OBAMA, GERUSALEMME SARA' CAPITALE D'ISRAELE

(AGI) - Gerusalemme, 23 luglio - "Continuo a dire che Gerusalemme sara' la capitale di Israele". Lo ha affermato il candidato democratico, Barack Obama, parlando dalla citta' di Sderot, al Sud di Israele, dove e' arrivato insieme al ministro degli esteri, Tzipi Livni, "L'ho sempre detto e continuo a dirlo - ha aggiunto - ma ho anche detto che si tratta di uno 'status' finale" che dovra' essere deciso dai negoziati. La comunita' internazionale, inclusi gli Usa, non riconosce la rivendicazione di Israele che sia Gerusalemme la sua "eterna indivisa capitale". Nel corso della sua visita in Israele Obama ha ribadito il proprio deciso sostegno allo stato ebraico, occasione per visitare lo Yad Vashem e per definire "un miracolo" lo stato.

Il candidato democratico alla Casa Bianca aveva gia' proclamato il proprio appoggio a Israele durante un'incontro con la comunita' ebraica americana, ma prima dell'incontro con il presidente Shimon Peres e dopo quello con il ministro della Difesa Ehud Barak ha voluto parlare ai giornalisti del "miracolo che da 60 anni fiorisce" nella regione e della tragedia della Shoah. "Ho sempre guardato alle questioni di base sollevate dall'Olocausto: da una parte il male di cui l'uomo e' capace e dall'altra la capacita' che l'umanita' ha di combattere insieme il male", ha detto. Obama, ha anche promesso di essere "un partner importante" per la pace in Medio Oriente nel caso in cui venisse eletto, come ha riferito il negoziatore palestinese, Saeb Erek, a conclusione dell'incontro di circa un'ora tra Obama e il presidente dell'Autorita' nazionale palestinese Abu Mazen a Ramallah, in Cisgiordania. "Obama - ha affermato Erakat - ha detto ad Abu Mazen che se vince le elezioni sara un partner completo e positivo nel processo di pace che non abbandonera' un solo momento" e sosterra' - ha aggiunto - la strada di una soluzione pacifica nel conflitto israelo-palestinese.

In serata Obama sara' a cena con il ministro israeliano Ehud Olmert a cui seguira' la visita del Muro del Pianto e la citta' antica di Gerusalemme. Domani il viaggio di Obama proseguira' per l'Europa. Prima tappa Berlino dove incontrera' la cancelliera Angela Merkel.

İsrail’i ziyaret eden Amerikan Demokrat Parti başkan adayı Senatör Barack Obama’ya eşlik eden İsrail Dışişleri Bakanı Tzipni Livni, göz göre göre yalan söyledi.

Obama’ya Gazze Şeridi sınırındaki Sderot kentinde eşlik eden Livni, İsrail’in her zaman barış isteyen bir devlet olduğunu iddia etti.

‘İSRAİL BARIŞ İSTEYEN BİR ÜLKEDİR’
Al Jazeera televizyonunun canlı olarak verdiği Obama’nın ziyaretinde, Livni, BM tarafından defalarca kınanmasına rağmen uluslar arası hukuka aykırı davranan İsrail’in hala işgal ettiği topraklardan çekilmesini de görmezden gelerek, “İsrail, barış isteyen bir ülkedir. Ortadoğu’da çatışma artık İsrail ve Filistin arasında değildir. Çatışma, ılımlılar ile radikaller arasındadır” ifadelerini kullanması dikkat çekti.

OBAMA’DAN İSRAİL’E DESTEK
Sderot’a gelen Barack Obama ise, İsrail’in güvenliğinin kendileri için önemli olduğunu belirterek, İran’ın nükleer silah arzusunun İsrail’in varlığını tehdit ettiğini iddia etti. Obama, İsrail’in düşmanlarının aynı zamanda Amerika’nın düşmanları olduğunu ifade ederek, Kudüs’ün İsrail’in başkenti olacağı konusundaki sözlerini tekrarladı.

Obama’nın Sderot ziyareti sırasında, Livni’nin yanı sıra Savunma Bakanı Ehud Barak da bulundu.

habervaktim.com

European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana is seen meeting with then Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Shimon Peres, October 2006.

Israel has had its relationship with the EU upgraded.  The following by Arjan El Fassed co-founder of The Electronic Intifada:

During her sixth visit to Israel since last November's Annapolis summit, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice complained that the thousands of new housing units, built in Israeli settlements on occupied Palestinian land were damaging the peace talks with Palestinians. Meanwhile, at a joint press conference with Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni in Luxembourg, the same day, Slovenia's Foreign Minister Dimitrij Rupel, whose country currently holds the rotating EU presidency, announced that the EU had decided to upgrade its political and economic relations with Israel. Rupel, who chaired the EU-Israel Association Council meeting, the body overseeing the relationship, stated that the EU and Israel are "elevating" their relations to a new level of "more intense, more fruitful, more influential cooperation." Israel has now been granted the highest level of relations available to a non-member state.

