Shadi Fadda brings us today's headlines relating to Palestine and other news from around the internet.
Land theft / Apartheid
PM delays debate on Route 443 annexation
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu requested on Sunday that the Ministerial Committee on Legislation rethink MK Moshe Matalon's bill proposal to annex Route 443 to Israel. Following his request, the discussion of the bill was removed from the committee's agenda, and it remains unclear when the discussion will be resumed. Route 443 connects Modiin with Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, and is meant to be open to Palestinian traffic in some three months, following a High Court ruling on the matter. Since the ruling was given, opposition has been heard from ministers on the Right who say a law should be legislated to bypass the ruling. See also Jan 12 article: Rightists want WB roads open to Jews
http://www.ynetnews.com/
Advisor: J'lem mayor has no authority to demolish Arab homes
After Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat informed State Prosecutor Moshe Lador that he plans to implement the sealing order for the disputed Beit Yonatan in the east Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan, and implement demolition orders against 200 illegal structures built by Arabs in the area, Ynet has learned that his legal counsel continues to fight him in the matter.
http://www.ynetnews.com/
Tamimi: IOA plans to seal off Bab Al-Amod in Jerusalem
OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, (PIC)-- Palestinian Chief Justice Tayseer Al-Tamimi has accused the Israeli occupation authority (IOA) of planning to seal off Bab Al-Amod, one of the biggest gates leading to the Aqsa Mosque, for two years in preparation to judaize the city. In a press release on Saturday, Tamimi described the Israeli scheme as a new step in the series of the Judaization process in the city.
http://www.palestine-info.co.
Nonviolent resistance
Al Jazeera video: Palestinians battle Israeli wall
Palestinians and Israeli dissenters are getting together to fight Israel's plan to build another section of the separation wall in the West Bank. According to environmentalists, the wall will stop water flow to the natural springs and thus threatens to dry out much of the Palestinian land ... Al Jazeera's Sherine Tadros reports from Wadi Fukin, the village that is now at the centre of the legal battle.
http://palestinianpundit.
Popular resistance expands in An Nabi Salih (with video)
ISM 5 Feb - 10 people were injured by rubber-coated steel bullets and tear gas cannisters in today’s demonstration in An-Nabi Salih village, in the north Ramallah region, against the expansion of the illegal Halamish settlement on to village lands. The storm clouds and cold temperatures did not deter demonstrators, as some 100 locals (approximately a fourth of the village), both male and female, were joined by 20 Israeli and international activists in the village square following the midday prayer.
http://palsolidarity.org/2010/
Dozens suffer tear gas inhalation during weekly Bil'in protest (with video); EU monitors present)
5 Feb - An EU delegation for monitoring Israeli army violations against protesters, lead by Mr. Thierry Vallat, along with international and Israeli activists joined a demonstration in Bil’in village on Friday.
http://palsolidarity.org/2010/
Siege / Blockade
Sources: Egyptian steel wall along Gaza borders almost complete
CAIRO, (PIC)-- The Egyptian authority was about to complete the steel wall it was erecting along its borders with the besieged Gaza Strip despite the waves of condemnation to that wall, sources told the PIC. Eyewitnesses revealed that at least 45 trucks loaded with steel boards have arrived at the construction area, and that the construction of the wall south and north of Rafah city was totally completed leaving small portion along the Salahuddin axis not finished yet. In Cairo, the administrative court decided to adjourn to the 16th of this month the ruling on a petition filed by ambassador Ibrahim Yusri questioning the legality of the barrier and urging an immediate halt to the construction.
http://www.palestine-info.co.
IOF detains four Palestinian fishermen at sea
GAZA, (PIC)-- Israeli occupation forces (IOF) aboard navy gunboats on Sunday arrested four Palestinian fishermen off the northern Gaza Strip coast and towed their boats to Israeli shore. Palestinian security sources said that the Israeli gunboats encircled the two fishing boats and forced them to head to the Israeli coast.
http://www.palestine-info.co.
