Clinton condemns Israel's demolition of Arab East Jerusalem homes
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- Written by Rory McCarthy in Jerusalem Rory McCarthy in Jerusalem
- Published: 04 March 2009 04 March 2009
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Clinton condemns Israel's demolition of Arab East Jerusalem homes
Move was a violation of Israel's international obligations, US secretary of state says during press conference with the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas
[Hillary Clinton will meet Palestinian leaders. Photograph: Associated Press]
Hillary Clinton criticised Israel's plans to demolish dozens of homes in Arab East Jerusalem today during a joint news conference with the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas.
The US secretary of state said the move was a violation of Israel's international obligations and said the US would raise the matter with the country's leaders.
"Clearly this kind of activity is unhelpful and not in keeping with the obligations entered into under the 'road map'," she said, referring to the long-stalled peace plan. "It is an issue that we intend to raise with the government of Israel and the government at the municipal level in Jerusalem."
Clinton made the comments during her first trip to the Palestinian territories in her new role.In Jerusalem yesterday, she said the creation of an independent Palestinian state was now "inescapable".
However, Palestinian leaders say the continued expansion of Jewish settlements across east Jerusalem and the West Bank make it increasingly difficult for that state to be established.
"The main point is that the Israeli government needs to accept the two-state solution and ... stop settlement expansion," Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian negotiator, said.
Although Abbas has held peace talks with Israeli leaders since late 2007, he has little to show for it.
On Monday, the Israeli group Peace Now reported that the Israeli housing ministry was planning to build at least 73,000 housing units in West Bank settlements.
The organisation said 15,000 units had already been approved and another 58,000 were awaiting approval.
Almost 500,000 settlers now live in east Jerusalem and the West Bank. All settlements are illegal under international law.
The Palestinians will ask Clinton to put pressure on Israel to open its crossings into Gaza to allow in materials for rebuilding after the recent offensive.
"We want the US to help us open the passages to get material for reconstruction into Gaza," Erekat said.
Reports in the Israeli press today said that, in a meeting yesterday, Clinton had pressed the Israeli defence minister, Ehud Barak, to allow more aid into Gaza.
Clinton said the US would send two senior officials to Syria for "preliminary conversations", an apparent sign of a new softening of US policy.
US officials said Jeffrey Feltman, the state department's leading Middle East diplomat, would travel to Damascus along with Dan Shapiro, of the White House's national security council.
Last week, Feltman held talks lasting for almost two hours with the Syrian ambassador to Washington – the highest-level contact between the countries since the start of the Obama government.
Washington recalled its ambassador to Damascus in 2005 after the assassination of the former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq al-Hariri in Beirut.
Obama's administration has been reviewing its policy towards Syria and is considering whether to send an ambassador again.
At a conference to raise aid for the Palestinians, held in Egypt on Monday, Clinton shook hands and spoke briefly with the Syrian foreign minister, Walid al-Moallem.
Clinton's announcement came after she met the Israeli foreign minister, Tzipi Livni. She also met the Israeli president, Shimon Peres, the opposition leader and probable next prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, and the current prime minister, Ehud Olmert.
Clinton has said she wants to pursue peace between Israel and the Arab world on "many fronts", suggesting she might encourage Israel and Syria to talk.
Some Israeli figures believe an agreement with Syria might be easier to achieve than a peace deal with the Palestinians.
However, Netanyahu has appeared to rule out negotiations with Syria by refusing to give up the Golan Heights, which Israel captured in 1967.
Netanyahu – who is likely to lead a narrow, rightwing government – has also stopped short of endorsing a two-state solution to end the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, which may put his government at odds with the US administration.
Clinton said a two-state deal was in "Israel's best interests".
"The United States will be vigorously engaged in the pursuit of a two-state solution every step of the way," she said. "The inevitability of working toward a two-state solution is inescapable."