The cooperation is based on the European Neighborhood Policy Action Plan, an initiative launched under the Dutch EU Presidency in 2004, aimed at bringing the neighboring countries closer to the EU. This European move might seem surprising since a progress report on the implementation of the European Neighborhood Policy stated clearly that "little concrete progress" has been made on issues raised between Israel and the EU, such as restrictions on movement, the construction of the West Bank wall (its route ruled illegal by the International Court of Justice), administrative detentions, the dismantling of settler "outposts," and the expansion of Israeli settlements.

Over the weekend, before the Monday announcement, the EU governments were still split between countries that wanted to link the upgrade to improvements in the moribund peace process or no link at all. A number of non-governmental organizations tried to press for linkages to Israel's atrocious human rights record and the end to the siege of Gaza but Israeli diplomatic efforts and various national interests of member states proved to be stronger. A compromise was found in a softened link to progress in the peace process and the by now utopian two-state solution.

For years, Israel has ignored EU concerns about settlement construction on occupied territories, Israeli human rights violations, extrajudicial killings, house demolitions and other breaches of the EU-Israel Association Agreement and international law. As recently as January, top EU officials, including foreign policy chief Javier Solana and External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner called Israel's blockade of the Gaza Strip "collective punishment," defined as a war crime under the Fourth Geneva Conventions.

Tzipi Livni said that the talks were a milestone in EU-Israel relations, even though the agreement did not completely satisfy the original wishes of Israel, which also sought the introduction of regular summits with the EU and meetings with EU ministers. Yet the upgrade includes enhanced cooperation in political, economic, scientific, legal, cultural, educational and counter-terrorism matters and, according to Rupel, is based on "a mutual commitment to important common values."

Rupel added that "There are obvious reasons for which strengthened political cooperation between the EU and Israel should be understood as a cooperation which contributes to resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict." He did not address why Israel should be rewarded with unconditional ties, despite its violations, while Palestinians under Israeli military occupation should be subjected to harsh EU sanctions and a boycott that has intensified the suffering of the civilian population. Livni stated that "it is clear that Israel and Europe share the same values and the same interests."

Until now, under the EU's Neighborhood Policy Israel was the only country without a subcommittee on human rights.

Israel's diplomatic relations with most European states and EU institutions have improved significantly in recent years. The United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Germany have been the closest allies of Israel within the EU. Even before she became Germany's chancellor, Angela Merkel told the Israeli daily Haaretz that "it is of the utmost importance that we preserve the vitality of relations and avoid turning them into something that is only formal and ceremonial."

On 19 May, at the Amsterdam Hilton Hotel, Dutch foreign minister Maxime Verhagen told Israel supporters at a symposium that he pressed the EU to intensify its relations with Israel and made good by inviting several Israeli government officials to The Hague. Earlier this year he told participants of the Herzilya conference in Israel that Israel's association with the European internal market could be deepened, as well as "its involvement in various European agencies, programs and working groups."

At that time, he said that "part and parcel of this process would be strengthening the human rights dialogue between Israel and the EU" but those familiar with past human rights dialogues in the context of the EU-Israel Association Agreement know that these are empty words as the Luxembourg announcement clearly demonstrates.

He also said that "halting the expansion of settlements and dismantling outposts would make a great difference in this respect" but the ongoing expansion of construction activities in a hundred settler colonies at this moment suggests that it didn't make any difference.

With East European newcomers, the EU has now a bigger share of friends of Israel. Notably the Czech Republic and Poland opposed any linking of the upgrade of relations with Israel to its behavior. With the return of right-wing governments in France and Italy, EU policy has tilted more towards the line of the Bush Administration. As France, led by President Nicolas Sarkozy, takes over the EU presidency on 1 July, it is expected that the tilt towards Israel will continue.

Arjan El Fassed is co-founder of The Electronic Intifada and the author of Niet iedereen kan stenen gooien (Uitgeverij Nieuwland, 2008).

