Israeli-Palestinian conflict (36 Viewers)
- Thread starter ReBeL
- Start date
Nothing new really, but it's not every day that I meet an Israeli while I know plenty of Arabs so it was nice hearing their thoughts live. Naturally he was very biased, though.
On Monday they've invited a Palestinian representative, something which I'll attend as well. Most likely he will not need Mossad protection and the atmosphere will be friendlier and more productive.
On Monday they've invited a Palestinian representative, something which I'll attend as well. Most likely he will not need Mossad protection and the atmosphere will be friendlier and more productive.
Israel seizes Gaza-bound aid ship
A Lebanese ship carrying aid for Gaza was stopped by the Israeli navy and is being escorted into port, Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak says.
Earlier, officials in Lebanon said Israeli gunboats had fired on the ship before soldiers boarded it. No-one is thought to have been hurt.
Lebanese PM Fouad Siniora has called on the international community to persuade Israel to allow the shipment through.
In the West Bank, Israeli troops have killed a Palestinian militant.
The Israeli military said Ala a-Din Abu Rop was a local commander of the armed wing of the Islamic Jihad group.
There have been sporadic incidents of violence since Hamas and Israel declared separate ceasefires on 18 January, following Israel's three-week attack on the Gaza Strip.
The aid ship was reported to have set off from the Lebanese port of Tripoli on Tuesday carrying 50 tonnes of medical supplies, food, clothing and toys for Gaza.
Also on board were eight activists and journalists, as well as the former Greek-Catholic archbishop of Jerusalem, Monsignor Hilarion Capucci, who had served time in an Israeli jail in the 1970s for his membership of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO).
An organiser of the shipment, Maen Bashur, said the ship was confronted by an Israeli military boat 32km (19 miles) off the Gazan coast late on Wednesday.
"We were informed by the crew that the Israeli forces boarded the ship after firing shots at it," he told the AFP news agency. "We have lost contact with them."
He said the ship was asked to turn back as "two Israeli military helicopters flew over the area and fired flares".
Ehud Barak confirmed the ship was in Israeli hands.
"The navy boarded the vessel, stopped it and it is now bringing it to [the Israeli port of] Ashdod," he said.
Ala a-Din Abu Rop was shot dead by Israeli troops during a raid on his home near Jenin, in the West Bank, on Thursday.
An Israeli military spokesman said the 21-year-old was suspected of involvement in attacks on Israelis.
He was fully armed when troops stormed his home, and weapons and ammunition were found during the search, the military said.
Ala a-Din Abu Rop's father said his son had been sleeping, alongside his brothers, when soldiers broke into the house before dawn.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7871874.stm
A Lebanese ship carrying aid for Gaza was stopped by the Israeli navy and is being escorted into port, Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak says.
Earlier, officials in Lebanon said Israeli gunboats had fired on the ship before soldiers boarded it. No-one is thought to have been hurt.
Lebanese PM Fouad Siniora has called on the international community to persuade Israel to allow the shipment through.
In the West Bank, Israeli troops have killed a Palestinian militant.
The Israeli military said Ala a-Din Abu Rop was a local commander of the armed wing of the Islamic Jihad group.
There have been sporadic incidents of violence since Hamas and Israel declared separate ceasefires on 18 January, following Israel's three-week attack on the Gaza Strip.
The aid ship was reported to have set off from the Lebanese port of Tripoli on Tuesday carrying 50 tonnes of medical supplies, food, clothing and toys for Gaza.
Also on board were eight activists and journalists, as well as the former Greek-Catholic archbishop of Jerusalem, Monsignor Hilarion Capucci, who had served time in an Israeli jail in the 1970s for his membership of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO).
An organiser of the shipment, Maen Bashur, said the ship was confronted by an Israeli military boat 32km (19 miles) off the Gazan coast late on Wednesday.
