Palestine Occupation Info - Archive for Sun 29th Oct 2006

(29-10-06) - Report, Reuters. A close aide to President Mahmoud Abbas said yesterday the Palestinian economy was close to collapse and urged the Hamas-led government to deal with the crisis. The comments by chief negotiator Saeb Erekat, a member of Abbas's Fatah, highlighted a growing power struggle between the rival Palestinian groups. Abbas is under pressure from some Fatah leaders to get rid of the elected Hamas administration.

(29-10-06) - Report, Daily Star. An agreement to release an Israeli soldier captured by Palestinian fighters in exchange for Palestinians held in Israel is almost complete, a Hamas spokesman said on Friday. On the diplomatic front, the European Union's foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, urged Palestinian leaders on Friday to move with urgency to form a new government. See Also: Hope grows of Mideast prisoner swap deal (AFP).

(29-10-06) - Amy Teibel, AP. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas hopes to beef up his loyalist forces with Palestine Liberation Organization troops stationed in Jordan, Palestinian officials said, as rival Palestinian factions bolstered their ranks in anticipation of a feared civil war. Israel has objected in the past to letting members of the Jordan-based Badr Brigade enter Palestinian areas.

(29-10-06) - Yuli Kromchenko and Yoav Stern, Haaretz. Residents of the Arab Israeli village of Kafr Qasem held memorial ceremonies in recent days marking the 50th anniversary of the 1956 massacre in which Border Police killed 47 Arab citizens who were returning to their village from work. On Sunday, the official anniversary, residents marched and visited the cemetery where the massacre's victims are buried, laying wreaths in their memory. Kafr Qasem council head Sami Issa criticized during the ceremony the addition of Lieberman's Yisrael Beiteinu to the coalition government. See Also: Tom Segev on the horror of an infamous massacre still haunting the residents of Kfar Qasem (Haartez).

(29-10-06) - Meron Rapoport, Haaretz. Israel did not use uranium-based warheads during the Lebanon war, the army spokesperson's office said Saturday. The announcement was made in response to a report published Saturday on the website of the British newspaper The Independent. The newspaper reported that studies carried out by a European Union-affiliated organization suggest the Israel Air Force used experimental missiles employing uranium against Hezbollah targets in Lebanon.

(29-10-06) - Report, AFP. Israel's Labor, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's main coalition partner, is due to decide whether to agree to include ultra-nationalists in the government as the issue threatens to tear apart the nation's top liberal party. Labor's central committee is due to convene late Sunday in Tel Aviv to vote on whether to agree to allow the far-right Yisrael Beitenu party of Avigdor Lieberman into the ruling coalition. See Also: Labor rebels: We'll disrupt meeting on Lieberman unless ballot secret (Haaretz).

(29-10-06) - Marc Perelman, Jewish Forward. After heading Israel’s Navy and internal security services and spending his early retirement campaigning for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Ami Ayalon believes that his unique combination of security credentials and peace advocacy can propel him to the helm of the Labor Party — and from there, with luck, to the prime minister’s office. Ayalon, a freshman Knesset member, has joined hands with respected economist Avishay Braverman, former president of Ben-Gurion University, to mount a formal challenge to the party’s embattled leader.

(29-10-06) - Yuval Yoaz, Haaretz. Attorney General Menachem Mazuz said Sunday that President Moshe Katsav should resign his post once a decision has been made to indict him. The attorney general is currently considering indicting the president on a number of charges, the most serious of which is two counts of rape. Meretz faction whip Zahava Gal-On said that the Knesset was obligated to fulfill its responsibility and force Katsav to resign, saying he has made clear he does not intend to follow the attorney general's recommendations.

(29-10-06) - Harry de Quetteville, Daily Telegraph. Israel may be forced to reverse a controversial policy of expelling Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza after a vigorous protest from America. The U-turn, which marks a rare official dressing-down for Israel from Washington, comes after Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary of state, raised objections to a policy that could have seen tens of thousands of Palestinian foreign passport holders driven from their homes in the Occupied Territories.

