned by lawmakers from across the political spectrum. Majadele later said that her comments did not merit a response.

 

Tartman also said Peretz only made Majadele minister because the MK is an Arab, and to strengthen Peretz's power within Labor.

 

"Peretz is making a sacrifice of Zionism," she said. "He has crossed all the red lines. Israel is a Jewish state and should be run according to Jewish principles."

 

Tartman insisted that she did not have anything personal against Majadele, but objected to his appointment in principle.

 

"This is assimilation," She said. "I call on the prime minister not to approve this appointment, not for personal reasons, but in order to protect the state of Israel's interest as a Jewish and Zionist state."

 

MK Michael Eitan (Likud) called for a Knesset debate on what he termed Tartman's racist comments.

 

He said that he "rejected with disgust Tartman's racist pronouncements. The Zionism of Herzl, Jabotinsky and Begin always advocated the integration of Arabs who are loyal to the state in all of its institutions on the basis of equality. Tartman's statements are such that no believer in equality and democracy can accept them being on the agenda."

 

Labor MKs, including Danny Yatom and Yoram Marciano, called for Peretz to convene party institutions to reconsider Labor's continued participation in the coalition following Tartman's remarks.

 

Yatom said her comments show that Peretz and the ministers erred in choosing Knesset seats over ideology.

 

Marciano, head of the Labor faction in the Knesset, called on Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to oust Yisrael Beiteinu from the coalition, and for Labor to reconsider whether it can "sit in the government with this racist party."

 

"These remarks are an insult to the Knesset, to democracy and to the state," MK Nadia Hilo (Labor) said. "If they are acceptable to Yisrael Beiteinu, then it should leave the government. Arab citizens did not receive citizenship through the grace of Yisrael Beiteinu."

 

Meretz Chairman Yossi Beilin called on Labor to condition its participation in the government on the removal of Yisrael Beiteinu.

 

He added that the racist remarks that Tartman made, an issue which Yisrael Beiteinu should "confront internally," are extremely serious, and urged Attorney General Menachem Mazuz to check whether there is legal justification for opening a criminal investigation over the remarks.

 

MK Magali Wahaba (Kadima) said, " I regret that there are still people who instead of speaking of cooperation, continue to speak in a racist tone. Such people must be removed from our midst," he said.

Rice begins Mid-East peace push

 

Ms Rice insists the US must stand firm over Iraqi security

 

 

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is in Israel as she begins a renewed effort to revive stalled negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians.

 

She is due to meet both sides but has admitted that she will not be presenting any concrete new proposals.

 

Ms Rice will also visit Arab capitals to rally support for President Bush's new strategy in Iraq.

 

She has denied that the US intends to escalate the war in Iraq by confronting Iranian groups operating there.

 

Ms Rice is set to hold talks with Israeli ministers later on Saturday and will see Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Sunday, before wrapping up this stage of her tour with talks with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Monday.

 

No plan

 

She has said she expects intensive consultations but has played down any hopes of a major breakthrough and stressed that she had not come to the region with a plan to end the conflict.

 

"I think anything that is an American plan is bound to fail," she said.

"The United States is not going to succeed in this alone. This has to have an Arab voice - Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia.

 

 

"It certainly has to have the voice of the reasonable factions among the Palestinians, like Abu Mazen [Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas]. And it has to have an Israeli voice."

 

The US is hoping to shore up Mr Abbas whose Fatah faction has been locked in a power struggle with the governing Hamas movement.

 

Washington is planning to provide $85m to help train and equip Mr Abbas's presidential guard.

 

Tensions between Fatah and Hamas appeared to have eased somewhat, with both Mr Abbas and Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniya of Hamas urging national unity after weeks of feuding.

 

Hamas, which refuses to recognise Israel or renounce violence, is regarded by Israel and the West as a terrorist group.

 

A Hamas statement on Saturday said Ms Rice's trip would "only contribute to

creating divisions and dissension in the region" and Mr Haniya accused Israel and America of seeking to foment a Palestinian civil war.

 

As well as Israel and the Palestinian territories, Ms Rice's week-long tour will take in Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.

 

Ms Rice has said Arab leaders have every incentive to help as a stable Iraq is also in their interests.

 

The BBC's Katya Adler in Jerusalem says these countries would agree but they also question the logic of sending more US troops to Iraq.

Arab countries are also saying that if the US wants their help in Iraq, it must engage more in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, our correspondent adds.

 

'Good policy'

 

 

President Bush on Wednesday announced that 21,500 extra troops would be sent in an effort to reduce violence across Iraq, especially in Baghdad. The plan has been condemned by Democrats and some Republics as a dangerous escalation.