"We were informed by the crew that the Israeli forces boarded the ship after firing shots at it," he told the AFP news agency. "We have lost contact with them."
He said the ship was asked to turn back as "two Israeli military helicopters flew over the area and fired flares".
Ehud Barak confirmed the ship was in Israeli hands.
"The navy boarded the vessel, stopped it and it is now bringing it to [the Israeli port of] Ashdod," he said.
Ala a-Din Abu Rop was shot dead by Israeli troops during a raid on his home near Jenin, in the West Bank, on Thursday.
An Israeli military spokesman said the 21-year-old was suspected of involvement in attacks on Israelis.
He was fully armed when troops stormed his home, and weapons and ammunition were found during the search, the military said.
Ala a-Din Abu Rop's father said his son had been sleeping, alongside his brothers, when soldiers broke into the house before dawn.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7871874.stm
Did the Israeli Army Wage Jewish Jihad in Gaza?
The greater role of Jewish extremist religious groups in the Israeli army came to light last week when it emerged that the army rabbinate had handed out a booklet to soldiers preparing for the recent 22-day Gaza offensive.
Extremist rabbis and their followers, bent on waging holy war against the Palestinians, are taking over the Israeli army by stealth, according to critics.
In a process one military historian has termed the rapid “theologisation” of the Israeli army, there are now entire units of religious combat soldiers, many of them based in West Bank settlements. They answer to hardline rabbis who call for the establishment of a Greater Israel that includes the occupied Palestinian territories.
Their influence in shaping the army’s goals and methods is starting to be felt, say observers, as more and more graduates from officer courses are also drawn from Israel’s religious extremist population.
“We have reached the point where a critical mass of religious soldiers is trying to negotiate with the army about how and for what purpose military force is employed on the battlefield,” said Yigal Levy, a political sociologist at the Open University who has written several books on the Israeli army.
The new atmosphere was evident in the “excessive force” used in the recent Gaza operation, Dr Levy said. More than 1,300 Palestinians were killed, a majority of them civilians, and thousands were injured as whole neighbourhoods of Gaza were levelled.
“When soldiers, including secular ones, are imbued with theological ideas, it makes them less sensitive to human rights or the suffering of the other side.”
The greater role of extremist religious groups in the army came to light last week when it emerged that the army rabbinate had handed out a booklet to soldiers preparing for the recent 22-day Gaza offensive.
Yesh Din, an Israeli human rights group, said the material contained messages “bordering on racist incitement against the Palestinian people” and might have encouraged soldiers to ignore international law.
The booklet quotes extensively from Shlomo Aviner, a far-right rabbi who heads a religious seminary in the Muslim quarter of East Jerusalem. He compares the Palestinians to the Philistines, the Biblical enemy of the Jews.
He advises: “When you show mercy to a cruel enemy, you are being cruel to pure and honest soldiers … This is a war on murderers.” He also cites a Biblical ban on “surrendering a single millimetre” of Greater Israel.
The booklet was approved by the army’s chief rabbi, Brig Gen Avichai Ronsky, who is reportedly determined to improve the army’s “combat values” after its failure to crush Hizbollah in Lebanon in 2006.
Gen Ronsky was appointed three years ago in a move designed, according to the Israeli media, to placate hardline religious elements within the army and the settler community.
Gen Ronsky, himself a settler in the West Bank community of Itimar, near Nablus, is close to far-right groups. According to reports, he pays regular visits to jailed members of Jewish terror groups; he has offered his home to a settler who is under house arrest for wounding Palestinians; and he has introduced senior officers to a small group of extremist settlers who live among more than 150,000 Palestinians in Hebron.
He has also radically overhauled the rabbinate, which was originally founded to offer religious services and ensure religious soldiers were able to observe the sabbath and eat kosher meals in army canteens.
Over the past year the rabbinate has effectively taken over the role of the army’s education corps through its Jewish Awareness Department, which co-ordinates its activities with Elad, a settler organisation that is active in East Jerusalem.