• The Washington Post's campaign factchecker awards three Pinocchios to conservative rottweiler Floyd Brown - and to his pseudo-academic alter ego, Daniel Pipes - for promoting the canard was a Muslim as a child and is hiding the fact: "Both Brown and Pipes base their arguments and conclusions on factoids that have appeared in the mainstream media. But they make no attempt to weigh the evidence fairly," the Post said. In other words, they're misusing some details to make up stories, as conspiracy theorists will. Pipes, we can be sure, will not be dissuaded from finding invidious Islamic plots everywhere.
• Will Obama be the first woman president? Susan Faludi explains that Obama rejects that the "gender ethic" guiding American politics for two centuries, which says that the president must play the role of macho rescuer on the frontier, protecting the women and children of the wagon train. Under the current excuse for a president, the frontier fallacy that a Real Man in the White House will break heads has put America neck-deep in the Big Muddy of the Tigres. The one flaw I find in Faludi's argument is her presumption that this is peculiarly American. Tzipi Livni's need to build herself a terrorist-hunting image is based on the same ethic and the peculiar burden it places on a woman candidate to out-macho the men.
• An adviser to the Obama campaign has responded to my criticism of O's statement to Aipac, "Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel, and it must remain undivided." The adviser, remaining anonymous, says that that the candidate really means physically undivided: Obama "has said before that Jerusalem is a final status issue to be negotiated by the parties, but that two principles that should guide any outcome is that it will remain Israel's capital and it should never be redivided by barbed wire and checkpoints as it was from 1948-67." I'm satisfied with that as a position. I still think it was disingenuous and damaging to use the formulation he used before Aipac. The audience - in the hall, and around the world - heard "undivided Jerusalem" in the way that official Israel constantly uses the phrase, meaning politically undivided. That was red meat for the Aipac crowd. Saying "physically undivided" would have been a red flag. Afterward, Obama had to clarify, or backtrack, or write a midrash on his own words, in order to maintain his dedication to effective diplomacy. Better not to have raised the issue. But then, Obama was talking to a crowd inclined to believe both Pinocchio Pipes and the frontier fallacy. He faced the classic dilemma of a high school kid at the wrong party - being yourself and being popular just don't fit together.

Une injonction a été donnée à Al Farisya, un hameau palestinien de la vallée du Jourdain, annonçant la démolition des constructions agricoles, des élevages de poulets et même de la salle d'eau.

Les villageois ont été prévenus qu'ils avaient cinq jours pour partir car les buldozers viendront tout écraser.

La Vallée du Jourdain représente plus de 30% de la superficie de la Cisjordanie mais déjà 95% des terres et 98% de l'eau sont VOLES par Israël pour usage militaire et des colonies construites illégalement.

Le but est clair : achever le brutal nettoyage ethnique qui se poursuit lentement; et annexer la totalité de la Vallée du Jourdain.

Al Farisya est un des nombreux villages menacés.

Agissez maintenant :

Exemple de message à envoyer :

     Non aux démolitions planifiées d'Al Farisya.

     La terre appartient aux Palestiniens qui y vivent, Israël n'a pas le droit de leur prendre ces terres.

Message à envoyer par fax et par e-mails à :

     -Tzipi Livni, Vice Prime Minister and Minister of Foreing Affairs

          Fax : +972 2 530 3367          e-mail : sar@mfa.gov.il

     -Brigadier General Avihai Mandeblit, Military Judge Advocate General

          Fax : +972 3 608 0366          e-mail : arbel@mail.idf.il

MERCI DE FAIRE PASSER L'INFORMATION LE PLUS LARGEMENT POSSIBLE TRES RAPIDEMENT.

www.europalestine.com/spip.php?article3252

Scegliere tra guerra e trattativa, decidere se sia meglio colpire al cuore Hamas o inseguire la tregua proposta dal gruppo fondamentalista attraverso l'Egitto. Il giorno del giudizio, arriva dopo una notte segnata da quella lettera dall'inferno in cui il 21enne sergente Gilad Shalit (nell'immagine), prigioniero da due anni di Hamas, scrive al padre e supplica di non abbandonarlo.

E' una lettera scritta con calligrafia incerta e cuore pesante. «Sogno soltanto il giorno in cui potrò tornare a casa, sto male, salvatemi, non abbandonatemi», racconta al padre il soldato con il volto da ragazzino. Da quelle righe strappate alle segrete di Gaza afflora anche una supplica al paese intero. «Chiedo al governo di non abbandonarmi», implora Gilad.

Sono parole pesanti come macigni. Parole che gli israeliani non sono abituati a sentire da un figlio prigioniero. Ma sono pesanti anche i missili e i colpi di mortaio che martellano i villaggi intorno alla Striscia di Gaza. Hanno ucciso un uomo la scorsa domenica, tranciato quattro vite in poche settimane, colpito 18 volte ieri mattina e ieri pomeriggio. Certi elicotteri e aerei senza pilota danno la caccia ai responsabifi dei lanci, inceneriscono tre militanti, ma quelle rappresaglie sono cure transitorie, il paese pretende invece soluzioni definitive. Ehud Olmert, Tzipi Livni e Ehud Barak, il premier e i ministri di Esteri e Difesa considerati la cupola dell'esecutivo, decidono dunque di riunirsi per emettere un verdetto segreto, ma definitivo.

