Netanyahu Threatens to Retaliate if Palestinians Declare Statehood
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu threatened to retaliate if Palestinians declare a unilateral state, saying such a move would unravel existing agreements with the Israelis.
Netanyahu’s stern comments come the same day that a senior Palestinian official told Fox News they are considering a U.N. resolution to declare a Palestinian state. Palestinian officials had said Sunday they were preparing to ask the United Nations to endorse an independent state without Israel’s consent because they were losing faith in the peace talks.
But Netanyahu, speaking at the Saban Forum in Jerusalem, said there is “no substitute” for negotiations.
“Any unilateral action would only unravel the framework of agreements between us and can only lead to one-sided steps on the part of Israel,” he said. He did not elaborate further.
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US Senators Act to Force Recognition of Jerusalem as Capital
Seven United States senators have sponsored a bill that would abolish the “security” waiver that American presidents have used to prevent implementing a 1995 law declaring that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel.
Kansas Republican Senator Sam Brownback, a long-time supporter of Israel, introduced the bill and said, “It is long overdue for America to recognize the sovereign right of Israel to choose Jerusalem as its capital city.”
The proposed Jerusalem Embassy Relocation Act law, number S. 2737, is “a bill to relocate to Jerusalem the United States Embassy in Israel” and has six co-sponsors–five Republicans, from Kentucky, Texas, Arizona, and Louisiana and Independent Senator Joe Lieberman of Connecticut.
It would remove the current waiver, which gives the president authority to delay recognition of Jerusalem as the capital on the premise that doing so would endanger the security of the United States. Previous presidents, including George W. Bush, vowed during their election campaigns they would recognize Jerusalem as the Jewish State’s capital but they have failed out to carry out their election promise.
The senators introduced the bill following last week’s visit to the United States by Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat, who said, “I believe moving the American embassy to Jerusalem will the first step towards other embassies moving to the capital, as in every other country in the world.”
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Palestinians: State Within 2 Years With Obama’s Support
Following meeting with Mitchell in Ramallah, senior Palestinian officials say US committed to peace deal within two years. According to them, former President Bill Clinton’s plan again put on table
US special envoy to the Middle East George Mitchell met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu twice on Wednesday. Senior Palestinian officials who met with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas after his meeting with the American statesman Tuesday told Ynet that the US commitment to reach a peace deal within two years was clarified during the meeting.
The Palestinians estimate the Americans are adopting de facto the plan presented by Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayya
Obama Plan – Temple Mount Under Arab-Muslim Sovereignty
The Middle East peace plan that United States President Barack Obama will unveil soon involves the creation of a Palestinian Authority state by 2011 and the transfer of Islamic holy sites in Jerusalem [presumably including the Temple Mount – ed.] to Arab-Muslim sovereignty, Saudi newspaper Al-Ukaz has learned.
According to the report published Sunday in Al-Ukaz, the Obama plan also includes the following elements:
- Some parts of eastern Jerusalem [presumably Neveh Yaakov, Pisgat Ze'ev and the like - ed.] would be transferred to Israeli control.
- There would be an international presence in the Jordan Valley and other parts of Judea and Samaria.
- The Palestinian Authority terror organizations would be disbanded and turn into political parties.
- The large settlement blocs in Judea and Samaria would not be dismantled.
- The fate of smaller Jewish settlement areas would be decided in a three-month-long negotiation period.
A reporter for the Saudi newspaper received the information from Hassan Harisha, the Second Deputy Speaker of the Palestinian Authority Parliament. Harisha told him that the U.S. has handed over a draft of the peace proposal to the PA and other Arabs for their perusal.
Jews: Our Sovereignty in Jerusalem is Indisputable
66 percent of Israeli Jews believe that Jerusalem in its entirety is Israel’s capital and that Israel’s right to build anywhere within the city is undisputable.
27 percent of those polled opposed this position and the rest did not know. The War and Peace Index poll found that 53 percent of the Jewish public judged the government’s foreign policy favorably, while 33 percent viewed it negatively. A majority among the voters for all parties except Labor and Meretz hold this view.
Top Obama Advisors Say Time for Israel To Surrender Jerusalem
A Washington-based think tank that is viewed as one of the primary sources of foreign policy advise for US President Barack Obama is recommending that Israel surrender control of Jerusalem to an international body.
The Center for American Progress (CAP) correctly determined that the issue of Jerusalem is the primarily obstacle to peace between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.
As such, in order to move forward with the land-for-peace process as a whole, CAP has suggested that a third party administer and police the city while both Israel and the Palestinians maintain their claims to sovereignty until an agreement can be reached.