In October, the Haaretz newspaper quoted an unnamed senior officer who accused the rabbinate of carrying out the religious and political “brainwashing” of troops.
Dr Levy said the army rabbinate’s power was growing as the ranks of religious soldiers swelled.
Breaking the Silence, a project run by soldiers seeking to expose the army’s behaviour against Palestinians, said the booklet handed out to troops in Gaza had originated among Hebron’s settlers.
“The document has been around since at least 2003,” said Mikhael Manekin, 29, one of the group’s directors and himself religiously observant. “But what is new is that the army has been effectively subcontracted to promote the views of the extremist settlers to its soldiers.”
The power of the religious right in the army reflected wider social trends inside Israel, Dr Levy said. He pointed out that the rural cooperatives known as kibbutzim that were once home to Israel’s secular middle classes and produced the bulk of its officer corps had been on the wane since the early 1980s.
“The vacuum left by their gradual retreat from the army was filled by religious youngsters and by the children of the settlements. They now dominate in many branches of the army.”
According to figures cited in the Israeli media, more than one-third of all Israel’s combat soldiers are religious, as are more than 40 per cent of those graduating from officer courses.
The army has encouraged this trend by creating some two dozen hesder yeshivas, seminaries in which youths can combine Biblical studies with army service in separate religious units. Many of the yeshivas are based in the West Bank, where students are educated by the settlements’ extremist rabbis.
Ehud Barak, the defence minister, has rapidly expanded the programme, approving four yeshivas, three based in settlements, last summer. Another 10 are reportedly awaiting his approval.
Mr Manekin, however, warned against blaming the violence inflicted on Gaza’s civilians solely on the influence of religious extremists.
“The army is still run by the secular elites in Israel and they have always been reckless with regard to the safety of civilians when they wage war. Jewish nationalism that justifies Palestinian deaths is just as dangerous as religious extremism.”
Jonathan Cook
http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=30234
The greater role of Jewish extremist religious groups in the Israeli army came to light last week when it emerged that the army rabbinate had handed out a booklet to soldiers preparing for the recent 22-day Gaza offensive.
Extremist rabbis and their followers, bent on waging holy war against the Palestinians, are taking over the Israeli army by stealth, according to critics.
In a process one military historian has termed the rapid “theologisation” of the Israeli army, there are now entire units of religious combat soldiers, many of them based in West Bank settlements. They answer to hardline rabbis who call for the establishment of a Greater Israel that includes the occupied Palestinian territories.
Their influence in shaping the army’s goals and methods is starting to be felt, say observers, as more and more graduates from officer courses are also drawn from Israel’s religious extremist population.
“We have reached the point where a critical mass of religious soldiers is trying to negotiate with the army about how and for what purpose military force is employed on the battlefield,” said Yigal Levy, a political sociologist at the Open University who has written several books on the Israeli army.
The new atmosphere was evident in the “excessive force” used in the recent Gaza operation, Dr Levy said. More than 1,300 Palestinians were killed, a majority of them civilians, and thousands were injured as whole neighbourhoods of Gaza were levelled.
“When soldiers, including secular ones, are imbued with theological ideas, it makes them less sensitive to human rights or the suffering of the other side.”
The greater role of extremist religious groups in the army came to light last week when it emerged that the army rabbinate had handed out a booklet to soldiers preparing for the recent 22-day Gaza offensive.
Yesh Din, an Israeli human rights group, said the material contained messages “bordering on racist incitement against the Palestinian people” and might have encouraged soldiers to ignore international law.
The booklet quotes extensively from Shlomo Aviner, a far-right rabbi who heads a religious seminary in the Muslim quarter of East Jerusalem. He compares the Palestinians to the Philistines, the Biblical enemy of the Jews.
He advises: “When you show mercy to a cruel enemy, you are being cruel to pure and honest soldiers … This is a war on murderers.” He also cites a Biblical ban on “surrendering a single millimetre” of Greater Israel.
