tagged w/ Mahmoud Abbas
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The UN Security Council is to begin consultations on an application by Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas for full state membership of the UN.
link:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-15056141The UN Security Council is to begin consultations on an application by Palestinian... more
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"Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas is due to submit his bid to the UN for recognition of a Palestinian state.
He is expected to present a letter in the next few hours requesting admission to the UN shortly before addressing the General Assembly to argue the case.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is to speak soon after, and is expected to denounce the move.
Israel and the US oppose it, saying a Palestinian state can only be achieved through talks with Israel.
President Barack Obama told Mr Abbas on Thursday that the US will use its UN Security Council veto to block the move, but Mr Abbas vowed to press ahead with the bid.
Meanwhile in the West Bank, Palestinians are expected to begin gathering in the early evening shortly before the submission of the bid.""Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas is due to submit his bid to the UN for... more
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Henry Porter, The Observer, warns about the disastrous results for the US and Israel:
"Supporters of Israel in Europe, among which I count myself, find the terms of this uncritical, one-way relationship bizarre and it is unsustainable after three regimes in North Africa have fallen to a genuinely democratic popular movement and a heroic struggle continues in Syria, Bahrain and Yemen. A year ago, the application by the president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, to the Security Council for full statehood might have seen premature, but today it is the natural and proper outcome of the liberation that is sweeping through the Arab world." Poter writes.
"One of the depressing parts of the intractable Middle East problem is the chill that descends on any discussion in the United States about the future of Palestine or, indeed, US support for Israel. Apart from occasional press comment, notably in the New York Times, the media stay clear of criticising Israel, while politicians live in fear of offending the Jewish vote in a country where elections are never more that two years away.
When John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt's book The Israel Lobby came out four years ago, they were firstly pilloried and then the book was buried, so that their proposition that Israel's supporters distorted American foreign policy to the detriment of both Israel and America was never properly tested. That episode dishonoured America's tradition of unfettered political debate."
Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/sep/18/henry-porter-palestine-statehood-bid?intcmp=239
Read moreHenry Porter, The Observer, warns about the disastrous results for the US and Israel:... more
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jonber
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8 months ago
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JERUSALEM — David Rubinger, one of Israel’s best-known photojournalists and a man firmly on the political left, cast his ballot last year for Benjamin Netanyahu for prime minister, the first time he had ever voted for the right-leaning Likud Party.
“The left wants to make peace but cannot, while the right doesn’t want to but, if forced to, can do it,” he said in an interview. “So last year I decided to vote not with my heart but with my head.”
As Mr. Netanyahu joins Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, at the State Department on Thursday to start direct peace negotiations, Mr. Rubinger’s theory — and it is not his alone — will be tested. Will the Israeli leader who built a career opposing a Palestinian state be the one to help bring it into being?JERUSALEM — David Rubinger, one of Israel’s best-known photojournalists... more
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Israel is waging a covert assassination campaign across the Middle East. Israeli agents are suspected of recent killings in the United Arab Emirates, Syria and Lebanon.Israel is waging a covert assassination campaign across the Middle East. Israeli... more
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Palestinian security forces have been trained and funded by the United States to crush opposition and consolidate the Fatah party’s grip on power in the West Bank.Palestinian security forces have been trained and funded by the United States to crush... more
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Diana Buttu, a Palestinian-Canadian lawyer and peace negotiator, says that the recent meeting between Mahmoud Abbas, Benjamin Netanyahu, and Barack Obama reveals that US policy toward Israel has changed very little. The focus, she says, should be on requiring that Israel abide by international law. Is Israel treating the Palestinians with equality and will that question be addressed under the Obama administration?Diana Buttu, a Palestinian-Canadian lawyer and peace negotiator, says that the recent... more
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GRITtv
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2 years ago
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Gingerly trying to advance Mideast peace, President Barack Obama on Thursday challenged Israel to stop settlement construction in the West Bank on the same day the Israelis rejected that demand. Obama pushed Palestinians for progress, too, deepening his personal involvement.Gingerly trying to advance Mideast peace, President Barack Obama on Thursday... more
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Agreeing the warm-up was in itself a tough call. Several late night meetings dragged on til dawn as Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas refused to budge on using 'Back-2-Back drawing', and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman demanded they play 'Pin the Tail on the Palestinian'. Barak, a leading moderate voice in the government, eventually stepped in and brokered the deal.
http://thestupidtimes.blogspot.com/2009/05/israel-and-palestinians-finally-agree.htmlAgreeing the warm-up was in itself a tough call. Several late night meetings dragged... more
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Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, is due to meet Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, after pledging $900 million in economic and humanitarian aid at a conference in Egypt.