Khudari warns of IOF escalation in targeting Palestinian fishermen
GAZA, (PIC)-- MP Jamal Al-Khudari, the head of the popular anti siege committee, has warned of the escalating Israeli targeting of Palestinian fishermen after circulating trivial allegations and security pretexts. Khudari, in a press release on Sunday, said that arresting four fishermen and increasing shootings at fishing boats after claims of discovering barrels filled with explosives reaching Israeli coasts from Gaza point to the intention to escalate attacks on those fishermen. He called for international action to pressure the Israeli occupation authority (IOA) into desisting from further harassment of fishermen in violation of international laws. The IOA is depriving fishermen from fishing at sea and is chasing them in the mere two nautical miles allowed for them, the lawmaker said, describing such acts as "piracy". He said that the IOA practices were threatening thousands of fishermen with death or loss of sustenance for their children. Khudari unlearned that Gaza's needs of fish are not met due to such practices, adding that thousands of Palestinian families depend on fishing as their sole source of living.
http://www.palestine-info.co.
Remaining fuel to light Gaza for 24 hours
GAZA, (PIC)-- The Palestinian energy authority has announced that one of the generators in the Gaza electricity generation station had stopped functioning on Saturday for lack of fuel and that the remaining quantity of fuel would allow operating the station for 24 hours only. The authority, in a statement, said that the power generation in the station had decreased to 30 megawatt, warning that Gaza districts would suffer longer power failures. It explained that the power shortage had reached 50% and could reach 60%.
http://www.palestine-info.co.
One Gaza crossing open, limited fuel supplies allowed
Israeli authorities opened the Kerem Shalom crossing into southern Gaza on Sunday to allow the transfer of limited humanitarian aid, commercial merchandise and fuel, while the Karni crossing to the north remained closed, Palestinian border crossing official Raed Fattouh said.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/
...and the retaliation
Rocket explodes near Sderot; none injured
A Qassam rocket exploded in an open area in the western Negev, near Sderot on Sunday. There were no reports of injures or damage. The last rocket attack from the Gaza Strip came Wednesday, when a Qassam rocket exploded near the border fence in an agricultural field belonging to one of the kibbutzim of Shaar Hanegev Regional Council. A day earlier, another rocket was fired, and this time landed in an open area in the Eshkol Regional Council. Following the attack, IAF jets struck a number of targets in the southern Gaza Strip.
http://www.ynetnews.com/
Israel fears more explosive-laden barrels in Mediterranean
The Israel Navy is acting with the assumption that there are more barrels filled with explosives in the sea off the coast of Israel and Gaza, in addition to the two found Monday on beaches in Ashdod and Ashkelon, sources in the navy said. The Israel Defense Forces believes the barrels were dropped in the water from fishing boats ... The Islamic Jihad took responsibility for the attempted attacks, saying there were eight barrels of explosives. The IDF thinks the military wing of Fatah was also involved in the operation, sources said. The barrels are similar to the floats used regularly by fishermen and contain 15-20 kilograms of explosives. They are designed to be set off by remote control using cellular phones.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/
IDF arrests two suspects plotting to attack Israel for Hamas
Israeli security forces last month arrested two Hamas militants suspected of plotting attacks against civilian targets across Israel, it was revealed on Sunday following the lifting of a gag order. East Jerusalem residents Merad Namar and Merad Camal were detained in a raid at the Be'er Sheva Central Bus Station. The suspects, who both carry Israeli identification cards, were allegedly recruited by Hamas while residing respectively in Jordan and Dubai. Throughout the past few months, Namar and Camal allegedly held additional meetings with foreign agents in Saudi-Arabia, Jordan and Turkey.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/
Metal wall security guard injured after gunmen open fire
A security guard at the Egyptian construction site of the subterranean wall was left in critical condition when unknown assailants opened fire on Saturday, security sources said. The security guard sustained a gun shot wound to his back when a group of men in a car fired live bullets on a commercial street in the As-Safa neighborhood of the Egyptian part of Rafah city, the sources said.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/
Detentions / Deportations
Israel releases, deports Gazan prisoner to West Bank
Israeli authorities released and deported on Sunday Nitham Muhammad Shneina, originally from Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, to the West Bank. According to Riyad Al-Ashqar, spokesman for the de facto government's Ministry of Prisoners' Affairs, Shneina was detained on 4 October 2006 in the West Bank where he was employed. He was sentenced to three and a half years, and was released on Sunday and deported to the West Bank, instead of being allowed into Gaza where his family lives, Al-Ashqar said.