(29-10-06) - Report, IRIN. The number of roadblocks and checkpoints in the West Bank has risen by 40 per cent since the start of 2006, with 528 permanent and temporary checkpoints and physical roadblocks disrupting all aspects of Palestinian life, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Jerusalem. In addition to stifling Palestinians' ability to work, these obstacles are causing increasing desperation among the population.

(29-10-06) - Pierre Barbancey, l'Humanité. After the war, villages have been destroyed by the Israeli attacks. The return to school has been chaotic. Fragmentation bombs still can explode at any time. Death remains close at hand and help far away. The reconstruction of Lebanon is barely starting, two months after the end of the war. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), approximately 10% of the Lebanese population, from 400,000 to 500,000 people, are living today in a highly precarious situation [English translation]. See Also: Mother and baby die in destroyed Lebanon bridge plunge (AFP).

(29-10-06) - Erica Silverman, Al Ahram Weekly. The United States has kick-started a $42 million campaign to support Palestinian groups it deems capable of "democracy building". The programme aims to "enhance civil society and democratic institutions, and provide assistance to media outlets," said Micaela Schweitzer-Bluhm, spokesperson for the US consul in Jerusalem, asserting there would be no direct funding of parties. Palestinians see the programme as an effort to bolster Fatah ahead of potential fresh legislative elections. According to an official US document obtained by Reuters, "This project supports [the creation of] democratic alternatives to authoritarian or radical Islamist political options".

(29-10-06) - Nathan Guttman, Jewish Forward. An explosive new report claims that the federal investigation into the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the pro-Israel lobbying organization, has been expanded to include suspicion of meddling in affairs of the House Intelligence Committee. The report comes immediately on the heels of two new surveys that shine a critical light on Israel and on the role that the pro-Israel lobby plays in shaping American foreign policy. See Also: Nancy Pelosi works to shore up image among US Zionists (Jewish Forward).

(29-10-06) - Amir Tibon, Electronic Intifada. Omri Evron, a 19-year-old from Tel-Aviv, is weeks away from earning his B.A. in ethical philosophy from the Tel-Aviv University (TAU). He started studying for this degree when he was still a high-school student. Omri is known around the campus of TAU as a leading social activist. Last month, for example, he started a petition of university and high-school students from around the country, protesting the exploitation of maintenance and cleaning workers in educational institutions.

(29-10-06) - Uri Avnery, Gush Shalom. It seems that we Israelis are always in need of something to be afraid of. When we open our eyes in the morning, we must see the danger-of-the-day. Otherwise, what is there to get up for? Perhaps it's not the public that is to blame, but the politicians who use fear as a means of control. Not so long ago, it was Hizbullah. Muslim fanatics, crazy Shiites, who want to annihilate Israel. A huge arsenal of rockets. God protect us!

(29-10-06) - Jonathan Cook, CounterPunch. The furore that briefly flared this week at the decision of Israel's Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, to invite Avigdor Lieberman and his Yisrael Beiteinu party into the government coalition is revealing, but not in quite the way many observers assume. Lieberman, a Russian immigrant, is every bit the populist and racist politician he is portrayed as being. Like many of his fellow politicians, he harbours a strong desire to see the Palestinians of the occupied territories expelled, ideally to neighbouring Arab states or Europe.

(29-10-06) - Zvi Bar'el, Haaretz. Perhaps Lieberman, the man, was indeed hard to swallow. But no one said anything about the essence of the party, Yisrael Beiteinu. About the fact that a Kahanist offshoot was able to germinate in Jewish society, to develop branches and toxic fruits, and to take Israeli politics by storm. Not a single political party took to the streets to protest the very existence of a party based on a racist platform. See Also: Labor: Stripped of all ideology (Uzi Benziman in Haaretz).