 

 

But Ms Rice, speaking ahead of her visit, backed a pledge by President Bush to run search and destroy missions against groups suspected of building bombs for use within Iraq.

 

She insisted that the US was not going to let either Iran or Syria continue activities that endangered American soldiers in Iraq.

 

"I don't think there is a government in the world that would sit by and let the Iranians in particular run networks inside Iraq that are building explosive devices of a very high quality that are being used to kill their soldiers.

 

"That's not an escalation, that's just good policy," Ms Rice told the BBC.

 

Earlier this week the US raided the Iranian consulate in Irbil, northern Iraq, detaining five people.

Last year an influential report led by former Secretary of State James Baker urged the Bush administration to begin negotiations with Iran and Syria in a bid to find a solution in Iraq.

Israeli army chief resigns over Lebanon war

 

by Jean-Luc Renaudie

JERUSALEM (AFP) - Israel's military chief quit over the failures of the Lebanon war, in a second blow to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's unpopular government after a graft probe was launched.

 

 

In what several newspapers called an "earthquake," Lieutenant General Dan Halutz became the most senior head to roll over last year's war against Lebanon's Hezbollah militia, which has been bitterly criticized in Israel.

"I have accomplished the objective that was set for me at the end of the Lebanon war, which was to study and learn the lessons from what transpired," wrote Halutz, 58, in his letter of resignation.

 

"I consider under the conditions it is my duty to resign my office immediately."

He went on to tell military chiefs of staff Wednesday that he had "no intention of packing up my desk and leaving in a rush," adding: "I intend to ensure an orderly transition for my replacement."

Defense Minister Amir Peretz said Halutz would remain in his post until a successor is named.

 

Olmert, scraping the bottom of public opinion ratings, said a successor would be chosen in the coming days after consultations with former prime ministers, defense ministers, chiefs of staff, the foreign minister and the opposition in parliament.

 

"I very much regret the chief of staff's resignation," he said.

Halutz resigned just hours after Israel's chief prosecutor ordered a criminal investigation against Olmert -- the latest in a string of corruption scandals described by one newspaper as "Sodom and Gomorrah."

 

Olmert, who has been hounded by allegations of corruption since before he took office last May, is suspected of intervening on behalf of a friend while acting finance minister in 2005 during the privatization of Israel's second-largest bank. He has denied any wrongdoing.

 

Following Halutz's resignation, political commentators in Israel turned their attention to who could be the next official to pay the price for the mid-summer war, which failed to achieve its goals of freeing two captured Israeli soldiers and stopping Hezbollah rocket fire.

 

Israeli army radio said Halutz's resignation would, in a "domino effect", lead to the resignations of Peretz and Olmert himself, sentiments echoed in the press and by opposition lawmakers.

 

"The chief of staff's resignation officially confirms the failure of the Lebanon war and compels the prime minister and the defense minister to stop holding on to their positions and resign from their posts," Yisrael Katz of the right-wing opposition Likud party told the Ynet news service.

 

Zahava Gal-On of the liberal opposition Meretz party echoed the view.

"The responsibility for the failure of the Lebanon war cannot stop at the military echelon but must include the political echelon as well for making irresponsible decisions before the war," Gal-On said.

 

Wrote the Maariv daily: "Now it is Defense Minister Amir Peretz's turn to hand over the keys, so that the IDF (Israel Defense Forces) will be able to embark on a new path.

 

"And what about Olmert? The public will judge his performance," it said.

 

Roni Zweigenboim, a leader of military reservists protesting over the conduct of the war, told AFP: "We will continue our struggle until Olmert and Peretz step down, because we are worried for the country. As long as they are prime minister and defence minister, our condition is very dangerous."

 

According to opinion polls in recent weeks, the public has already passed harsh judgement on the prime minister -- Olmert's approval rating is 14 percent, half of Israelis think he should resign and 85 percent think the nation's leadership is corrupt.

 

Meanwhile, the ratings of the right-wing opposition Likud party have surged. Polls show it would nearly triple its current 11 seats in the 120-member parliament at the expense of Olmert's Kadima party and its main coalition partner, Labour.

 

The war on Hezbollah, launched after the Shiite militia -- backed by Iran and Syria -- seized the two soldiers in a cross-border raid on July 12, had raised a storm of outrage in Israel following the UN-brokered ceasefire that took effect on August 14.

 

The conflict killed more than 160 Israelis, mostly soldiers, and more than 1,200 Lebanese, mostly civilians.