Bil'in Habibti
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- Written by Students United for Palestinian Equal Rights Students United for Palestinian Equal Rights
- Published: 02 March 2009 02 March 2009
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Israel 'plans settlement growth': 73,000 new homes for Jews in the occupied West Bank
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- Written by BBC News BBC News
- Published: 02 March 2009 02 March 2009
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The Israeli government has plans to build at least 73,000 new homes for Jews in the occupied West Bank, the anti-settlement group Peace Now says.
If the plans are implemented in full it would double the number of settlers in the West Bank outside east Jerusalem, according to the Peace Now website.
Israeli officials said the plans referred to potential construction and only a small number had been approved.
Continued settlement work is seen as a major barrier to Palestinian statehood.
Correspondents say the information indicates Israel's next coalition government, currently in the process of being formed by Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu, has a wide choice of projects for settlement expansion.
If coalition negotiations force him into a strongly pro-settlement right-wing government, the plans could put him in collision course with the new US government, they add.
Freeze
The Palestinian Authority, which has been engaged in a revived negotiated process since November 2007, has warned Israel that it must choose between peace and settlements, but it cannot have both.
“ The completion of these projects will make the plan of creating a Palestinian state next to Israel totally unrealistic ”
Yariv Oppenheimer
Peace Now
Successive Israel governments have paid lip-service to international agreements with the Palestinians to freeze settlement activity.
However settlement population has grown rapidly, as the governments have refused to curb what they call "natural growth" of the settlements - growth within what Israel defines as the boundaries of established settlements.
Peace Now said in its report that there are plans for huge construction to double the size of some settlements including Beitar Illit, Ariel, Maale Adumim and Efrat settlements.
"The completion of these projects will make the plan of creating a Palestinian state next to Israel totally unrealistic," Peace Now head Yariv Oppenheimer said in a radio interview.
Housing ministry spokesman Eran Sidis insisted in an interview with the AFP news agency that the plans "refer only to potential construction" and "in practice only a very small part of these urbanism projects are implemented".
All Jewish settlements in the Palestinian territory are regarded as illegal under international law, although Israel disputes this.
More than 400,000 Jewish settlers live in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, areas which were captured by Israeli in the 1967 war.
The Obama administration has pledged to pursue Palestinian statehood swiftly in negotiations. It is yet to endorse the Bush administration position that Israel should keep hold of large settlement blocs in the occupied territories.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/middle_east/7919050.stm
Published: 2009/03/02 13:46:26 GMT
© BBC MMIX
Israel PM's family link to Hamas peace bid: Olmert rejected talks before invasion
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- Written by Peter Beaumont, foreign affairs editor, The Observer Peter Beaumont, foreign affairs editor, The Observer
- Published: 02 March 2009 02 March 2009
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Olmert rejected Palestinian attempts to set up talks through go-between before Gaza invasion
Hamas, the militant Palestinian organisation, attempted to conduct secret talks with the Israeli leadership in the protracted run-up to the recent war in Gaza - with messages being passed from the group at one stage through a member of prime minister Ehud Olmert's family.
Confirmation of attempts to establish a direct line of communication between Hamas and Israel - and the willingness of senior figures in Hamas to contemplate direct negotiations - fundamentally alters the narrative of the build-up to the war in Gaza which claimed more than 1,300 Palestinian lives and led to about a dozen Israeli deaths.
Most remarkable is the story of the involvement of a member of the prime minister's family in the passing of messages to Olmert about the case of the kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit.
Although the Observer is aware of the identity of the family member and full details of the role played, it has agreed to protect anonymity. Gershon Baskin, a veteran Israel peace activist, was at the centre of attempts to open negotiations. Baskin was in touch with senior members of Hamas, Israeli officials and Olmert, via the member of his family.
Over two years, from the kidnap of Shalit, which triggered Israel's economic blockade of the Gaza Strip and its 1.5 million residents right up to the days before Israel launched its three-week long assault, Hamas officials expressed a willingness to talk to Israel directly about the kidnap, conditions for a new ceasefire and the ending of the blockade.