On Friday, Israeli authorities released Bakr Al-Hafi, who lived in Tulkarem with his family for the last ten years, and deported him to Gaza, where his family originates from. Nine other Palestinian prisoners are awaiting deportations abroad. [End]
http://www.maannews.net/eng/
Army raids Ramallah to arrest international activists in violation of Oslo accords
7 February 2010 For Immediate Release: ...At three in the morning, the Israeli army forcefully entered an apartment in the Area A city of Ramallah and arrested two activists from the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) on suspicion of overstaying their visas. The two, Ariadna Jove Marti, a Spanish journalist, and Bridgette Chappell, an Australian student in the Beir Zeit university, were then taken to the Ofer military prison located inside the Occupied Territories, where they were handed over to the Israeli immigration police unit “Oz” ... The arrests tonight follow the unlawful detention and deportation of Czech citizen Eva Nováková under similar circumstances last month.
http://palsolidarity.org/2010/
Deported international activist appeals against her illegal arrest
The lawyer of Eva Nováková, the former International Solidarity Movement (ISM) media coordinator, who was taken from her apartment in Ramallah on 11 January 2010 and subsequently deported, filed an appeal to the Supreme Court of Justice today to challenge the legality of her arrest.
http://palsolidarity.org/2010/
PA, Israel jointly arrest six Qaida-linked jihadists in West Bank
Security forces of both the Palestinian Authority and Israel have recently arrested members of radical Islamist groups with links to Al-Qaida and global jihadists in various parts of the West Bank. The most extensive group was uncovered in the town of Qabatiya near Jenin. Those detained were unarmed and were arrested before they could carry out any attacks ... The group was busy disseminating ideas identified with the ideology of Osama bin Laden and his supporters, mostly through the Internet and in meetings at the mosque of Qabatiya during prayer. They described Palestinian politicians, both from the PA and Hamas, as "infidels." ... It does not appear that those arrested were being guided by groups abroad in an organized fashion - as an agent would be by a controller.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/
PA security official: No coordination with Israel on Al-Qaeda arrests
Ibrahim Ramadan, a Palestinian Authority Preventative Security official, denied on Sunday that Israel and Palestinian security forces coordinated the arrest of an Al-Qaeda cell in the West Bank. His comments follow reports in Israeli media that both the PA and Israeli security forces recently arrested members of radical Islamist groups with links to Al-Qaida and global jihadists in various parts of the West Bank.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/
Israeli army stops journalists on container road after PJS election
Israeli forces stopped a bus transporting journalists on the container checkpoint en route to Hebron from Bethlehem, after having voted in the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate elections in Ramallah on Saturday. One journalist present said that Israeli forces detained journalist Raed Al-Atrash "under the pretext of attacking one of the soldiers." Israeli soldiers demanded that all journalists to get off the bus, including the female journalists, he said. Despite journalists refusing the order, the bus was eventually allowed to pass through the checkpoint.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/
War crimes and criminals
US vows to bury Goldstone report at UN
Israeli sources reported Saturday that the United States vowed to Israeli leaders to bury the report of Judge Richard Goldstone on Israel’s war in Gaza last year. The sources added that the Israeli government vowed to respond to the report of Goldstone by forming an independent committee. The United Nations is set to convene soon to discuss the report but did not schedule a date for the discussion. But Israel sources said that Israel will not show “any further cooperation” and that the United States will not allow the report to reach the Security Council.
http://imemc.org/index.php?