 

Halutz was appointed in June 2005, the first man with an air force background to be chosen as army chief of staff.

He has been criticized for overestimating the effectiveness of air strikes during the war on Hezbollah, while infantry and armored units were poorly trained and equipped.

Olmert under pressure after military chief resigns

 

By Jeffrey Heller

 

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - The resignation of Israel's armed forces chief over failure to win last summer's Lebanon war dealt a fresh blow on Wednesday to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, already weakened by political scandal.

 

Israeli media described Lieutenant-General Dan Halutz's decision to quit as an earthquake and speculated whether it might ultimately trigger a domino effect toppling Olmert and Defense Minister Amir Peretz.

 

"He did not agree to my request that he reconsider. I very much regret the chief of staff's resignation," Olmert said in a statement in which he called Halutz one of Israel's "greatest warriors" but made no comment on his conduct of the Lebanon war.

 

The former fighter pilot's move was announced hours after Israel's state prosecutor ordered a criminal probe into Olmert's role in the privatization of Israel's second biggest bank in 2005, when he was finance minister.

"The investigation of Olmert and Halutz's resignation in the wake of the Lebanon war could rock the foundations of the government," political analyst Hanan Crystal told Israel Radio.

 

A poll commissioned by Israel's Channel 10 television found that 69 percent of Israelis want Olmert to follow Halutz's lead and resign. Eighty-five percent called for Peretz to step down.

 

Olmert has denied any wrongdoing in the sale of Bank Leumi or in another case, now being considered by Israel's attorney-general, into the alleged appointment of cronies to a government-funded business authority.

His troubles could weigh heavily on Washington's new push to revive Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking, efforts that it hopes can bolster Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in his power struggle with the governing Islamist group Hamas.

 

Mushir al-Masri, a senior Hamas legislator said in Gaza that investigations against Olmert and Halutz's resignation "prove the Zionist government is weak" and should spur Palestinians "to continue resistance and jihad."

STORM CLOUDS

 

An Israeli poll published on Friday indicated Olmert's approval ratings had slipped to 14 percent. The survey showed his centrist Kadima party would lose nearly two-thirds of its strength in an election.

Balloting is still three years away but storm clouds are gathering quickly on Olmert's political horizon.

 

A government-appointed commission of inquiry into Israel's inconclusive war against Lebanon's Hezbollah guerillas is looking into the conduct of Olmert and Peretz in the 34-day conflict that ended in a ceasefire on August 14.

The Winograd Committee's interim report is expected to be out within weeks. Halutz, 58, chose not to wait.

I

n his resignation letter, Halutz said that after overseeing the military's own investigations into the war, it was time for him to "act responsibly" and go.

The internal probes criticized Israeli top brass for poor organization but stopped short of recommending that Halutz quit.

 

Few in Israel had expected him to remain at his post after a conflict in which the Middle East's mightiest military failed to stop constant Hezbollah rocket attacks that forced a million Israelis to spend a sweltering summer in bomb shelters.

 

 

"Never has an Israeli chief of staff resigned of his own free will over the failure of a war," Alex Fishman, a military affairs correspondent, wrote in the Yedioth Ahronoth daily.

 

Israel drove Hezbollah fighters from its northern border but failed to retrieve two soldiers, whose abduction by the group on July 12 triggered the war in which some 1,200 Lebanese, mostly civilians, and 157 Israelis, most of them soldiers, were killed.

 

Halutz, chief of staff since 2005, will continue in his role until a new army chief is named. Israel Radio said Peretz was expected to present a candidate to the government on Sunday.

Palestinian militants kill three in Eilat attack

By Rami Amichai

EILAT, Israel (Reuters) - Palestinian militant groups mounted their first suicide bombing in Israel in nine months on Monday, killing 3 people in the Red Sea tourist resort of Eilat.

 

The Eilat blast occurred four days before the so-called Quartet of Middle East mediators was to meet in Washington as part of a bid to revive Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. Efforts have been complicated by Palestinian factional gunbattles.

 

Islamic Jihad and al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades claimed responsibility for what was the first suicide attack in the Red Sea town, and named a 21-year-old from Gaza as the bomber. Israeli police said he infiltrated from Egypt.

 

Israeli Defense Minister Amir Peretz said the attackers were trying to disrupt a shaky two-month-old ceasefire between Israel and Palestinians in Gaza.

 

"We intend to protect Israel's citizens ... We are certainly prepared to give the proper reactions. At the same time, we will do everything to keep the ceasefire," Peretz told parliament in remarks that could suggest Israel's response would be limited.