The motivation - from Hamas's side - stemmed from a growing frustration with the role of Egypt as an intermediary over key issues between the two sides, especially in relation to ceasefires.
Baskin, who has a long background in encouraging Israeli-Palestinian contacts, believes that the failure to pursue the overtures was a lost opportunity that contributed to the outbreak of conflict.
"Three times since Shalit's kidnapping [in June 2006 during a cross border raid out of Gaza] there has been the suggestion of opening a back channel through me. The first time that Hamas suggested to me opening a secret back channel was not long after Shalit's kidnapping."
According to Baskin, that offer was immediately rejected by the office of Olmert who said Israel did not negotiate with terrorists. His contacts, said Baskin, were two-fold. On the Hamas side, his contact was a senior figure whom he met in Europe, who was close to the organisation's leaderships both in the Syrian capital Damascus and the local leadership in Gaza. His liaison with the Hamas official focused on two issues: opening secret and direct contacts, and linking the prisoner exchange for Shalit's release to the renewal of the ceasefire and the ending of the economic siege on Gaza.
Baskin's "messenger" to Olmert on the Israeli side was the family member. "I was getting messages to Olmert through [this person]. And what I was getting back from Olmert through the same route was: 'We don't negotiate with terrorists'."
As part of this communication, which went on sporadically for months, Hamas offered a video proving Shalit was still alive, which would be supplied, the organisation said, in exchange for the release of some women and other minor prisoners from Israeli jails. Olmert's response - said Baskin - was that they did not need the video as Israel had already established that the soldier was alive. While that was rejected, the contact did, however, lead to a letter from Shalit to his father.
It was a channel of communication that was abruptly closed, allegedly when Israel's domestic intelligence agency Shin Bet intercepted members of Hamas discussing the identity of the Olmert family member involved in passing on the messages, infuriating Olmert.
A year after the first contacts, Baskin told the Observer, he had been given approval to pursue an informal effort to open secret direct contacts, co-ordinating with Ofer Dekel, the official appointed by Olmert as his "special representative" to head efforts for Shalit's return.
This time, however, it was Hamas's turn to block the opening of the secret negotiations - rejecting the linking of the prisoner exchange with the cease-fire and the end of the siege.
Baskin persisted with his dealings with Hamas, communicating with his contact through scores of emails, some passed on to the leadership in Syria and Gaza. While some hardliners, he readily admits, were not willing to initiate contacts - including Said Siam, the interior minister killed during Operation Cast Lead, and Mahmoud Zahar, who served as foreign minister - Baskin was able to reach other Hamas figures by email and text message - among them Hamas moderate and sometime spokesman Ghazi Hamad.
By now, Baskin admitted, his efforts to mediate between the two sides were largely his own initiative as he found himself increasingly shut out of the Israeli efforts to negotiate Shalit's release. He attempted too to use the Olmert "family member".
Two years after his first contacts through the Olmert family - and with war looming - Baskin said he tried to use his contact again. "I only involved [the person] one more time. I was desperate to get a message to Olmert." This time, however, he was told bluntly that he would "need to find another messenger". He told the Observer: "At this point war had already been decided on."
With the conflict only two weeks away Baskin arranged a meeting with his key Hamas contact in Europe, which resulted in another offer to link Shalit to the lifting of the ceasefire. Nobody on the Israeli side replied to the final offer.
ISRAEL BLOCKS PASTA SHIPMENT TO GAZA, AND TENSIONS BOIL
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- Written by Dion Nissenbaum, McClatchy Newspapers Dion Nissenbaum, McClatchy Newspapers
- Published: 28 February 2009 28 February 2009
- Hits: 3899 3899
JERUSALEM -- For more than seven weeks, the international aid group Mercy Corps has been trying to send 90 tons of macaroni to the isolated Gaza Strip as part of a global campaign to help the 1.4 million Palestinians there rebuild their lives after Israel's recent devastating 22-day military operation.
Israel, which controls most of what goes into and out of Gaza, has said no repeatedly.
