By Rebecca Anna Stoil (
"In the last year, two things have happened:
"Our highest interest is in preventing
To that end, Netanyahu added, "there is coordination with
"The use of the Internet and Twitter against the Iranian regime is a great thing," said Netanyahu. "In past years,
TEHRAN – Brigadier General Seyyed Massoud Jazayeri, the deputy head of Iran’s armed forces headquarters, criticized harshly the performance of the former chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed ElBaradei on Iran’s nuclear dossier. ElBaradei stepped down as the head of the IAEA on November 30, 2009 and IAEA chose Japanese diplomat Yukiya Amano, who took over the office on December 1. The senior military official also urged the new director to change the IAEA’s suspicious actions and double standards towards Iran.
“It is better that ElBaradei avoids meddling in the Iran’s internal affairs, and tries to resolve problems created for some countries during his term in office,” he said.
IAEA officials know that Iran nuclear program is completely legal and peaceful, but hegemonic powers have always made attempts to negatively influence the world public opinion over Iran’s nuclear plans by depicting the truth reversely, he stated. Undoubtedly the former director of the IAEA played a major role in line with the hegemonic powers’ policies to thwart Iran nuclear plans, he added. Jazayeri went on to say that ElBaradei should apologize to Iranian nation on his stances towards Iran nuclear issue, saying, “Iranian nation will never forget ElBaradei’s suspicious and equivocal remarks.
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By Hossein Aryan (
The diplomatic standoff over
Although a majority of Iranian lawmakers have asked the government to scale back its cooperation with the IAEA, Iranian officials have made it clear that the country has no intention of leaving the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, and that the door remains open for further negotiations.
Parliament speaker Ali Larijani too, in spite of an earlier intemperate statement about the IAEA for criticizing
By Steven Edwards (
Iranian snipers in full camouflage march during an annual military parade which marks
Photograph by: Atta Kenare/AFP/Getty Images
Nouri al-Maliki, the Iraqi prime minister, called an emergency meeting of the Iraqi National Security Council, which ruled
But it stopped short of saying what
The
"Iranian forces come to this well periodically, and then at daybreak they withdraw," a senior engineer of Maysan oil Company told Reuters. "They are provoking us . . . I don't know why this is a big deal this time."
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The five Ukrainian sailors who were rescued at sea off the coast of the Lebanese town of
” Lieberman: Anti-Israel views are anti-Semitism”,
"Modern anti-Semitism has taken on the form of being anti-Israel... Instead of saying 'throw the Jews into the sea,' they talk of a world without Zionism, and without Israel," Lieberman said at the Foreign Ministry's third annual Global Forum for Combating Anti-Semitism.
This new form of anti-Semitism is actually far more dangerous, suggested Lieberman. Instead of lowest elements lashing out at Jews in vile hatred, anti-Israelism is spearheaded by society's elite academics, power brokers and human rights groups that are viewed as inherently good and is couched in eloquent language.
But the goal is the same, warned Lieberman. These people "seek to destroy Israel piece by piece."
“There is a need to hold elections and Hamas should not be allowed to disrupt democratic life,” Abbas told the PLO leadership during a 75-minute speech at his headquarters in the
“...When Israel stops settlement activity for a specific period and when it recognizes the borders we are calling for, and these are the legal borders, there would be nothing to prevent us from going to negotiations,” Abbas said, sitting at a table beneath a banner with his picture and that of PLO founder Yasser Arafat.
”Americans support action on Iran - if needed”, The
Just over half of Americans support a military attack on
In such a scenario, 51% of Americans would support targeted military strikes and 44% would oppose them. Fewer of those polled, however, would support
”Israel, EU's new FM start off poorly”, The Jerusalem Post. By Herb Keinon (20/12/2009)
"East Jerusalem is occupied territory together with the West Bank. The EU is opposed to the destruction of homes, the eviction of Arab residents and the construction of the separation barrier," EU Foreign Minister Catherine Ashton.
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”
"The unchanging fundamental is first, a very strong belief in
Matthew Gould, Incoming British Ambassador.