 

In Gaza, rival Palestinian factions battled in the streets for a fifth successive day on Monday, killing at least three people. Saudi Arabia has offered to host talks between the feuding Hamas movement and Fatah in the holy city of Mecca.

 

The fighting has been the fiercest since Hamas, an Islamist group, won elections a year ago. Gunbattles have spread across the densely populated Gaza Strip, where 1.5 million Palestinians live, and have prompted some families to flee their homes.

 

The latest deaths raised to 30 the number of people killed in clashes since Thursday. The fighting, which has erupted periodically over the past year, has derailed unity talks between Hamas and Fatah.

 

"What else can we call this but a civil war?" asked Abu Omar, a shop owner in Gaza City, where most businesses closed down.

BAKERY BLAST

 

Eilat residents were jolted by what witnesses described as a powerful explosion in the Lechamim bakery in a residential neighborhood of the city, far from its beach hotels.

 

"I saw a man with a black coat and a bag. For Eilat, where it is hot, it is strange to see someone walking with a coat. I said to myself, 'Why is this idiot dressed that way?' Seconds later, I heard a huge blast. The building shook," Benny Mazgini, a local resident, told Israel Radio.

 

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said in broadcast remarks all three of those killed by the bomber were Israelis. He said Israel was weighing its response.

Islamic Jihad and the Aqsa brigades said the bombing was a response to

 

Israeli "attempts to defile al-Aqsa mosque" in Jerusalem, a reference to recent archaeological excavations. Israeli officials said the work had not damaged the shrine.

 

"The heroic operation announces the beginning of a series of operations in defense of al-Aqsa mosque and it was a natural response to savage aggression by the occupation (Israel)," the two groups said in a statement.

A spokesman for the Aqsa brigades, part of moderate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah faction, identified the suicide bomber as Mohammad Faisal Siksik, 21, from Gaza City, a member of the brigades' Army of Believers.

 

Israeli police said the bomber entered Egypt from Gaza and then made his way through the Sinai peninsula to the porous Egyptian-Israeli border north of Eilat, where he caught a ride with an Israeli motorist who drove him into the city.

 

 

After dropping him off, the driver phoned police to report the hitch-hiker had

behaved suspiciously. The bomber detonated 10 kg (22 lb) of explosives while police were searching the area where he was dropped, a police spokesman said.

 

Olmert voiced fears the attack could scare tourists away from Eilat.

Nearly 180,000 foreign tourists visited the resort, at the northern tip of the Red Sea, last year. The city has been spared the violence of a more than six-year-long Palestinian uprising.

 

At his family home in the northern Gaza Strip, Siksik's brother Naeem told reporters: "We knew he was going to carry out a martyrdom operation. His mother and father prayed for him to succeed."

 

In Washington, the White House issued a statement in which it condemned "Palestinian terrorist groups, including Hamas, that condone these barbaric actions."

 

It said the Palestinian Authority's failure to "act against terror will inevitably affect relations between that government and the international community and undermine the aspirations of the Palestinian people for a state of their own."

A Palestinian suicide bomber last struck in Israel on April 17, 2006, killing 11 people outside a restaurant in Tel Aviv in an attack claimed by Islamic Jihad.

Ex-Israeli justice minister convicted

 

By ARON HELLER, Associated Press Writer

TEL AVIV, Israel - An Israeli court convicted former Justice Minister Haim Ramon on Wednesday of forcibly kissing a young female soldier, a stunning censure of a top official that could reshape the Israeli Cabinet. Ramon, who faces up to three years in prison, joined a growing list of politicians who have fallen from grace — including Israel's president, who is facing rape charges.

 

The 56-year-old Ramon was charged with sexual misconduct after kissing the 21-year-old woman at a party at the Defense Ministry on the first day of Israel's war with Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon last summer. Ramon, who is divorced, said the woman, who cannot be identified under Israeli law, had flirted with him and the kiss was consensual.

 

With its salacious details and high-profile defendant, the case captured the nation's attention for months, and Ramon's conviction sent a stark message to high officials that behavior once considered a perk of the job would no longer be tolerated.

 

"There are some lines that cannot be crossed," said Judge Hayuta Kochan, who read the unanimous verdict by a three-judge panel. "This was not a kiss of affection. This has all the elements of sexual crime."

 

Ramon, who will be sentenced Feb. 21, said he would appeal.

 

A close ally of veteran statesman Shimon Peres, Ramon once appeared to be

on the fast track toward the premiership, serving as minister in several Cabinets. He bolted the dovish Labor Party ahead of elections last year and joined Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's Kadima Party, serving as justice minister until he was charged last August.