At first, Israeli officials said that they wanted to make sure that the macaroni wasn't destined for a Hamas charity. Then they said macaroni was banned because they didn't consider it an essential food item.
On Wednesday, days after American lawmakers raised pointed questions about the macaroni ban, Israeli authorities said that they were preparing to give the pasta a green light.
For the international aid community, the dispute is emblematic of the red tape and political maneuvering that have stymied efforts to rebuild Gaza.
"We're at the end of our rope," said David Holdridge, the head of Middle East emergency relief efforts for Mercy Corps. "This is just ridiculous. It's absolutely absurd."
The Israeli restrictions are expected to be a central issue in the coming days when George Mitchell, President Barack Obama's new Middle East special envoy, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrive in the region for discussions about how to help Gaza without strengthening Hamas, its hard-line Islamist ruler.
"Aid should never be used as a political weapon," State Department spokesman Robert Wood said Wednesday in Washington. "We'll try to push to get into Gaza as many supplies as possible."
The macaroni standoff drew the attention of U.S. lawmakers who made a rare trip last week to the Gaza Strip.
"Is someone going to kill you with a piece of macaroni?" Rep. Brian Baird, a Washington state Democrat who joined Minnesota Democratic Rep. Keith Ellison in visiting Gaza, reportedly said after hearing about the aid restrictions.
Along with macaroni, Israel has prevented aid groups that are helping Gaza from sending in everything from paper and crayons to tomato paste and lentils.
As international donors prepare to meet next week in Egypt to discuss a massive, coordinated global rebuilding initiative, Israel is making it clear that it will block any projects that could help Hamas.
Israeli objections are expected to prevent Gaza's residents from reconstructing all the major government buildings that Israeli strikes destroyed, including the Palestinian Authority Gaza City parliament building, the presidential compound on the Mediterranean coast, and police stations.
"We want to make sure that reconstruction for the people of Gaza is not reconstruction for the Hamas regime," said Mark Regev, a spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.
Ever since Hamas seized military control of Gaza in 2007 -- by ousting forces loyal to pragmatic Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas -- after it swept parliamentary elections the year before, Israel has effectively frozen most international development work by preventing most building materials from getting into Gaza.
Israel's latest military campaign in Gaza caused an estimated $2 billion in damage. Palestinian Authority officials estimate that 4,000 homes were destroyed and another 17,000 were damaged.
At the upcoming donor conference, the major players are expected to confront the difficult question of how to rebuild Gaza while sidelining Hamas.
Abbas' allies are floating a plan to channel money directly to the thousands of Gazans who lost their homes. So long as Hamas and Abbas remain at odds, Gaza's rulers are likely to resist any rebuilding plans that they see as undermining their power.
Egypt is trying to broker a new round of talks to reunite Abbas and Hamas, but there are few signs that the two sides are prepared to set aside their differences quickly and reconcile. Also, so long as Hamas refuses to renounce its stated goal of destroying Israel, it's likely to continue to face international isolation.
Beyond rebuilding Gazan homes, it isn't clear what will be done to reconstruct the dozens of factories and businesses that Israeli strikes destroyed.
Israel also is concerned that Hamas will seize aid coming into Gaza, as the group did earlier this month, when it took thousands of blankets and hundreds of food packages from a United Nations warehouse in Gaza.
Hamas returned the goods after the United Nations refugee agency suspended deliveries of aid in Gaza, but the incident remains a concern for the United Nations and aid groups who are working there.
Each day, Israeli and United Nations officials sit down together in an office in Tel Aviv, Israel, to debate what the most important things are to let into Gaza: tents for the thousands of Palestinians who don't have homes now or glass to replace the windows that the Israeli attacks shattered? Should shoes take priority over first aid kits? Is it more important to bring in diapers or shovels?
"We're at the stage now where, for all of us in the humanitarian aid community, this is an unacceptable process," said Charles Clayton, the head of the Association of International Development Agencies, an umbrella organization that represents 75 groups. "It's not the details, it's the entire process which is unacceptable."