Hamas gunmen at a march in Rafah. [file] Photo: AP
The poll, conducted by Stan Greenberg of Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research, included face-to-face interviews with hundreds of adults in Egypt, Jordan, the West Bank and Gaza, along with a series of focus groups in Cairo and Ramallah...
According to the poll, 58 percent of Gazans said they disapprove of the job being done by Hamas in the Gaza Strip, while 42% of them said they "disapprove strongly." Fifty-seven percent of Palestinians in the West Bank also said they disapprove of Hamas, but only 16% disapproved "strongly."
"I've polled in a number of war zones in the 20th century, including Nicaragua and El Salvador during the conflicts there [in the 1980s], and I polled in Afghanistan under the Taliban, before 9/11," Greenberg said. "And I thought that in Gaza, after [Hamas's 2006] takeover, people would be cautious about responding to the poll. But just look at the results. Nearly 60% of the people there have a negative image of Hamas, and felt free to say it, which says to me that it's even worse than that." The poll also shows Fatah would beat Hamas by a solid 10 percentage points in both the West Bank and Gaza, if Palestinians were to vote in parliamentary elections today. While Fatah's popularity was much higher than Hamas's in the West Bank, by a 45-28% margin, Fatah was still able to edge Hamas by 3% in Gaza, where 33% of those polled said they favored Fatah, compared to 30% for Hamas. When asked who was responsible for the current crisis in Gaza, Israel was overwhelmingly blamed by all the groups polled. But while 5% of Egyptians and Jordanians blamed Hamas for the current crisis, 35% of Palestinians in the West Bank said Hamas was to blame, while 16% of Gazans agreed. Additionally, of all the places polled, Gazans made up the highest percentage - 38% - of those who said they believed that both Israel and Hamas, together, were responsible for the current Gaza crisis. Nonetheless, Gazans and Jordanians both showed a surprisingly high level of support for direct negotiations with Israel. More than half of those two groups - 52% of those polled - said they believed Palestinians should negotiate directly with Israel, accept its right to exist and honor past agreements. Thirty-nine percent of Egyptians said the same, compared to 36% of Palestinians in the West Bank. Also surprising, Greenberg said, was that while 35% of the other groups polled stressed the importance of releasing captive IDF soldier Gilad Schalit, an overwhelming two-thirds of Gazans said the same. The poll also revealed that nearly a decade after the breakdown of the Camp David Accords between Yasser Arafat, then-US president Bill Clinton and then-prime minister Ehud Barak, a majority of those polled in Egypt, Jordan and the West Bank expressed regret that Arafat failed to accept the peace deal proposed there. Fifty-six percent of West Bank Palestinians said that in retrospect, they wished Arafat had accepted the agreement, while 50% of Jordanians and 39% of Egyptians said the same. In Gaza, 57% of those polled said they did not regret Arafat's rejection of the deal.
Greenberg said that these West Bank results show a change of heart since the breakdown of the Camp David talks.
The poll had a margin of error of +/- 3.5%.
The X-Band Radar. Photo: Courtesy
While the US has yet to announce that it will leave systems in place here, the possibility is strong, one official said, particularly in light of reports that the Pentagon was conducting a review of its European missile shield and was leaning towards deploying the systems in Turkey.
The Israeli Air Force's Air Defense Division will hold a joint drill, called Juniper Cobra, with the US Military's European Command (EUCOM) and the US Missile Defense Agency (MDA) next month in what is being described as the largest joint exercise ever held by the two countries, during which they will jointly test three different ballistic missile defense systems.
...Meanwhile Sunday, Iranian television claimed that the Iranian military had developed an anti-cruise missile system. Announcing the latest milestone in domestic military-industrial achievements, Air Force Brig.-Gen. Ahmad Miqani said, "[Despite] 30 years of military sanctions by the enemy, the armed forces have taken appropriate steps toward self-sufficiency and have been able not only to update their equipment, but also to achieve wide-ranging progress in the military and aerospace sector."
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Tamimi claimed that Israeli archeologists had "admitted" that Jerusalem was never inhabited by Jews.
Tamimi's announcement came in response to statements made earlier this week by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, who said that Jerusalem "is not a settlement," and that "the Jews built it 3,000 years ago."