 

In a statement, Olmert "expressed sorrow" at Ramon's conviction.

Ahead of the verdict, hordes of reporters and TV cameras swarmed around Ramon as he pushed toward the small courtroom at the Tel Aviv Magistrates Court.

 

As the verdict was read, a visibly anxious Ramon held his head in his hands. His girlfriend hugged him in support.

 

The verdict said Ramon's defense was full of contradictions, and said it was obvious the young soldier was "authentic and trustworthy" and had suffered a "traumatic experience."

 

"We completely endorse the plaintiff's version," it said.

 

Ramon declined to comment on the verdict.

His accuser, in an interview with Israel's Channel 10, denied ever flirting with him.

 

"You understand the gap between us? He's eight years older than my father. There is no chance I could look at him and say that I would go out with him, that I could hit on him," she said, her face hidden in shadows. "Who would ever think such a thing?"

 

The conviction will force changes in the Cabinet. Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni has also been serving as justice minister while the government awaited a verdict.

Olmert's spokeswoman, Miri Eisin, said Olmert would fill the job, as well as the vacant welfare minister's post, "in the near future."

 

Ramon's permanent replacement is expected to be Interior Minister Ronnie Bar-On, of Kadima. The hard-line Yisrael Beiteinu party is also likely to be given a second Cabinet seat, political analyst Hanan Crystal said.

 

 

But unpopular Defense Minister Amir Peretz is likely to keep his job until the government commission investigating the war in Lebanon releases its findings, which might implicate Peretz and force him to step aside, Crystal said. No date has been given for the commission's report.

 

The Ramon conviction came amid a spate of scandals involving Israeli leaders. Last week, Israel's attorney general said he plans to indict President Moshe Katsav on charges of raping and sexually assaulting former female employees. Katsav has taken a leave of absence.

 

Authorities also have launched a criminal investigation into Olmert's role in the government's sale of a controlling interest in a bank in 2005, when he was finance minister. Investigators suspect Olmert tried to steer the bidding in favor of a supporter.

 

Tzachi Hanegbi, another Kadima member, has been indicted on charges of fraud, bribery and perjury in connection with appointments he made as a minister.

 

Legal analyst Moshe Goraly said the actions taken against top officials stood in stark contrast with the hands-off attitude government watchdogs and prosecutors previously took toward politicians.

 

Given the relatively minor charge in Ramon's case — and the way his credibility was "completely destroyed" — the verdict could be a sign of trouble for his accused colleagues, Goraly said.

"It does not bode well for all the others," he said.

Bunker mentality as Israelis prepare for nuclear fallout

 

Sonia Verma, Zikhron Yaaqov

London Times

Saturday, March 10, 2007

 

As world leaders debate sanctions to curb Iran’s nuclear programme, hundreds of Israeli families are already installing bunkers in their homes to protect against radioactive fallout from a possible attack.

 

Thousands of private homes have been equipped with nuclear-proof equipment ranging from air filters to water-decontamination systems. But builders and contractors say that the demand in the past few months for fully fledged atomic shelters has surged, fuelled by speculation that Iran is building a nuclear weapon that it would not hesitate to use against Israel.

 

Atomic shelters range in price from £70,000 to £500,000. They feature 70cm thick blast-proof doors, ballistic windows, water and air-decontamination systems, which promise to sustain life for up to six months.

 

Shlomo Yakov, an Israeli industrialist, spent £300,000 on a nuclear bunker for his family at his sprawling seaside villa just north of Tel Aviv. The underground shelter features a master bedroom and children’s room, a decontaminated-water shower and an electrical generator that feeds a flat-screen television, surround-sound system and fully stocked stainless steel fridge.

 

“The cost is nothing compared to the peace of mind it provides my family,” said Mr Yakov, who has three young children. He does not advertise its existence. “If there was ever a scare, there would be a stampede,” he said.

 

Fears of a nuclear attack first surfaced in Israel during the Gulf War in 1991. In recent months it has become a national obsession. A recent survey in Ma’ariv, found that two thirds of Israelis believe that Iran, if it develops a nuclear weapon, would use it to destroy Israel.

 

Collective angst over such a scenario has even seeped into the country’s popular culture: Israel’s controversial entry into this year’s Eurovision Song Contest, Push the Button by the punk band Teapacks, is a cry against nuclear obliteration.

Right-wing Israeli politicians argue that the time for diplomacy is over. Iran could have the bomb by 2009, the country’s chief intelligence officer cautioned in his recent security assessment.