UN likely to refer Goldstone findings to The Hague
The United Nations is likely to refer the findings of the Goldstone report to the International Court of Justice in The Hague, diplomatic sources in New York said on Saturday. A decision to bring the report on last year's Gaza war before the court would follow a debate in the UN General Assembly over Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon's response to the document last week.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/
Syrian minister: Lieberman scorned by world
Syrian Information Minister Mohsen Bilal responded to threats made by Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman against Damascus in an ongoing war of words between Israel and Syria. On a tour of Quneitra in the Syrian Golan Heights, Bilal said Lieberman's remarks were "irresponsible, wild, and aggressive, and came from the mouth of a man whom the entire world scorns and whom no one receives." Bilal added that Lieberman has proven "The aggressiveness of this entity (Israel)."
http://www.ynetnews.com/
Britain: magnet for war criminals
As the latest Iraq inquiry appears to be whitewashing the war crimes of the UK's main political leaders so a foreign war criminal is hoping for the same kind of lackadaisical treatment if she comes to the UK. Here's the Jewish Chronicle on Tzipi Livni's proposed visit to the UK: Israeli opposition leader Tzipi Livni is planning to come to London to test the process for the issuing of arrest warrants for alleged war crimes. Speaking exclusively to the JC, Ms Livni said: “I will do this not for me, not for provocation, but for the right of every Israeli to travel freely. I am not going to be restricted by extremists because I fought terror.” The British system was, she said, “being abused by extremists for political reasons. Belgium and Spain have changed their laws, and the British know that they have to do so”.
http://jewssansfrontieres.
Press bias and Propaganda
NY Times - The Public Editor: Too close to home / Clark Hoyt
LATE last month, a Web site called the Electronic Intifada reported that Ethan Bronner, the Jerusalem bureau chief of The Times, has a son in the Israeli military. Others, including Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, a liberal media watchdog group, demanded to know if it was true and, if so, why it did not create an unacceptable conflict of interest for Bronner and The Times ... Since the initial report of his son’s enlistment, I have heard from roughly 400 readers, many of them convinced that Bronner could not continue in his current assignment ... The situation raises tough questions about how the paper best serves its readers, protects its credibility and deals fairly with a correspondent who has what I believe is an excellent track record.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/
NY Times executive editor Bill Keller takes exception to "Too close to home"
Because today’s Public Editor column takes the unusual step of recommending that a respected Times journalist be reassigned, I thought it only fair to offer Bill Keller, the executive editor, an opportunity to respond in full. Here is what Keller had to say: Much as I respect your concern for appearances, we will not be taking your advice to remove Ethan Bronner from the Jerusalem Bureau. I’m happy to explain my thinking. It’s not just that we value the expertise and integrity of a journalist who has covered this most difficult of stories extraordinarily well for more than a quarter century. It’s not just that we are reluctant to capitulate to the more savage partisans who make that assignment so difficult — and who make the fairmindedness of a correspondent like Ethan so precious and courageous....
http://publiceditor.blogs.
The Times now owes it to its readers to assign an Arab-American reported to Jerusalem / Philip Weiss
Keller makes the following statement: "If we send a Jewish correspondent to Jerusalem, the zealots on one side will accuse him of being a Zionist and on the other side of being a self-loathing Jew, and then they will parse every word he writes to find the phrase that confirms what they already believe while overlooking all evidence to the contrary." There are a couple of problems with this hypothetical. 1, It’s not a hypothetical: The Times has sent not one but two Jewish correspondents to Jerusalem! 2, I believe that Bronner is a Zionist. I’m not certain, but I believe that if he were at all honest about his ideas about the Jewish state–ideas that we as readers have a right to know about, given the place we’re all in in history right now, and the dual-loyalty issues that Zionism created, and that Arthur Hays Sulzberger the late publisher of the Times anticipated that it would create–then we would know him to be a Zionist. That was the vibe I got at his lecture the other day: he’s emotionally invested in the idea of a Jewish state. He should talk openly about this. Many many American Jews are Zionists, and Keller shouldn’t put them on the defensive, it should be explored. Why is it an "accusation" to say someone is a Zionist? Many people think that’s a good thing; Dershowitz says supporting Israel is the secular religion of American Jews. I think Keller’s decision not to move Bronner (for now; we still might get a trainwreck/climbdown) is defensible; but consider: both Jerusalem correspondents are Jewish, one is Israeli, and both are married to Israelis. That’s a lot of Israelness. I bet a few members of that menage are Zionists.
http://mondoweiss.net/2010/02/
Israel establishes Hasbara Central
Like the nazis before them, Israel has decided to place its propaganda efforts under one roof, a kind of hasbara central. According to a former adviser to Menachem Begin, David Admon writing in Ha'aretz, even Begin baulked at the idea of so obvious a ploy as a government run propaganda machine: ..."Heaven forbid. The government doesn't do hasbara - here we will not have Goebbelsism!" replied Begin, referring to the Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels, and said no more."'