"Netanyahu's claims are baseless and untrue," said Tamimi, the highest religious authority in the PA. "Jerusalem is an Arab and Islamic city and it always has been so."
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Photo: AP
..."From our point of view, Iran's nuclear issue is over. We continue our work within the framework of global regulations and in close interaction with the International Atomic Energy Agency," he said. "We will never negotiate over obvious rights of the Iranian nation."
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Clinton and Lavrov address reporters. Photo: AP
DESPITE OBAMA'S skirting around human rights and Russia's relations with Georgia and Ukraine, he failed to establish a friendly, reciprocal relationship with Medvedev. As a result, no progress was reached on the touchiest of topics: the US anti-missile defense system will remain in Eastern Europe, much to the chagrin of the Russians, and Medvedev didn't offer a compromise on the Iranian nuclear program, which is clearly an American priority.
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"Obama facing hurdles to nuclear disarmament goals" The Associated Press, By Desmond Butler (3/9/2009): Five months after President Barack Obama, with great fanfare, called for a world free of nuclear weapons, a crucial step toward that goal is running into resistance. There is little indication Obama will have the votes he needs for a cornerstone of his nonproliferation efforts: Senate ratification of a nuclear test ban treaty. If Obama can't get the treaty approved, he probably will have a hard time persuading the rest of the world to rein in nuclear weapon programs...
"If you build it, the state will come" The Guardian, By Ziad Asali (4/9/2009): Palestinian prime minister Salam Fayyad's blueprint for what he has called "de facto Palestinian statehood" offers a new and important element to the quest for peace in the Middle East. Peace between Israel and the Palestinians hinges on recognition and security for Israel and freedom and independence for a Palestinian state. Fayyad's model emphasises the importance of the reality of the Palestinian state as a functioning entity, irrespective of international recognition and grand diplomatic gestures. By doing so, Fayyad challenges the sole reliance on political and rhetorical tools of diplomacy and international recognition, the traditional path through which Palestinians have sought statehood... The plan is a call to action for Palestinians to establish "strong state institutions capable of providing, equitably and effectively, for the needs of our citizens, despite the occupation", and "to establish a de facto state apparatus within the next two years". The 38-page document lays out the generalised blueprint for the Palestinian Authority to begin to transform itself into a functioning, responsive and responsible government as if the Palestinians had independence, and in preparation for independence... Fayyad has described a two-year timeframe for the initial implementation of his de facto statehood plan, consistent with President Obama's stated intention of achieving an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement...
"Peres: Palestinian state first, full peace later" The Associated Press, By Dan Perry and Alessandra Rizzo (4/9/2009): Israeli President Shimon Peres, a longtime advocate of peace with the Palestinians, said Friday that a comprehensive settlement resolving the century-old dispute was not currently achievable. He called instead for a Palestinian state under a provisional arrangement even without a formal peace deal...
"US harshly rebukes Israel on settlement plans" The Associated Press, By Matthew Lee (5/9/2009): Alarmed by Israeli plans to build new housing units in settlements and dimming prospects for American peace efforts, the Obama administration on Friday put out a rare and harsh public rebuke of its main Mideast ally... "United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued settlement expansion and we urge that it stop," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said in a statement. "We are working to create a climate in which negotiations can take place, and such actions make it harder to create such a climate..."
"Binyamin Netanyahu pushes Barack Obama into a corner with settlement plan" The Times Online, By James Hider (5/9/2009): Israel’s plans to have one last burst of settlement building in the West Bank before agreeing to a temporary, partial freeze is a slap in the face to the Obama Administration and a warning to the Palestinians that it intends to fight for every inch of land... Backing down now would involve a serious loss of face for Mr Obama and a victory for Mr Netanyahu that would set the tone for any talks that could still be salvaged from the crumbling US plan. But the Israeli leader may be reckoning that his US ally is so deeply bogged down in a worsening war in Afghanistan, the global financial crisis, selling unpopular healthcare reforms and facing down a potentially nuclear Iran that he will take his eye off the ball in this crucial area.