 

“Iran’s President says time and again he is committed to Israel’s destruction. We have to take those threats seriously, and do everything in our power to avoid it,” said Ephraim Sneh, the deputy Defence Minister, The Knesset has speeded up construction of its own nuclear shelter, built beneath pine-covered hills outside Jerusalem. The bunker will serve as a command post in case of war.

 

The Government also recently approved construction of a public shelter underneath Jerusalem’s new railway station to accommodate hundreds of civilians. Construction is due to be complete by 2011.

 

Ahim Torati, one company that specializes in nuclear shelters, has received ten orders to build private bunkers in the past month alone. “You can hear the fear in people’s voices when they call,” said Talia Torati, an employee.

The Israeli Government requires home builders to install blast-proof rooms in residential houses, but so far has stopped short of ordering nuclear shelters, saying that there is no need for public panic.

Israel says it won't work with coalition

 

By IBRAHIM BARZAK, Associated Press Writer

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - The rival Hamas and Fatah movements formed a long-elusive unity government Thursday, hoping to end bloody infighting and lead the Palestinians out of yearlong international isolation. Israel immediately said, however, that it would not deal with the new government.

Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of the Islamic militant Hamas announced the final coalition agreement and platform after months of stop-and-go negotiations. It is to be approved by the Palestinian parliament on Saturday.

 

The coalition platform posted on Hamas and Fatah Web sites calls for continued observance of a truce with Israel but falls short of Israeli, U.S. and European requirements that the new government recognize Israel, renounce violence and accept previous peace deals.

 

The new government's platform includes only a vague pledge to "respect" past peace deals, falling short of explicit recognition of Israel.

It also affirms the Palestinians' right to resist and "defend themselves against any Israeli aggression."

 

While many in the West consider "resistance" to be a code word for violent attacks, Palestinians have a wide variety of definitions that can encompass anything from armed attacks to street protests.

 

Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev said his government will boycott the coalition government and encourage other countries to do the same because its program falls short of the international conditions for acceptance that include recognition of the Jewish state.

 

"Unfortunately the new Palestinian government seems to have said no to the three benchmarks of the international community," Regev said. "Accordingly, Israel will not deal with this new government and we hope the international community will stand firmly by its own principles and refuse to deal with a government that says no to peace and no to reconciliation."

 

Western countries have said they will wait for the new government to take office before deciding whether to lift economic sanctions against the Palestinian government.

 

Haniyeh said the Palestinians have received encouraging signals from Europe.

"No doubt, there is a different position by the American administration and the Israelis," he said, adding that the new government would do its best to bring about an end to the boycott and "maintain relations with all the international community."

 

Haniyeh said he hoped the new government will "launch a new era" for the Palestinians.

 

Nabil Abu Rdeneh, a senior aide to moderate President Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah, said the new coalition opens the way for a resumption of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.

 

"This is the right moment to move toward the peace process," he told reporters. "If it (the international community) is serious, if it is looking toward stability in the Middle East, this is the right moment to go ahead" by implementing the U.S.-backed "road map" peace plan.

 

Another Abbas aide, Nimr Hamad, said the new government represents all Palestinians.

 

"When Israel says it doesn't want to deal with it, it means it does not want to deal with the Palestinians," he said.

 

Haniyeh presented the Cabinet lineup Thursday — nine ministers from Hamas and six from Fatah — to Abbas, who accepted it. Haniyeh and Abbas agreed to the power-sharing deal last month in Saudi Arabia, but had spent the past few weeks ironing out the final details.

 

 

The final stage of the coalition talks dealt with one of the most difficult issues — who would fill the post of interior minister and assume control over the security forces. Most of the veteran members are loyal to Fatah, but Hamas last year formed its own 5,600-member militia.

 

Officials identified the new minister as Hani Kawasmi, a senior Interior Ministry civil servant who has good relations with Hamas and Fatah, but does not belong to either party. Mustafa Barghouti, the incoming information minister, confirmed the appointment.

 

Barghouti said other key appointments included Salam Fayyad, an internationally respected economist, as finance minister, and Ziad Abu Amr, an independent lawmaker, as foreign minister. Haniyeh will remain as prime minister, and Azzam al-Ahmed, head of Fatah's parliament bloc, will be deputy prime minister.

 

Hamas trounced the more moderate Fatah in parliamentary elections last year, giving it control over most government functions. But the Hamas-led government was crippled by Western sanctions imposed over its refusal to recognize Israel's right to exist.