CAP expects that agreement would take a very long time to reach, if ever, but that in the meantime the rest of the conflict could be concluded.
There are concerns in Israel that Obama will adopt the recommendation considering his close ties to CAP and his overriding determination to oversee an Israel-Palestinian peace agreement.
Bloomberg News reported that “CAP has been an incubator for liberal thought and helped build the [Democratic party] platform that triumphed in the 2008 campaign.”
It was also noted that Obama adopted many of CAP’s policy recommendations while he was still president-elect.
via Source
Thousands March In Jerusalem Gay Pride Parade
June 29, 2009 by admin
Filed under Moral Decay
About 2,000 participants in a gay pride parade have marched peacefully through Jerusalem.
In past years, the gay pride event in the holy city provoked violent protests, even stabbings, by ultra-Orthodox Jews and extremists. But this year, except for one egg-throwing incident, there were no clashes.
Police said they arrested the egg-tossing protester. Others put up signs and demonstrated in an ultra-Orthodox section of Jerusalem, far away from the parade.
The marchers waved rainbow and Israeli flags and donned rainbow dresses, shirts and headbands.
The parade was more restrained Thursday than a gay pride march in more secular Tel Aviv earlier this month. One marcher scolded another for removing his shirt, saying, “This is Jerusalem.”
Police sources said Wednesday that this year the parade is not expected to stir violent protests.
Police believed the controversial event would run smoothly as leaders of the ultra-Orthodox community – who in past years have led anti-gay protests – decided not to protest to avoid exposing their young people to the issue of homosexuality.
As a result, only 1,600 police officers were assigned to the parade, compared with 12,000 in 2006.
Can 3rd Temple Be Built Without Destroying Dome Of The Rock?
A new Jewish interfaith initiative launched last week argues building the Third Jewish Temple in Jerusalem would not necessitate the destruction of the Dome of the Rock.
“God’s Holy Mountain Vision” project hopes to defuse religious strife by showing that Jews’ end-of-days vision could harmoniously accommodate Islam’s present architectural hegemony on the Temple Mount.
“This vision of religious shrines in peaceful proximity can transform the Temple Mount from a place of contention to its original sacred role as a place of worship shared by Jews, Muslims and Christians,” said Yoav Frankel, director of the initiative.
The Interfaith Encounter Association at the Mishkenot Sha’ananim’s Konrad Adenauer Conference Center in Jerusalem is sponsoring the program, which includes interfaith study and other educational projects.
According to Islamic tradition, the Dome of the Rock, built in 691, marks the spot where Muhammed ascended to Heaven.
But according to Jewish tradition, Mount Moriah, now under the Dome of the Rock, is where the Temple’s Holy of Holies was situated.
Until now Jewish tradition has assumed that destruction of the Dome of the Rock was a precondition for the building of the third and last Temple.
However, in an article that appeared in 2007 in Tehumin, an influential journal of Jewish law, Frankel, a young scholar, presented a different option.
His main argument is that Jewish doctrine regarding the rebuilding of the Temple emphasizes the role of a prophet.
Facts About Jerusalem’s Holiest Site
An inter-faith project launched in Jerusalem hopes to find a new way to share one of the city’s holiest, and most fought over, sites.
Following are some facts about the complex, known as the Temple Mount by Jews and al-Haram al-Sharif (the Noble Sanctuary) by Muslims, in the heart of Jerusalem’s Old City:
* It is home to the gilded 7th-century Dome of the Rock, a fixture of the Jerusalem skyline, and built over the spot where Jews and Christians believe Abraham was about to sacrifice his son Isaac to God before an angel stayed his hand.
The 8th-century al-Aqsa mosque also stands on the stone esplanade. Judaism’s Western Wall, a Jewish prayer site believed to be a perimeter wall of the second biblical Temple, is below.
* In Muslim tradition, Mohammad ascended into heaven from the rock at the center of what is now the Dome of the Rock.
* The Temple Mount is the most sacred site in Judaism. Jews believe biblical King Solomon built the first temple there 3,000 years ago. A second temple was razed by the Romans in AD 70.
* Muslims see al-Haram al-Sharif as the third holiest site after Mecca and Medina in modern Saudi Arabia.
* Christians believe Jesus taught at the temple during the Roman period and drove out money-changers.
Netanyahu Calls for Conditional Palestinian State
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu endorsed an independent Palestinian state beside Israel for the first time on Sunday, dramatically reversing himself in the face of U.S. pressure but attaching conditions the Palestinians swiftly rejected.