The booklet was approved by the army’s chief rabbi, Brig Gen Avichai Ronsky, who is reportedly determined to improve the army’s “combat values” after its failure to crush Hizbollah in Lebanon in 2006.
Gen Ronsky was appointed three years ago in a move designed, according to the Israeli media, to placate hardline religious elements within the army and the settler community.
Gen Ronsky, himself a settler in the West Bank community of Itimar, near Nablus, is close to far-right groups. According to reports, he pays regular visits to jailed members of Jewish terror groups; he has offered his home to a settler who is under house arrest for wounding Palestinians; and he has introduced senior officers to a small group of extremist settlers who live among more than 150,000 Palestinians in Hebron.
He has also radically overhauled the rabbinate, which was originally founded to offer religious services and ensure religious soldiers were able to observe the sabbath and eat kosher meals in army canteens.
Over the past year the rabbinate has effectively taken over the role of the army’s education corps through its Jewish Awareness Department, which co-ordinates its activities with Elad, a settler organisation that is active in East Jerusalem.
In October, the Haaretz newspaper quoted an unnamed senior officer who accused the rabbinate of carrying out the religious and political “brainwashing” of troops.
Dr Levy said the army rabbinate’s power was growing as the ranks of religious soldiers swelled.
Breaking the Silence, a project run by soldiers seeking to expose the army’s behaviour against Palestinians, said the booklet handed out to troops in Gaza had originated among Hebron’s settlers.
“The document has been around since at least 2003,” said Mikhael Manekin, 29, one of the group’s directors and himself religiously observant. “But what is new is that the army has been effectively subcontracted to promote the views of the extremist settlers to its soldiers.”
The power of the religious right in the army reflected wider social trends inside Israel, Dr Levy said. He pointed out that the rural cooperatives known as kibbutzim that were once home to Israel’s secular middle classes and produced the bulk of its officer corps had been on the wane since the early 1980s.
“The vacuum left by their gradual retreat from the army was filled by religious youngsters and by the children of the settlements. They now dominate in many branches of the army.”
According to figures cited in the Israeli media, more than one-third of all Israel’s combat soldiers are religious, as are more than 40 per cent of those graduating from officer courses.
The army has encouraged this trend by creating some two dozen hesder yeshivas, seminaries in which youths can combine Biblical studies with army service in separate religious units. Many of the yeshivas are based in the West Bank, where students are educated by the settlements’ extremist rabbis.
Ehud Barak, the defence minister, has rapidly expanded the programme, approving four yeshivas, three based in settlements, last summer. Another 10 are reportedly awaiting his approval.
Mr Manekin, however, warned against blaming the violence inflicted on Gaza’s civilians solely on the influence of religious extremists.
“The army is still run by the secular elites in Israel and they have always been reckless with regard to the safety of civilians when they wage war. Jewish nationalism that justifies Palestinian deaths is just as dangerous as religious extremism.”
Jonathan Cook
http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=30234
Are the Tables Turning on Israel?
There was a moment of brief exultation when U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was thanking Special Middle East Envoy George Mitchell that seemed she had finally recognized a major stumbling block that he encountered on his just-concluded Mideast tour.
She declared, "We are looking to work with all [emphasis added] of the parties to try to help them make progress toward a negotiated agreement that would end the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, create an independent and viable Palestinian state in both the West Bank and Gaza, and provide Israel with the peace and security that it has sought."
But this feeling was short-lived. In reply to the only question allowed the media, she elaborated, disappointingly: "We have a very clear policy toward Hamas, and Hamas knows the conditions that have been set forth. They must renounce violence. They must recognize Israel. And they must agree to abide by prior agreements that were entered into by the Palestinian Authority.... Our conditions with respect to Hamas have not and will not change."