Clinton will also meet Salam Fayyad, the prime minister, on Wednesday in Ramallah, the administrative headquarters of the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority.
The US has stated that the additional aid will not be funnelled through Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip but does not recognise Israel's right to exist.
Clinton urged Palestinians to "break the cycle of rejection and resistance" after meeting Israeli leaders in Jerusalem on Tuesday.Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, is due to meet Mahmoud Abbas, the... more
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Kepano
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3 years ago
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"The Palestinian Authority president urged both Israel and Hamas to agree to an Egypt-brokered truce Saturday, but he singled out the Jewish state, saying it would be responsible for a "waterfall of blood" if it didn't accept the deal.
Mahmoud Abbas was in Cairo Saturday for talks with Egyptian officials on a truce to end the fighting in the Gaza Strip, now in its 15th day. In a news conference Saturday after meeting with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, Abbas stressed there was no time to waste in ending the bloodshed in Gaza, home to 1.4 million people.
"If any party does not accept it (the truce), regrettably it will be the one bearing the responsibility, and if Israel doesn't want to accept, it will take the responsibility of perpetuating a waterfall of blood," Abbas told reporters.
The Palestinian leader also said he hopes Hamas, which controls Gaza, will agree to a cease-fire without "hesitation." Abbas said that so far, he has not heard any serious reservations from Hamas to the Egyptian proposal.""The Palestinian Authority president urged both Israel and Hamas to agree to an... more
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NFUSA
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added this
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3 years ago
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Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert today promised Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas during talks to release 250 Palestinians prisoners next month.
Some 11,000 Palestinians are in Israeli prisons.Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert today promised Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas... more
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blanch
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3 years ago
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Israeli security agents are putting pressure on some Palestinian medical patients to become informants, according to a human rights group.
Physicians for Human Rights says it has documented about 30 cases of people from Gaza being denied treatment for not providing information.
The Tel Aviv-based group says this breaches international law.
An Israeli official dismissed the claims, saying patients were only questioned as a security measure.
The report says that Palestinian patients have "become an accessible and important target for the GSS [General Security Services] for the purposes of recruiting and gathering information".
The group cites cases in which patients were summoned for questioning and others where patients did not come to a crossing for fear of being arrested.
Read more...Israeli security agents are putting pressure on some Palestinian medical patients to... more
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A group of 188 Palestinians granted refuge in Israel amid deadly fighting between rivals Hamas and Fatah are to be returned to Gaza, Israel says.
The men, members of a clan allied to Fatah, were allowed into Israel after fighting left nine dead on Saturday. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who heads Fatah, told Israel not to transfer them to the West Bank, as he had earlier requested. At least 32 have already been returned to Gaza, Israeli officials have said.
Israel's military says 22 of those who crossed the border were taken to hospitals in Israel for medical treatment. Israel opened the border after both Egypt and President Abbas asked for the men to be allowed in. Israel also agreed to an initial request by Palestinian Authority leaders to send the men to the West Bank.
Read and view more...A group of 188 Palestinians granted refuge in Israel amid deadly fighting between... more
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A number of top representatives of Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas have been arrested in the Gaza Strip, officials from his Fatah movement say.
Fatah officials Ibrahim Abu Naja and Zakaria Agha were among those detained as part of a continuing Hamas crackdown following a coastal bombing last week.
Mr Abbas appointed the two men to run Fatah in Gaza when the Islamist Hamas seized control of the area in 2007.
Fatah says dozens of its men are being held, but Hamas has not given a number.
A Hamas spokesman said the latest arrests were in response to the detentions of Hamas men in the West Bank.
Read more...A number of top representatives of Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas have been arrested... more
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Mr Abbas's Fatah faction moved against its militant rival Hamas after about 200 Fatah supporters were arrested in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip.
Mr Abbas says that they too should now be released.
Hamas insists the arrests were part of its investigation into a bombing which killed five of its members and a child.
The six were killed by a bomb which went off inside a car travelling past a beach where people were enjoying a day by the sea.