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The Arctic Sea mysteriously disappeared off the coast of France on 1 August 2009
The Arctic Sea, officially carrying a cargo of timber worth £1.3m, disappeared en route from Finland to Algeria on July 24. It was recovered off west Africa on August 17 when eight alleged hijackers were arrested. The Kremlin has consistently denied that the vessel was carrying a secret cargo. It claims the ship was hijacked by criminals who demanded a £1m ransom.
The official version was challenged by sources in Tel Aviv and Moscow who claimed the ship had been loaded with S-300 missiles, Russia’s most advanced anti-aircraft weapon, while undergoing repairs in the Russian port of Kaliningrad.
Mossad, which closely monitors arms supplies to Iran, is said to have tipped off the Russian government that the shipment had been sold by former military officers linked to the underworld...
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The Sunday Times, By Uzi Mahnaimiin (6/9/2009)
The Kfar Saba country club has a reputation as a fashionable hotspot in a prosperous commuter town just half an hour’s drive from Tel Aviv. The £700-a-year, members-only club attracts young, professional Israelis to its state-of-the-art gym and luxurious pool. Its bar, a magnet for young singles, specialises in Vodka Red Bull cocktails. The barman boasts that it is the best pickup spot in the area. It is an unlikely backdrop to a daring attempt by Hezbollah, the Lebanese-based Islamic fundamentalist group, to assassinate Gabi Ashkenazi, chief of staff of the Israeli army and the club’s most prominent member.
Yet last month Rawi Sultani, 23, an Israeli Arab law student and fellow member, was arrested by agents from Shin Bet, Israel’s internal security service, and charged with planning to murder the general. The allegation points to an alarming lack of security among Israel’s well-off elite and the military who rub shoulders with them.
Sultani, a lawyer’s son, was a regular at the gym... Click here for full story Click here for more articles on the Middle East Conflict
The incident was a worrying sign of persistent anti-Semitism in a country that lost hundreds of thousands of Jews in the Holocaust, but also evidence of a heated presidential election campaign in a politically chaotic country and Ukraine's tense relations with neighboring Russia...
Ratushnyak denied he attacked the campaign activist, calling the incident a "myth." He did, however, confirm his remarks regarding Yatsenyuk but said he believed they were not offensive.
"Is everybody obliged to love Jews and Israel? If I don't like Jews and Israel, does that make me an anti-Semite?" he told The Associated Press in a telephone interview...
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MADRID (AP) -- A Spanish newspaper is defending its plans to publish an interview this weekend with a British writer who denies the Holocaust, despite a furious complaint from Israel.
The center-right daily El Mundo plans to run the interview Saturday with David Irving, who served 13 months in prison in Austria after being convicted there in 2006 over charges he denied the Nazis exterminated 6 million Jews...
[Israeli Ambassador] Schutz told The Associated Press that Irving lacks any credibility and does not deserve to be in the same interview lineup. It includes Ian Kershaw, a Briton who is a leading biographer of Hitler, and Avner Shalev, director of Yad Vashem, the Holocaust museum in Israel.
"To put Irving on the same platform with these people may create an impression, and as a matter of fact it does, that he has the same stand while everyone who knows something about the issue knows that David Irving is nothing but ... a con man," the ambassador said.
In the upcoming interview, Irving does not deny the Holocaust, Laviana said. Rather, he stresses that the Allies are to blame for "looking the other way" and ignoring the Nazi genocide, he told the AP...
Reuters, By Cameron French (4/9/2009)
TORONTO (Reuters) - The Toronto International Film Festival is under attack for its decision to present a series of films spotlighting the Israeli city of Tel Aviv, which a group of high-profile artists and celebrities say constitutes complicity in "the Israeli propaganda machine".
At issue is the festival's new City to City program, which will present 10 films focused on Tel Aviv.
The 34th edition of the festival will begin next Thursday.
Canadian filmmaker John Greyson last week pulled his documentary "Covered" from the festival in protest, and a statement published online on Thursday and signed by more than 50 artists, academics, and filmmakers likened the program to a celebration of apartheid-era South Africa.