In essence, this is the view of President Barack Obama. But, nevertheless, all are awaiting his promised "specific response" to what Mitchell has heard on his visit to Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Saudi Arabia but not Gaza where Hamas is still in command and where, the Associated Press reported, "some areas ... have been reduced to moonscapes of flattened buildings [and] the stench of rotting livestock killed in Israeli air strikes fills the air, and thousands of Gazans live in rubble or in tents provided by relief agencies."
Whether Mitchell will be carrying the much-awaited "specific response" that Obama promised on his return trip to the Middle East before the end of the month remains to be seen. Whatever, Obama and his senior aides must now feel more comfortable since they seem to have confounded the Israeli lobby, which appears to have had sleepless nights bombarding their diminishing audiences with pro-Israel propaganda.
The tables are turning. For a start, Americans no longer have to put up, as The New York Times columnist, Nicholas D. Kristof, wrote with "President [George W.] Bush's problem ... that he loved Israel too much."
Richard W. Murphy, a former assistant secretary of State for Near Eastern affairs, told the Council of Foreign Relations last week that he does not think that any U.S. contacts with Hamas will happen "quickly," but "I think it is inevitable." He explained that "there are ways to signal that we're not going to continue to blackball Hamas as a player in Palestinian politics."
Robert A. Pastor, a senior advisor to the Carter Center who accompanied former U.S. President Jimmy Carter on his trip last summer to the Middle East, pointed out that the basic equation of an Israeli-Hamas cease-fire ought to be "very simple and very direct." Speaking at The Palestine Center in Washington, he said this means "no rockets from Gaza into Israel [and] no military incursions or subversions in either Gaza or in Israel."
He also empathized that all the border crossings need to be opened on "a specified formula, with a number of trucks that should be going in at a certain period of time." He noted that Israel had not lived up to its commitment in last year's agreement, allowing only 100 to 200 trucks rather than 750 trucks a day, a factor which precipitated last month's bloody conflict.
The price that Israel has paid for its disproportionate assault on Gaza has been costly, particularly in public opinion in the United States and overseas. The current issue of Newsweek carried the following headline on one of its features: "Israel Has Fewer Friends than Ever, Even in America."
Israel, the magazine added, "has never been more isolated." Quoting the Pew poll which showed that 55 percent of U.S. Republicans, but only 45 percent of Democrats, approve of Israel's assault on Gaza, the magazine said: "Given that Democrats now rule, Israel may need to worry more about the mood on Main Street than on the Arab street."
And Bob Simon of CBS's much-watched Sunday program, "60 Minutes," did an unbelievably masterful presentation exposing how the Israeli army seized a Palestinian home in the Israeli-occupied West Bank so that it soldiers can use without permission its upper floor as a lookout post. The Palestinian family was forced to sleep on the ground floor while the soldiers slept upstairs in their beds. This it turned out to be a common occurrence and the Palestinians have no recourse within the Israeli political system.
Moreover, and for the first time, a group of American university professors have launched a national campaign calling for an academic and cultural boycott of Israel, a common practice in Europe, especially in Britain.
M. J. Rosenberg, director of Israel Policy Forum's Washington Policy Center, believes that Obama and Clinton "share our view that the [Israeli] occupation is a curse."
Insha-Allah (God willing), as the Arabs would say.
by George Hishmeh
http://www.metimes.com/International/2009/02/05/are_the_tables_turning_on_israel/8507/
There was a moment of brief exultation when U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was thanking Special Middle East Envoy George Mitchell that seemed she had finally recognized a major stumbling block that he encountered on his just-concluded Mideast tour.
She declared, "We are looking to work with all [emphasis added] of the parties to try to help them make progress toward a negotiated agreement that would end the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, create an independent and viable Palestinian state in both the West Bank and Gaza, and provide Israel with the peace and security that it has sought."