"President Abbas has ordered his security officials to free all the Hamas militants arrested in recent days in the West Bank," a statement from his office read. Mr Abbas's Fatah faction moved against its militant rival Hamas after about 200... more
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Every aspect of Obama's visit to Palestine-Israel this week has seemed designed to further appease pro-Israel groups. Typically for an American aspirant to high office, he visited the Israeli Holocaust memorial and the Western Wall. He met the full spectrum of Israeli Jewish (though not Israeli Arab) political leaders. He traveled to the Israeli Jewish town of Sderot, which until last month's ceasefire, frequently experienced rockets from the Gaza Strip. At every step, Obama warmly professed his support for Israel and condemned Palestinian violence.
Other than a cursory 45-minute visit to occupied Ramallah to meet with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, Palestinians got little. According to an Abbas aide, Obama provided assurances that he would be "a constructive partner in the peace process." Some observers took comfort in his promise that he would get engaged "starting from the minute I'm sworn into office." Obama remained silent on the issue of Jerusalem, after boldly promising the "undivided" city to Israel as its capital in a speech to AIPAC last month, and then appearing to backtrack amid a wave of outrage across the Arab world.
But Obama missed the opportunity to visit Palestinian refugee camps, schools and even shopping malls to witness first-hand the devastation caused by the Israeli army and settlers, or to see how Palestinians cope under what many call "apartheid." This year alone, almost 500 Palestinians, including over 70 children, have been killed by the Israeli army -- exceeding the total for 2007 and dwarfing the two-dozen Israelis killed in conflict-related violence.
Obama said nothing about Israel's relentless expansion of colonies on occupied land. Nor did he follow the courageous lead of former President Jimmy Carter and meet with the democratically elected Hamas leaders, even though Israel negotiated a ceasefire with them. That such steps are inconceivable shows how off-balance is the US debate on Palestine.
Many people I talk to are resigned to the conventional wisdom that aspiring national politicians cannot afford to be seen as sympathetic to the concerns of Palestinians, Arabs or Muslims. They still hope that, if elected, Obama would display an even-handedness absent in the campaign.
Without entirely foreclosing the possibility of change in US policy, the reality is that the political pressures evident in a campaign do not magically disappear once the campaign is over. Nor is all change necessarily for the better.
Whoever is elected will face a rapidly changing situation in Palestine-Israel. A number of shifts are taking place simultaneously. First, the consensus supporting the two-state solution is disintegrating as Israeli colonies have rendered it unachievable. Second, the traditional Palestinian national leadership is being eclipsed by new movements including Hamas. And, as western and Arab governments become more craven in the face of Israeli human rights violations, a Palestinian-led campaign modeled on the anti-apartheid strategy of boycott, divestment and sanctions is building global civil society support. Finally, the demographic shift in Palestine-Israel toward an absolute Palestinian majority in all of Israel, the West Bank and Gaza Strip will be complete in the next three to five years.
Making peace in this new reality will take leaders ready to listen and talk to all sides in the conflict and to consider alternatives to the moribund two-state solution, such as power-sharing, confederation or a single democratic state. It will require, above all, the courage, imagination and political will to challenge the status quo of Israeli domination and Palestinian dispossession that has led to ever more violence with each passing year.
Every aspect of Obama's visit to Palestine-Israel this week has seemed designed... more
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Barack Obama said he spoke as a "true friend" of Israel.
Arab leaders have reacted with anger and disbelief to an intensely pro-Israeli speech delivered by Barack Obama, the US Democratic presumptive presidential nominee.
Obama told the influential annual policy conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Council (Aipac): "Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel and it must remain undivided."
His comments appalled Palestinians who see occupied East Jerusalem as part of a future Palestinian state.
Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian negotiator, told Al Jazeera on Thursday: "This is the worst thing to happen to us since 1967 ... he has given ammunition to extremists across the region".
"What really disppoints me is that someone like Barack Obama, who runs a campaign on the theme of change - when it comes to Aipac and what's needed to be said differently about the Palestinian state, he fails."
"I say to Obama ... please stop being more Israeli than the Israelis themselves, leave the Israelis and Palestinians alone to make decisions required for peace."
Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, rejected the statement, saying: "We will not accept an independent Palestinian state without having Jerusalem as the capital.
"I believe that case is clear."
Barack Obama said he spoke as a "true friend" of Israel.
Arab leaders... more
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President George W. Bush is in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt today where he will meet Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas and address the World Economic Forum on the Middle East.
Many Palestinians are upset that Bush not been more vocal in calling for the creation of an independent Palestinian state in the months following the Annapolis Peace Talks last November.
President George W. Bush is in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt today where he will meet... more
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