April 20, 2012

Middle East News: World Press Roundup

NEWS: Hamas leader Abu Marzook, in a wide-ranging interview with the Jewish Daily Forward, says his organization seeks a long-term truce with Israel, but not peace, and would not be bound by any conflict-ending agreement made by the PLO. Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood condemns a visit to occupied East Jerusalem by Grand Mufti Gomaa. An Israeli man is stabbed by a Palestinian in occupied East Jerusalem. Israeli officials say rockets fired from Gaza were smuggled from Libya. UN officials say the execution of three men by Hamas recently was unlawful and executions should stop. Doctors say an 18-year-old Palestinian shepherd was shot by Israeli forces during a training exercise in the northern West Bank. Newly released Israeli documents describe the interrogation of Marwan Barghouti 10 years ago. Pres. Abbas may be using is Asia tour to gauge support for Palestinian UN nonmember state status. A Danish protester whose assault by an Israeli soldier was caught on video says no one would have cared about the incident if he were a Palestinian. Fewer Israelis are immigrating to the United States in recent years and more are returning to Israel due to a booming economy. COMMENTARY: Raja Shehadeh says Palestinians handled this Easter's celebrations superbly. Shmuel Rosner says the uproar over the proposed law allowing the Knesset to overrule the Supreme Court is unjustified. Baha Hilo says, despite Israeli claims, real problems facing Palestinian Christians mainly come from dealing with Israel, not Palestinian Muslims. Ha'aretz says Israel is allowing settlers to impose anarchy in the occupied Palestinian territories. Hirsh Goodman says the Israeli soldier who struck unarmed activists with his rifle is a disgrace. Patrick Seale says Israel's regional power is waning, and will be even further eroded if Western negotiations with Iran on its nuclear program are successful. Yossi Eli looks at the complicated story behind the reopening of the St. George Hotel in occupied East Jerusalem. Omri Meniv looks at controversies surrounding whether or not to include any aspects of the Palestinian national narrative in Israel's school curricula. Jackson Diehl says Abbas is continuously undermining his own cause through miscalculations. The National says dismantling the PA may be too extreme but when Palestinians are reduced to self-starvation to gain leverage with Israel, something is urgently required to radically alter the status quo.

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Hamas Wouldn’t Honor a Treaty, Top Leader Says

Cairo — Any agreement reached between Israel and the Palestinian Authority will be subject to far-reaching changes if Hamas comes to power in a democratic Palestinian state, a top Hamas leader told the Forward in an exclusive and wide-ranging interview.

Egypt’s Brotherhood Blasts Mufti’s Jerusalem Visit

CAIRO — Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood on Thursday denounced a rare visit to Jerusalem by the nation's top Islamic theologian that broke with decades of opposition to traveling to areas under Israeli control.

Grand Mufti Ali Gomaa replied that his two-hour visit on Wednesday was a show of solidarity with the Palestinians' claim to Israeli-held east Jerusalem.

Police: Israeli Wounded in Stabbing Attack by Arab

JERUSALEM — Police say an Israeli has been stabbed in an attack by an Arab in Jerusalem.

The ultra-Orthodox Jewish man was seriously wounded and was taken to a hospital.

Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld says two suspects were arrested following the incident Thursday. It took place near a Jewish prayer site in a predominantly Arab area.

The attack is the latest in a series of politically-motivated stabbings in Jerusalem. Last month, an Israeli soldier was seriously wounded in a stabbing attack on Jerusalem's light rail line.

Israeli Official: Rockets Fired Toward Israel Were Smuggled From Libya after Gadhafi’s Fall

JERUSALEM — An Israeli defense official says rockets fired from Egypt toward Israel this month were smuggled from Libya.

Israel says at least two rockets were launched from Egypt’s Sinai desert at the Israeli resort town of Eilat. No one was hurt. Egypt denies the rockets were fired from its territory.

Libya has become an illicit source of weapons since the fall of dictator Moammar Gadhafi last year.

UN Rights Office Says Gaza Death Sentences Unlawful, Urges Hamas to Halt Planned Firing Squad

GENEVA — The U.N.’s human rights office says three men recently sentenced to death in the Palestinian territory of Gaza were executed unlawfully.

A spokesman for U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay says the men didn’t have regular access to lawyers and were tried by a military court despite being civilians.

Rupert Colville told reporters in Geneva that the death sentences carried out by hanging April 7 also weren’t approved by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas as required by law.

Medics: Palestinian Teen Shot During Israeli Military Training

TUBAS (Ma'an) -- Israeli soldiers shot an 18-year-old shepherd in the chest on Thursday evening during military training exercises in the northern West Bank, medics said.

Yasir Suleiman Nijad Kaabnah was shot while herding sheep and camels near Wadi al-Maleh in the northern Jordan Valley, medics told Ma'an.

Salem Kaabneh, the victim's uncle who was with him when he was shot, told Ma'an that Israeli troops who were training in the area fired at Suleiman injuring him in the chest.

Grilling of Top Palestinian Militant Exposes Arafat’s Link to Terror Attacks on Israelis, papers Show

On April 15, 2002, 10 years ago this week, Marwan Barghouti, the secretary general of Fatah's Tanzim militia, was arrested by members of the undercover Duvdevan unit of the Israel Defense Forces in Ramallah. His capture was preceded by two weeks of cat-and-mouse games with the IDF and the Shin Bet security service, during which the Israelis also disseminated threatening hints about an intention to assassinate him.