But this feeling was short-lived. In reply to the only question allowed the media, she elaborated, disappointingly: "We have a very clear policy toward Hamas, and Hamas knows the conditions that have been set forth. They must renounce violence. They must recognize Israel. And they must agree to abide by prior agreements that were entered into by the Palestinian Authority.... Our conditions with respect to Hamas have not and will not change."
In essence, this is the view of President Barack Obama. But, nevertheless, all are awaiting his promised "specific response" to what Mitchell has heard on his visit to Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Saudi Arabia but not Gaza where Hamas is still in command and where, the Associated Press reported, "some areas ... have been reduced to moonscapes of flattened buildings [and] the stench of rotting livestock killed in Israeli air strikes fills the air, and thousands of Gazans live in rubble or in tents provided by relief agencies."
Whether Mitchell will be carrying the much-awaited "specific response" that Obama promised on his return trip to the Middle East before the end of the month remains to be seen. Whatever, Obama and his senior aides must now feel more comfortable since they seem to have confounded the Israeli lobby, which appears to have had sleepless nights bombarding their diminishing audiences with pro-Israel propaganda.
The tables are turning. For a start, Americans no longer have to put up, as The New York Times columnist, Nicholas D. Kristof, wrote with "President [George W.] Bush's problem ... that he loved Israel too much."
Richard W. Murphy, a former assistant secretary of State for Near Eastern affairs, told the Council of Foreign Relations last week that he does not think that any U.S. contacts with Hamas will happen "quickly," but "I think it is inevitable." He explained that "there are ways to signal that we're not going to continue to blackball Hamas as a player in Palestinian politics."
Robert A. Pastor, a senior advisor to the Carter Center who accompanied former U.S. President Jimmy Carter on his trip last summer to the Middle East, pointed out that the basic equation of an Israeli-Hamas cease-fire ought to be "very simple and very direct." Speaking at The Palestine Center in Washington, he said this means "no rockets from Gaza into Israel [and] no military incursions or subversions in either Gaza or in Israel."
He also empathized that all the border crossings need to be opened on "a specified formula, with a number of trucks that should be going in at a certain period of time." He noted that Israel had not lived up to its commitment in last year's agreement, allowing only 100 to 200 trucks rather than 750 trucks a day, a factor which precipitated last month's bloody conflict.
The price that Israel has paid for its disproportionate assault on Gaza has been costly, particularly in public opinion in the United States and overseas. The current issue of Newsweek carried the following headline on one of its features: "Israel Has Fewer Friends than Ever, Even in America."
Israel, the magazine added, "has never been more isolated." Quoting the Pew poll which showed that 55 percent of U.S. Republicans, but only 45 percent of Democrats, approve of Israel's assault on Gaza, the magazine said: "Given that Democrats now rule, Israel may need to worry more about the mood on Main Street than on the Arab street."
And Bob Simon of CBS's much-watched Sunday program, "60 Minutes," did an unbelievably masterful presentation exposing how the Israeli army seized a Palestinian home in the Israeli-occupied West Bank so that it soldiers can use without permission its upper floor as a lookout post. The Palestinian family was forced to sleep on the ground floor while the soldiers slept upstairs in their beds. This it turned out to be a common occurrence and the Palestinians have no recourse within the Israeli political system.
Moreover, and for the first time, a group of American university professors have launched a national campaign calling for an academic and cultural boycott of Israel, a common practice in Europe, especially in Britain.
M. J. Rosenberg, director of Israel Policy Forum's Washington Policy Center, believes that Obama and Clinton "share our view that the [Israeli] occupation is a curse."
Insha-Allah (God willing), as the Arabs would say.
by George Hishmeh
http://www.metimes.com/International/2009/02/05/are_the_tables_turning_on_israel/8507/
JERUSALEM – Two rockets fired by Palestinian militants struck southern Israel on Sunday, Israel's military said, violating an informal truce even as Israel and Gaza's Hamas rulers appeared to hurry closer to a long-term cease-fire deal two days before Israeli elections.