Of course propaganda and hasbara are the same thing. It was, after all, Goebbels who gave propaganda a bad name, just as Israel gives hasbara (aka propaganda) a bad name. But there is another reason why the State of Israel should not spend money on propagating lies on its own behalf. See this Hasbara Committee list of hasbaranik authors. It's a rogues' gallery of authors who donate their pro-zionist propaganda skills for free. That coupled with the lack of counter-argument in most western media suggests to me that Hasbara Central would be wasting money that could be spend on what the hasbaraniks are actually covering for, the continued dispossession and displacement of the Palestinians.
http://jewssansfrontieres.
Political developments / Diplomacy
Netanyahu: Israel open to resuming talks with Syria
Bethlehem - Ma'an - "Israel aspires to complete peace agreements with all of its neighbors," and is open to resuming peace talks with Syria, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said during his weekly cabinet meeting on Sunday. "We did this with Egypt and Jordan, and we aspire to achieve similar agreements with both the Palestinians and Syria. Two principles dictate our approach to peace negotiations with our neighbors," he told cabinet members. The two principles he spoke of were preconditions and Israel's security.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/
Sha'ath: Hamas to fairly treat Fatah affiliates in Gaza
The Hamas movement vowed to fairly treat members of Fatah in the Gaza Strip, Nabil Sha'ath, a member of Fatah's Central Committee, said on Saturday during an interview with Al-Arabiyya TV. "There are certain procedures, but I will not announce them; I will leave it to Hamas to do so," Sha'ath said. The Fatah member further said he had refused the establishing of joint reconciliation committees, but called on more visits to Gaza to intensify contact between Hamas and Fatah.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/
Human rights organizations under attack
Embattled New Israel Fund fights back
Washington — Under attack as a subversive, anti-Israel group, the New Israel Fund, the largest financial supporter of human rights groups in Israel, has opted to respond by rallying supporters of a progressive agenda in Israel. Adopting a notably combative tone under new leadership, the American- based charity is depicting an accusatory report by a new Israeli organization — trumpeted in a front-page story in Maariv, a major Israeli daily — as the last straw in a series of attacks against likeminded groups.
http://www.forward.com/
Jpost publishes mendacious garbage about human rights org's finances / Bruce Wolman
Sarah Honig is the darling of Jerusalem Post readers, if the comments and ratings to her op-eds are any indication ... I won’t regurgitate all of her shtick, but will call Honig out for the following mendacious garbage: "The myth of an Israeli-Arab peace, like Nessie, is too good a moneymaker to let go of. Lots of folks make their living off it. They have a vested interest in keeping it alive, the consequences be damned. NGOs worldwide rake in profits from their tireless “peace efforts.” What would they do without that little awful Jewish state?" ... It’s beyond chutzpah for Honig to be talking about individuals and organizations making money off of Israeli criticism. Who are the NGO leaders that earn salaries equal to the $600,000 plus that Abraham Fox of the ADL and Rabbi Marvin Hier of the Simon Weisenthal Center and Holocaust Museum pull down? ... Trying to raise some funding, this Israeli-Palestinian NGO [Combatants for Peace] has a proposed budget of $222,000 with the highest salary for staff budgeted at $24,000
http://mondoweiss.net/2010/02/
Other news
Discover your inner Kurtz with an Israeli safari
The 'Israel Law Center,' contrary to what you'd expect from the name, is not interested in such arcane things as legal principles, or that old-fashioned and discredited idea of 'equality before the law'. Indeed, the word 'law' in its name refers most likely to that common colonial expression, 'the law of the jungle.' So it is fitting that one of its important businesses is to organize Safaris for American Jews. Come to Israel, see the beasts, smell the blood, meet the hunters! "The Ultimate Mission to Israel Experience a dynamic and intensive eight day exploration of Israel's struggle for survival and security against Iran, Syria and Hezballah.