Abbas Seeks Support for Non-Member Palestinian State

RAMALLAH, April 19 (Xinhua) -- Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' recent tour in Asia aimed to lobby for support for giving the Palestinians the status of non-member state in the United Nations, a Palestinian official said Thursday.

"Abbas sought international support for the Palestinian position as peace talks with Israel are crippled," said Palestinian foreign minister Riad Al-Maliki, he also sought support "for going to the UN General Assembly" to ask for upgrading the Palestinian statue to a non-member state.

Danish Protester: ‘No One Would Care if a Palestinian was hit with a Rifle’

Without the video, all Andreas Ias would have to show for his weekend bicycle ride in the Jordan valley would be two stitches and a slightly swollen lower lip – plus a hardening anger about the treatment by Israeli soldiers of Palestinians.

But a few seconds of footage uploaded to YouTube catapulted the 20-year-old Danish activist into the media spotlight, drew statements from the Israeli prime minister, president and chief of staff, led to the disciplining of an Israeli army officer, and prompted debate over the use of video cameras as a weapon of modern warfare.

Fewer Israelis Immigrate to U.S.

The various laws of return seem to be working. Fewer Israelis are moving to the United States while a growing number of American Jews are immigrating to the Jewish state and more Israelis living abroad are making their way back home, new immigration statistics show.

The numbers seem to herald a victory for Israel, which has taken bold steps to keep its citizens from moving away. But the immigration data may be more indicative of America’s economic woes than of Israel’s growing attractiveness.

Easter in Ramallah

RAMALLAH, West Bank — Almost every year for over one hundred years on the Saturday before Orthodox Easter, the main street in Ramallah has been overtaken by marching boy scouts and girl scouts banging drums and blowing trumpets before tens of thousands of onlookers.

It isn’t much of a parade. The music is as loud and out of tune as it is enthusiastic. Yet I try never to miss Sabt el Nour and the rowdy procession celebrating the miraculous light that beamed from Christ’s tomb in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in the Old City of Jerusalem the day before his resurrection.

Neeman’s Own

JERUSALEM — About two weeks ago, on the eve of Passover, Israel’s Justice Minister, Yaakov Neeman, dropped a policy bomb. He proposed a bill that would allow a small majority of legislators in the Knesset to reinstate laws struck down by the Supreme Court.

An occasional Palestinian Christian encounter of Israeli intolerance

The Israeli ambassador to the US appears to really believe that Palestinian Christians suffer significantly from Palestinian Muslims, and just occasionally from Israeli intolerance.

Palestinian Christians' reality is the complete opposite.

The ambassador's latest missives in the American press have provoked Palestinian Christian leaders to remind him and his readers that Israel really isn't all that friendly to its Christians.

Israel fights anarchy on all fronts, except in West Bank

The prime minister, several cabinet members and senior IDF officers boasted this week of their victory over "anarchists" who wanted to disrupt law and order in the territories. Lt. Col. Shalom Eisner's proponents argued that the deputy commander of the Jordan Valley brigade, who smashed his rifle in the face of a Danish peace activist, was protecting his soldiers from a group of anarchists.

Postscript: A shroud of shame

Lt.-Col. Shalom Eisner, a senior officer in the Central Command, takes his rifle butt and bashes it into the face of a young Danish pro-Palestinian protester on a bicycle near Jericho. Instead of flatly condemning the officer, this paper, among others, has tried to justify his actions both editorially and by publishing op-ed pieces and letters in his defense.

Israel's diminishing power

Although it is too early to make a judgement, it looks as if Israel's Iran policy has back-fired and may result in a very different outcome from the one Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has long sought. Israel's thinking these past three years has been that punitive sanctions, cyber warfare and the assassination of Iran's nuclear scientists must eventually force a crippled Islamic Republic to agree to ‘zero enrichment' of uranium — that is to say to dismantle its entire nuclear programme.

The Return of East Jerusalem's Most Luxurious Hotel

From the 1960s until the eruption of the Second Intifada in 2000, the Saint George Hotel was the most luxurious and famous hotel in East Jerusalem. Last week, a decade after its closure, the hotel on Salah a-Din Street was re-opened, due to surprising economic cooperation between a Palestinian contractor and Jordanian investors.

A Textbook Case for the Clash Of World Views in Israel

The struggle over the nature of civics studies in Israeli schools has reached a new low: the Civil Service Commission is now conducting an inquiry into the actions of Civic Education Inspector Adar Cohen. The issue under examination is whether he allegedly committed ethical offenses, including changing the minutes of the Civics Professional Committee.

Mahmoud Abbas’s unhappy anniversary

It was a year ago this month that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas turned his back on the U.S.-sponsored “peace process” with Israel and embarked on a radically different strategy for achieving Palestinian statehood. It’s time for a reckoning.

Abbas’s step one was the surprise signing of an agreement in Cairo with the Islamic Hamas movement, ruler of the Gaza Strip, that promised to end the rift between Hamas and Abbas’s secular Fatah movement. A joint government was promised that would stage parliamentary and presidential elections within a year — i.e., by now.

Radical action needed after Oslo's decline

In 1993, when the Oslo Accords were signed and the Palestinian Authority was born, the senior Israeli politician Yossi Beilin was a leading advocate for Palestinian self-rule. The accords, and the Authority, were intended to pave the way for permanent solutions on borders, refugees and two-state control.

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