The Gaza Strip's strongman was in Syria, consulting with his Hamas bosses about the truce talks, while Israel's defense minister warned Israelis they would have to pay a painful price as part of any deal. The flurry of activity came just two days before Israelis elect a new government expected to take a harder line in talks with the Palestinians.
The Hamas representative in Lebanon, Osama Hamadan, said negotiations would continue in Cairo on Tuesday and Wednesday.
"I believe it is more logical to discuss the issue of truce with a new (Israeli) government instead of one which is leaving in hours," he said in an interview on the Lebanese TV station ANB, though a new Israeli government would not take office until several weeks after the election.
Israel unilaterally ended a blistering, three-week offensive in Gaza, meant to halt years of rocket fire on southern Israeli communities, last month. Some 1,300 Palestinians were killed, according to Gaza health officials, and the government said 13 Israelis also died. Vast areas of Gaza were destroyed or heavily damaged. Hamas announced its own cease-fire the same day.
While Egypt has been trying to broker a long-term cease-fire, sporadic violence has persisted. In separate attacks, Palestinian rockets exploded in the Nir Am communal farm and the southern city of Ashkelon. No injuries were reported, though cars and buildings were damaged, authorities said.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for either attack.
With Israeli elections approaching Tuesday, both sides appeared to be racing to reach some sort of arrangement. Polls show that Israel's next government would be much more hawkish than the current coalition, adding urgency to seal a deal.
Israel wants militants to halt their attacks, end arms smuggling into Gaza and release an Israeli soldier Hamas has held captive for more than 2 1/2 years.
Hamas wants an end to Israel's economic blockade of Gaza, which has severely restricted the movement of goods since Hamas seized power in June 2007. It also has demanded the release of more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners held by Israel in return for the soldier, Sgt. Gilad Schalit. Hundreds of the prisoners have been involved in deadly attacks on Israel, and their release would likely generate unease if not outright controversy.
Mahmoud Zahar, Hamas' Gaza strongman, was in the Syrian capital, Damascus, on Sunday to discuss truce prospects with the group's exiled leadership. Israel allowed Zahar, who had been in hiding since the Israeli offensive, to leave Gaza on Saturday.
Mohammed Nazzal, a member of Hamas' exiled leadership, said Hamas would not rush an agreement just because of the Israeli election.
"We do not set our agenda according to others' calendars or schedules, meaning that we are not concerned about the Israeli elections ... we are concerned about signing a decent deal," he told al-Jazeera. He also said there was nothing new to report in the Schalit case.
Speaking to reporters in Israel, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said he was doing his utmost to bring Schalit home.
"We're not talking about hocus-pocus in which we roll the dice and get Gilad Schalit in return for a nice smile or a gesture," he said. "In the end, attached to it is a heavy and painful price that we'll have to decide on."
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said media reports in recent days of an impending release were "overblown and damaging."
In Gaza, the Palestinian Center for Human Rights demanded an investigation into the death of a man who appeared to have been tortured by Hamas. The man, 51-year-old Jamil Shakoura, was not believed to be affiliated with any opposition group.
Rights groups frequently charge that Gaza's Hamas rulers use detentions and beatings to intimidate opponents. A Hamas official said the matter is under investigation.
In the West Bank, ruled by the main Hamas rival Fatah, security officials said a Hamas loyalist, 30-year-old Mohammed Hajj, used his shirt as a noose to hang himself two days after he was arrested in the northern town of Jenin. Their brief statement did not say why he was arrested.
The Gaza Strip's strongman was in Syria, consulting with his Hamas bosses about the truce talks, while Israel's defense minister warned Israelis they would have to pay a painful price as part of any deal. The flurry of activity came just two days before Israelis elect a new government expected to take a harder line in talks with the Palestinians.
The Hamas representative in Lebanon, Osama Hamadan, said negotiations would continue in Cairo on Tuesday and Wednesday.