Jewish in Tel Aviv, Gentile in Ashkelon
Where to Wed? Maxim and Alina Serjukov had to register their intention to marry in the village of Beer Tuvia after the top rabbi in their hometown of Ashkelon rejected her conversion - Her husband, Maxim Serjukov, called the situation “ridiculous.” My wife is Jewish in every place except for in Ashkelon — in the army, in the Chief Rabbinate and in the rest of Israel, just not in Ashkelon,” he told the Forward ... Advocates for converts are outraged by the situation. If we don’t accept our own conversions, we’re really a banana republic,” Farber said. “It’s like being given a driving license in Jerusalem and then being stopped in Tel Aviv and told that your license isn’t valid.”
http://www.forward.com/
Five Israeli family members wounded in landmine explosion in Golan Heights
Israeli sources reported Saturday that five Israelis, members of the same family including three children, were wounded when a landmine went off near them as they were vacationing in the occupied Golan Heights. The explosion took place near a Golan settlement while thousands of Israeli were vacationing there to ski. One child suffered serious wounds ... Israel occupied the Golan Height in 1967 and decided to annex it and consider it part of Israel in 1981.
http://imemc.org/index.php?
Opinion / Analysis
Silent occupation / Ali Jumuah
Recent comments by Sheikh Tayseer Rajab Tamimi, who is a judge serving the Palestinian Authority, have caused a seemingly deserved outcry. Sheikh Tamimi has denied the existence of the Temple, and questioned the Jewish history in Jerusalem. How is it that a man in his position can deny the Jewish history in Jerusalem despite archaeological evidence? Of course, the underlying question for many is: How can the PA propagate such baseless ideologies? Simple. It is an act of self defense. Travel down any street in Jerusalem, and a far more frightening site emerges. Street signs displaying names in Hebrew, Arabic, and English; but the Arabic is blotted out ... Simply obscuring the names is not enough. A recent effort to Hebraize the names of many cities has gone largely unnoticed outside of Israel ... It may seem trivial, but this would be the equivalent of changing the names of Amarillo and Sante Fe to Yellow and Holy Faith to hide the Mexican history of southwest United States.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/
A four-letter word / Uri Avnery
...peace has become a four-letter word. (In Hebrew, the word for peace, shalom, indeed consists of four letters.) A decent person does not want to be seen in its company. It should not be uttered in polite society. People do verbal exercises, almost acrobatics, to explore the range of circumlocutions for the word. Politicians speak about “the end of the conflict”, “permanent status”, “political settlement”, just to avoid the taboo term. Why? First of all, the word “peace” has been exploited so many times that it has almost become meaningless ... THIS WEEK the journalist Gideon Levy remarked on a TV talk show that in the present Knesset there is no longer a single Jewish member for whom peace is the No. 1 objective.
http://zope.gush-shalom.org/
Im Tirzu hides behind respectable mask of 'Zionism' / Gideon Levy
Binyamin Ze'ev is turning in his grave once again: A McCarthyite movement has taken his best-known slogan for its name. Im Tirtzu, which deceptively calls itself a "moderate, centrist movement," gives a bad name to Herzl, a democrat and liberal, who coined the phrase "Im tirtzu, ain zo agada" (If you will it, it is no dream). The group's latest trick: a dirty war against the New Israel Fund for its funding of 16 organizations that provided documentation used in the Goldstone report.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/
West Bank rabble rousers should be forced to see 'Avatar' / Shaul Arieli
The film "Avatar" is about a corporate research expedition to a planet called Pandora, where a god is found different than ours, a "green" universal deity of which flora and fauna are a part, a god we once knew and today perhaps are lacking ... this is a god that promises that balance of everything will not be impaired and gives the value of universalism unimaginable depth - far beyond the notions of this or that group of believers on earth. There is no "Chosen People," "Messiah Son of God" or "Last Prophet" on Pandora, but rather the sum total of life. Thus Avatar becomes a must-see in rehabilitation programs for people who set fire to synagogues, churches and mosques, desecrate graves and smash ancient statues.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/
Palestine's 'economic miracle' Part I / Avi Trengo (Ynet)
Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad has been crowned as "the Palestinian Ben-Gurion" at the recent Herzliya Conference. However, there is a great gap between the achievements attributed to him and his abilities in practice. ... Meanwhile, the situation is even more extreme in the Gaza Strip, where the PA spends 57% of its budget. Fayyad hands over salaries and allowances to 150,000 people, yet tens of thousands of them don't work, while others receive two salaries: One from Fayyad and another from Hamas. This is why the only industries active in Gaza are imports through smuggling tunnels and real estate – the surplus of cash in Gaza's banks prompts them to offer mortgages, and this results in a rise in real estate prices. [the comments on this article are interesting, pointing out how incomplete and biased it is....]