A week after President Barack Obama’s address to the Muslim world, Netanyahu said the Palestinian state would have to be unarmed and recognize Israel as the Jewish state — a condition amounting to Palestinian refugees giving up the goal of returning to Israel.
Netanyahu, in an address seen as his reponse to Obama, refused to heed the U.S. call for an immediate freeze of construction on lands Palestinians claim for their future state. He also said the holy city of Jerusalem must remain under Israeli sovereignty.
Senior Palestinian officials Saeb Erekat said the plan “closed the door” to negotiations.
Still, it was a dramatic transformation for a man raised on a fiercely nationalistic ideology and who has spent a two-decade political career criticizing peace efforts.
“I call on you, our Palestinian neighbors, and to the leadership of the Palestinian Authority: Let us begin peace negotiations immediately, without preconditions,” he said, calling on the wider Arab world to work with him.
Half of Israelis Back Immediate Strike on Iran
Just over half of Israelis back an immediate attack on the nuclear facilities of arch-foe Iran but the rest want to wait and see the results of US diplomacy, according to a poll released on Sunday.
Fifty-one percent support an immediate Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear sites, while 49 percent believe the Jewish state should await the outcome of efforts by the US administration to engage with the Islamic republic, said the survey published by Tel Aviv University.
But 74 percent of those questioned said they believe that new US President Barack Obama’s efforts will not stop the Islamic republic from acquiring atomic weapons.
Israel, widely considered to be the Middle East’s sole if undeclared nuclear armed state, considers Iran its arch-foe after repeated statements by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for the Jewish state to be “wiped off the map.”
Israel and Washington accuse Iran of trying to develop atomic weapons under the guise of a civilian nuclear programme, a charge Tehran has repeatedly denied.
via Half of Israelis back immediate strike on Iran.
Report: US Promises Jerusalem Will Be Palestines Capital
The Palestinian Authority (PA) has been assured that US President Barack Obama’s new peace plan includes a Palestinian state with its capital in Jerusalem.
PA officials told the Israeli newspaper Yediot Ahronot that the US intends to stand by its policy that East Jerusalem should be the Palestinian capital. Obama is expected to roll out the peace plan in Cairo on 4 June.
The plan also calls for Israel to freeze settlement activity, and a clear timetable for the establishment of a Palestinian state, negotiated under the framework of the Arab Peace Initiative. The newspaper said the US is expected to ask Arab states also to set a timeline for establishing normalized diplomatic ties with Israel.
Meanwhile US Senators sent a letter to Obama asking him to take into account “risks [Israel will] face in any peace agreement.”
The letter, signed by 76 US senators, or more than three quarters of the upper chamber of the congress, urged Obama to “continue to insist on the absolute Palestinian commitment to ending terrorist violence and to building the institutions necessary for a viable Palestinian state living side-by-side, in peace with the Jewish state of Israel,” according to Yediot.
A similar letter is reported to have garnered 200 signatures in the House of Representatives.
On his two-day visit to Washington, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did face demands to halt construction of settlements in the occupied West Bank.
via Report: US Promised Jerusalem Will Be Palestine^s Capital.
Jordanian King Says US Pushing 57 State Peace Plan
The United States is promoting a peace plan for the Middle East involving a “57-state solution” in which the entire Muslim world would recognize Israel, Monday’s Times of London quoted Jordan’s King Abdullah as saying.
“We are offering a third of the world to meet them with open arms,” the king said. “The future is not the Jordan River or the Golan Heights or the Sinai, the future is Morocco in the Atlantic and Indonesia in the Pacific. That is the prize.” But he warned: “If we delay our peace negotiations, then there is going to be another conflict between Arabs or Muslims and Israel in the next 12-18 months.” The newspaper said the king had hatched the plan with President Barack Obama in Washington in April. Details are likely to be thrashed out in a series of diplomatic moves this month, including Obama’s meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Washington next week. “What we are talking about is not Israelis and Palestinians sitting at the table, but Israelis sitting with Palestinians, Israelis sitting with Syrians, Israelis sitting with Lebanese,” said the king. While Palestinians seek a state in their long-running conflict with Israel, Syria wants the return of the Golan Heights, seized by Israel in a
via Jordanian king says US pushing new peace plan.
Iran Deploys Missile Batteries Fearing Israel, US Attack
May 12, 2009 by admin
Filed under Stories Of Interest
Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps has deployed mobile ground-to-air and ground-to-sea missile batteries in the Strait of Hormuz and other areas in the Persian Gulf, an Iranian source was quoted by Al Watan as saying on Tuesday.
The source told the Saudi-based newspaper that the move was made after Iran received reports that the US and Israel were preparing to attack the Islamic republic’s nuclear facilities.