 

Abbas, who was elected separately in 2005, has been pushing Hamas since last autumn to join Fatah in a more moderate coalition in hopes of lifting the Western boycott. The negotiations collapsed repeatedly, often sparking rounds of deadly factional fighting in Gaza.

 

As negotiations continued, there was an exchange of fire between Hamas and Fatah forces in the northern Gaza Strip. Security officials said nine people, including five bystanders, were slightly wounded in the shootout. More than 130 people have died in the infighting since last May.

On Thursday, a Fatah activist died of wounds he sustained the previous night in a shootout with Hamas gunmen in the northern Gaza Strip, Palestinian security officials said.

one thing is for sure, if Arabs re-claim this country and have a big role in its politics we are seriously fucked.. like really fucked! and yes i am an arab saying that. seeing the way they live, oh man... that thought scares the hell out of me.

Survey finds 28 pct of Israeli Arabs deny Holocaust

 

By Dan Williams

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - More than a quarter of Israeli Arabs deny the Holocaust took place, a new survey has found, calling the findings a reflection of the depth of disaffection felt by the Jewish state's core minority.

 

The independent poll released this week also found that many of the Arabs, who make up a fifth of Israel's population, feel subject to racism and fear possible deportation more than six years into a Palestinian uprising.

 

According to the Haifa University survey, 28 percent of Israel's Arab citizens do not believe the Nazi killing of six million Jews during World War Two occurred.

 

Khaled Mahmeed, an Israeli Arab who founded what he describes as the Arab world's only Holocaust museum, in Nazareth, said the findings were plausible.

 

He accused Israel of failing to educate its Arab minority about the genocide.

 

"They don't want us to learn. Perhaps if more Arabs did, we would insist on the lessons of the Holocaust being applied in terms of bring justice for Palestinian refugees," Mahmeed said.

 

The Israeli Education Ministry official in charge of Arab schooling, Abdullah Khatib, rejected Mahmeed's accusation.

 

"Arab pupils all take mandatory history classes, which include Holocaust studies. There are also joint study programs on the Holocaust with Jewish schools," Khatib said. He did not dispute the survey's findings but declined to comment on them.

 

Sammy Smooha, a Haifa University social sciences professor who conducted the poll, said Holocaust denial was a sign of Israeli Arab anger at perceived discrimination by the Jewish establishment and Palestinian failure so far to win statehood.

 

"Israeli Arabs do not have a narrative of their own. They share the Palestinian narrative, in which the Holocaust is seen as a political event, exploited to justify Israel's existence and offences against Palestinians," Smooha told Reuters.

 

"There is a definite protest element here," Smooha said.

 

REFUGEES

 

Israel has served as a refuge for Holocaust survivors, opening its doors to Jewish immigration while refusing to allow Palestinians who fled or were expelled during the 1948 Middle East war to return. Successive Israeli governments have said those refugees should resettle in a future Palestinian state.

 

In the survey of 721 Israeli Arabs, 67 percent described Zionism as racist and 60 percent said they feared mass deportation.

 

Nonetheless, the poll found that 67.5 percent would want to remain in Israel even if there were a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip Sixty-two percent voiced concern their towns could be ceded to Palestinian jurisdiction.

 

A far-right Israeli cabinet minister, Avigdor Lieberman, has proposed that Israeli Arab communities go over to Palestinian control under an ethnic partition of Israel and the West Bank, an idea rejected by centrist Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

 

Israel's central Holocaust memorial Yad Vashem said the eruption of the Palestinian revolt in 2000 had temporarily disrupted efforts to boost Holocaust studies in Arab schools.

 

"Virtually all the schools in the Arab sector suspended their participation," said Yad Vashem spokeswoman Estee Yaari. "But in 2006 there was a shift, and many more Arabic schools have begun coming to Yad Vashem, many subsidized by Yad Vashem."

 

 

Smooha said those Arabs in Israel who acknowledged the Holocaust as fact -- 71.1 percent -- tended to accept "that it is part of the country's raison d'etre."

 

The poll, which has a margin of error of 3.7 percent, also surveyed 702 Jews on their attitudes toward Arab compatriots.

 

Among Israeli Jews, 63 percent said they avoid entering Arab towns, while 68 voiced worry about the possibility of a flare-up of Arab civil unrest.

 

Despite the statistics, Smooha cautioned against concluding that race relations in Israel had been irrevocably strained.

"The findings clearly show that the Arabs in Israel are closely connected to life in Israel, see their future as being part of the state and under no circumstances want to become part of the Palestinian state," he said.