"I believe it is more logical to discuss the issue of truce with a new (Israeli) government instead of one which is leaving in hours," he said in an interview on the Lebanese TV station ANB, though a new Israeli government would not take office until several weeks after the election.
Israel unilaterally ended a blistering, three-week offensive in Gaza, meant to halt years of rocket fire on southern Israeli communities, last month. Some 1,300 Palestinians were killed, according to Gaza health officials, and the government said 13 Israelis also died. Vast areas of Gaza were destroyed or heavily damaged. Hamas announced its own cease-fire the same day.
While Egypt has been trying to broker a long-term cease-fire, sporadic violence has persisted. In separate attacks, Palestinian rockets exploded in the Nir Am communal farm and the southern city of Ashkelon. No injuries were reported, though cars and buildings were damaged, authorities said.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for either attack.
With Israeli elections approaching Tuesday, both sides appeared to be racing to reach some sort of arrangement. Polls show that Israel's next government would be much more hawkish than the current coalition, adding urgency to seal a deal.
Israel wants militants to halt their attacks, end arms smuggling into Gaza and release an Israeli soldier Hamas has held captive for more than 2 1/2 years.
Hamas wants an end to Israel's economic blockade of Gaza, which has severely restricted the movement of goods since Hamas seized power in June 2007. It also has demanded the release of more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners held by Israel in return for the soldier, Sgt. Gilad Schalit. Hundreds of the prisoners have been involved in deadly attacks on Israel, and their release would likely generate unease if not outright controversy.
Mahmoud Zahar, Hamas' Gaza strongman, was in the Syrian capital, Damascus, on Sunday to discuss truce prospects with the group's exiled leadership. Israel allowed Zahar, who had been in hiding since the Israeli offensive, to leave Gaza on Saturday.
Mohammed Nazzal, a member of Hamas' exiled leadership, said Hamas would not rush an agreement just because of the Israeli election.
"We do not set our agenda according to others' calendars or schedules, meaning that we are not concerned about the Israeli elections ... we are concerned about signing a decent deal," he told al-Jazeera. He also said there was nothing new to report in the Schalit case.
Speaking to reporters in Israel, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said he was doing his utmost to bring Schalit home.
"We're not talking about hocus-pocus in which we roll the dice and get Gilad Schalit in return for a nice smile or a gesture," he said. "In the end, attached to it is a heavy and painful price that we'll have to decide on."
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said media reports in recent days of an impending release were "overblown and damaging."
In Gaza, the Palestinian Center for Human Rights demanded an investigation into the death of a man who appeared to have been tortured by Hamas. The man, 51-year-old Jamil Shakoura, was not believed to be affiliated with any opposition group.
Rights groups frequently charge that Gaza's Hamas rulers use detentions and beatings to intimidate opponents. A Hamas official said the matter is under investigation.
In the West Bank, ruled by the main Hamas rival Fatah, security officials said a Hamas loyalist, 30-year-old Mohammed Hajj, used his shirt as a noose to hang himself two days after he was arrested in the northern town of Jenin. Their brief statement did not say why he was arrested.
http://www.amnesty.org/en/news-and-...-deadly-campaign-war-devastated-gaza-20090212
They bring tears to my eyes, these brave freedom fighters
.
They bring tears to my eyes, these brave freedom fighters
.
http://www.amnesty.org/en/news-and-...-deadly-campaign-war-devastated-gaza-20090212
They bring tears to my eyes, these brave freedom fighters.
They bring tears to my eyes, these brave freedom fighters
.
People who live in glass houses should not throw stones.
Which is exactly my point, but you didn't think it through. Who's the one complaining about human rights violations? Not me.
I also think that the atrocities committed by Belgium in particular are quite few
.
I also think that the atrocities committed by Belgium in particular are quite few
.
Lets compare who killed more people. We all know what the result will be.