"This program ignores the suffering of thousands of former residents and descendants of the (Tel Aviv) area who currently live in refugee camps in the Occupied Territories or who have been dispersed to other countries," say the signatories, which include actors Jane Fonda and Danny Glover, author Naomi Klein, and filmmaker Ken Loach...
From The Economist print edition (3/9/2009)
Military technology: Smaller and smarter unmanned aircraft are transforming spying and redefining the idea of air power FIVE years ago, in the mountainous Afghan province of Baghlan...And in conflicts like that in Afghanistan, they are no longer the most widespread form of air power. The nature of air power, and the notion of air superiority, have been transformed in the past few years by the rise of remote-controlled drone aircraft, known in military jargon as “unmanned aerial vehicles” (UAVs).
Drones are much less expensive to operate than manned warplanes. The cost per flight-hour of Israel’s drone fleet, for example, is less than 5% the cost of its fighter jets, says Antan Israeli, the commander of an Israeli drone squadron. In the past two years the Israeli Defence Forces’ fleet of UAVs has tripled in size. Mr Israeli says that “almost all” IDF ground operations now have drone support.
Global sales of UAVs this year are expected to increase by more than 10% over last year to exceed $4.7 billion, according to Visiongain, a market-research firm based in London. It estimates that America will spend about 60% of the total. For its part, America’s Department of Defence says it will spend more than $22 billion to develop, buy and operate drones between 2007 and 2013. Following the United States, Israel ranks second in the development and possession of drones, according to those in the industry. The European leaders, trailing Israel, are roughly matched: Britain, France, Germany and Italy. Russia and Spain are not far behind, and nor, say some experts, is China...
Reuters, By Nidal al-Mughrabi (30/8/2009)
GAZA (Reuters) - Hamas condemned the United Nations Sunday, saying it planned to teach Palestinian children in the Gaza Strip about the Holocaust -- but the U.N. agency which runs schools in the enclave would not confirm any change.
Branding the Nazi genocide of the Jews "a lie invented by the Zionists," the Islamist movement which runs the Gaza Strip wrote in an open letter to a senior U.N. official that he should withdraw plans for a new history book in U.N. schools.
A spokesman for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), which educates some 200,000 refugee children in Gaza, said the Holocaust was not on its current curriculum. He would not comment on Hamas's statement that it was about to change...
Israelis are angered by denial of the Holocaust among some in the Middle East, notably lately by leaders in Iran, who provide support for Hamas. Abbas, who has engaged in negotiation with Israel, has had to distance himself from his own 1980s doctoral thesis, which cast doubt on the scale of the Holocaust.
Hamas's official spokesman in Gaza, Sami Abu Zuhri, said he did not want to discuss the history of the Holocaust but said:
"Regardless of the controversy, we oppose forcing the issue of the so-called Holocaust onto the syllabus, because it aims to reinforce acceptance of the occupation of Palestinian land."
The Jerusalem Post, By Yaakov Katz (31/8/2009)
Rawi Sultani. Photo: Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency)
Hizbullah recruited an Israeli-Arab and ordered him to collect intelligence on IDF Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi ahead of plans to assassinate him to avenge the death of the guerrilla group's military leader Imad Mughniyeh...
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There has been an increasing number of reports that the measures taken by the IDF in Judea and Samaria to ease daily life of the Palestinians, including the dismantling of roadblocks at key locations, has already improved the Palestinians' economic situation. It is particularly conspicuous in Nablus , where a shopping festival is taking place (attended by Israeli Arabs as well). The festival features shopping and cultural and artistic events.
• Ismail Haniya , head of the Hamas de-facto administration, preaching the Friday sermon at a mosque in Khan Yunis, said that Hamas was willing to adopt the principle of “liberation through stages.” That is, Hamas would not pose obstacles to the establishment of a sovereign Palestinian state with the 1967 borders and with Jerusalem as its capital. However, he said that did not mean ceding the rest of the [Palestinian] land or recognizing the State of Israel, but rather it was a strategic option meant to end the so-called “occupation.” He also said that the “resistance” [i.e., terrorism] was a strategic alternative the Palestinians would continue to cling to (Al-Aqsa TV, July 24, 2009).