Arab ministers in Israel for land-for-peace talks

 

By Adam Entous

 

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Arab envoys on a landmark visit to Israel presented its leaders with a regional land-for-peace plan on Wednesday and called for a rapid timetable for talks with the Palestinians over statehood.

 

Israel described the one-day visit by the Jordanian and Egyptian foreign ministers as a "historic" move on the part of the 22-nation Arab League. But it stopped short of embracing their initiative, which offers a comprehensive Arab peace if the Jewish state cedes all occupied land and meets other demands.

 

Reaching out to the Palestinians and fellow Arabs,Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert sent the clearest signal yet that he would try to restart talks on the final status of a Palestinian state with President Mahmoud Abbas, whose secular Fatah faction lost control of the Gaza Strip last month to Hamas Islamists.

 

"We need a precise timetable, a quick timetable and we urge Israel not to waste this historic opportunity. Time is not on our side," Jordanian Foreign Minister Abdelelah al-Khatib told a news conference at the Israeli Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem.

 

Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit said it was not sufficient for Israel to limit talk to what diplomats call a "political horizon" -- defined by Olmert's aides as the legal, economic and governmental structures of a future Palestinian state. "I don't see (that) as enough because the horizon, often if not frequently, is never reached," he said.

 

Olmert said there was "a chance in the near future for the process to ripen into talks that would, in effect, deal with the stages of establishing a Palestinian state."

 

But Olmert, weakened domestically by last year's inconclusive war in Lebanon, said there were "no precise timetables or stages established yet" for getting to discussions about permanent borders and the future of Jerusalem and Palestinian refugees, all divisive issues in the Jewish state.

SCHISM

 

Speaking in the West Bank city of Ramallah, Abbas said he hoped Olmert would become a "partner to a final settlement that will lead to an independent viable Palestinian state."

 

Neither Israel nor the visiting Arab envoys spelled out how significant progress could be made towards statehood with the Palestinian territories divided between Hamas-run Gaza and the Israeli-occupied West Bank, where Fatah holds sway.

 

Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum said Olmert's comments were a diversion meant to "throw dust in the eyes" of the world.

 

Wednesday's visit was the first by Arab League representatives to promote their peace plan, which offers Israel normal ties with all Arab states in return for a full withdrawal from the lands it seized in the 1967 Middle East war, creation of a Palestinian state and a "just solution" for refugees.

 

Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni told the envoys she saw "an opportunity" to use the Arab plan to advance bilateral talks with Abbas but she was non-committal about the plan itself.

 

"We want to hear your ideas and want to express our ideas, so that we'll be able to carry on," Olmert told the envoys.

 

Olmert has said the Arab plan has positive elements. But citing demographic and security concerns, he made clear Israel opposed the return of Palestinian refugees to their former homes in what is now the Jewish state and wanted to hold on to major settlement blocs in the West Bank.

 

Israel sought to cast the envoys' visit as a potential turning point in relations with the Arab League.

 

But Arab diplomats played down the gesture, and the head of the Arab League told the BBC that the Egyptian and Jordanian diplomats were not acting on behalf of the organization.

 

Egypt and Jordan already have full relations with Israel, and despite U.S. and Israeli appeals to expand the number of Arab participants in the talks, Saudi Arabia and other Arab League members have refused to take part.

This is subjective.

The sad thing is if any other group of people besides the jews was in israel's position they'd have support from most the world.

The sad thing is if any other group of people besides the jews was in israel's position they'd have support from most the world.

 

 

why..............

Begin the process of evacuating settlers from two houses in EL Khalil

 

began Hundreds of Israeli border guards at dawn on Tuesday, the evacuation of settlers occupying two houses in EL Khalil. He said that elements of border guards and police surrounded two buildings Coast, where members took the support of dozens of young extremists. The Israeli military command issued Monday sentences between two and four years against 12 military orders rebelled and refused to participate in the evacuation. It was announced about thirty soldiers from the infantry unit supported by deputies and rabbis nationalists refused even indirect participation in the process. The soldiers, who are from the regiment Kfir their officers they refuse to "expel Jews from their homes." They are excluded from their unit. The rescue operation took extremist families settlers occupying two houses in the old market in EL Khalil in the southern West Bank, symbolic dimension. The government wants to assert its authority over this matter after the elimination of this process. The extreme right seeks to demonstrate the extreme difficulty in the evacuation of even a very limited number of settlers from the West Bank.

 

from http://www.alquds.com/

 

 

that is unusual event and that shocking me... i used to hear about evacuation of platinians from their homes for demolish then build new settlement for jews.