http://www.ynetnews.com/
Iraq, other Mideast
Sunday: 3 Iraqis killed, 11 wounded
Excerpt: An armed group that claims to have kidnapped an American contractor in January may be holding a second American citizen. Also, an Iraqi appeals court has reversed its own decision allowing over 500 people on an election blacklist to run in March elections. While attacks were light today, at least three Iraqis were killed and eleven more were wounded in new violence. The League of the Righteous (Asa’ib al Haq) is claiming it has two Americans in its custody. Yesterday, video surfaced on an American contractor of Iraqi descent who went AWOL on Jan. 23. He was apparently looking for Iraqi relatives when he kidnapped by Asa’ib al Haq. An Iraq appeals court overturned its own decision to allow over 500 candidates on an election blacklist to run in March election.
http://original.antiwar.com/
Israeli Navy ships pass through Suez Canal
...The reason behind the move was not revealed but they are believed to be on their way to the Arab Gulf, referred to by Israel as the Persian Gulf. The trip is estimated by four days just reach the Arab Gulf. Israel coordinated the vessels passage with Egypt and conducted what was described as “extensive security measures” to ensure the safety of the vessels. The Egyptian Armed Forces even prevented any ship from crossing the Suez Canal and vehicles were prevented from using the road the leads to it.
http://imemc.org/index.php?
Ghajar residents could go to sleep in Israel, but wake up in Lebanon
It was only when the sun rose on Tuesday morning that the inhabitants of Ghajar ascertained their village was still in Israel and had not gone over to some other sovereignty during the night. The United Nations soldiers had not yet fanned out into the streets, and the Israel Defense Forces soldiers were still manning their nearby positions. Every few months a new rumor crops up concerning the future of Ghajar, the inhabitants of which are at the focus of a continuing border dispute between Israel, Lebanon and Syria. The most recent rumor was that during the first night of February the northern part of Ghajar would be transferred to the UN forces and be officially declared Lebanese territory.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/
Plans for Palestinian Summer School week in Lebanon
Lebanon – Ma'an – A group of Arab and international Palestinian solidarity groups announced plans for a 500-student-strong school on Palestinian politics, history and culture aimed at educating the English-speaking world, organizers said Saturday. The school, based in Lebanon, would include field trips around the country with particular focus on the Palestinian refugees living in the camps of the south and around Beirut.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/
U.S., U.K., other world news
Benny Morris talk stirs uproar at Cambridge
LONDON – The Israel Society at Cambridge University has succumbed to pressure and canceled a talk by Ben-Gurion University of the Negev historian Benny Morris after protesters accused him of “Islamophobia” and “racism.”
http://www.jpost.com/
Congresswoman rues signing Gaza letter
Washington — In the strongest sign so far of pushback against dovish Jewish groups, a New York congresswoman representing an ultra-Orthodox constituency retracted her support from congressional initiatives meant to ease the pressure on Palestinians in Gaza.
http://www.forward.com/
Yemeni scholar backs 'jet bomber'
Sheikh Anwar al-Aulaqi , a Yemeni religious scholar, has told Al Jazeera that the suspect accused of attempting to blow up a US passenger jet on Christmas Day, was one of his students. Al-aulaqi said that he did not order the attempted suicide attack on the airliner, but that US civilians were legitimate targets since they bore responsibility for their "government's crimes".
http://english.aljazeera.net/
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www.TheHeadlines.org
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