Oggi quel verdetto verrà esaminato dal gruppo più ampio di ministri e responsabifi di Difesa e servizi segreti riuniti all'interno del Gabinetto di Sicurezza. Le incognite però non mancano. Da una parte c'è l'incertezza di una tregua che consentirebbe ad Hamas di rafforzarsi continuando a contrabbandare armi. Dall'altra ci sono gli inevitabifi dubbi legati ad un'offensiva difficile e sanguinosa.

Invadere Gaza, rastrellarla casa per casa, distruggere gli arsenali, eliminare i vertici di Hamas significa anche rimandare la liberazione del soldato Shalit, rischiare di perderlo per sempre, combattere con l'assillo di un ostaggio in mani nemiche. Hamas ha già fatto capire che negoziato sulla tregua e sull'ostaggio corrono su binari diversi. Il governo Olmert ha già detto di non voler liberare i 400 palestinesi richiesti in cambio del suo soldato, visto che almeno 330 di quei prigionieri hanno le mani sporche di sangue israeliano. La decisione della cupola di governo fluttua dunque nell'incertezza.

A renderla più complessa contribuiscono le rivalità e le contrapposizioni tra i «magnifici tre». Barak, il soldato più decorato d'Israele, vuole rubare la poltrona ad Olmert e punta sull' offensiva di Gaza per guadagnarsi l'appoggio del paese. Ehud Olmert, primo e unico premier senza un passato da ufficiale, sa che l'invasione bioccherà le trattative di pace con Fatah e con la Siria su cui punta per mantenere il potere. Tzipi Livni, l'ex operativa del Mossad, cresciuta rincorrendo i terroristi, insegue ora la poltrona di leader cli Kadima e deve capire se sia meglio sopravvivere all'ombra di Olmert o gettarsi a capofitto nel tumulto di una nuova guerra e di nuove elezioni volute da Barak.

Gian Micalessin - Il Giornale - 11 giugno 2008

In America, they have an election for national leader every four years. Then they're stuck with whatever they bought, whether it works or not. Here we have an election whenever the humidity, the soccer results, the stock market and the mood in the State Prosecutor's Office line up in a formula known only to several deceased alchemists. But the rumors are that we'll have one this year. That explains why a leak just appeared in a British paper on Tzipi Livni's previous life as a spook, as I explain in my new column at The American Prospect :

One line of Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni's resume has always been an enigma. From 1980 to 1984, it says, Livni served in the Mossad. This week, some details of her work in the ultra-secretive espionage agency emerged in the Sunday Times of London . While based in Paris, an acquaintance told the paper, "Tzipi was not an office girl. … She blended in well in European capitals, working with male agents, most of them ex-commandos, taking out Arab terrorists." Her closest female partner was Mira Gal, who is now Livni's bureau chief at the Foreign Ministry, the Times said, hinting at a sisterhood of old spooks.

You don't need a conspiratorial mind-set to assume that Livni, or an ex-spook close to her, planned the placement and timing of that report. Because it was published abroad, there was no risk of the Israeli military censor blue-penciling it, but it was quickly picked up by the Hebrew media. It came just as Livni was preparing for a political battle to replace scandal-tainted Ehud Olmert as head of the Kadima party and as prime minister. The intended message was: She may never have been a general, but Tzipi Livni knows about national security from the inside, and she is a very tough -- even cold-blooded -- woman. It was therefore also a statement about the added, conflicting demands a woman candidate faces in defining herself as she seeks to be a nation's leader in time of war. As if another reminder were needed this year.

Thanks to a multiparty system, I expect to be able to vote for someone with a deeper understanding of how to reach peace, not to mention better social policies. But the whispers about Livni being "weak" (perhaps because she had doubts that turning Lebanon into rubble would get our captives back) raise some important issues about gender in Israeli politics. Read more here .

Expected to meet with U.S. President George W. Bush today, Olmert is seeking $150 million for the third generation of Arrow missile defense system to counter Qassam rockets plus a request of F-22 jet fighters with a radar detector, pending the Congress remove its ban on this sale.

"Given the recent political developments in Israel, I hesitated as to whether it was the right time and the right thing to leave everything behind and meet with you today," said Olmert last night before the pro-Israel lobby American Israel Public Affairs Committee.

"I did not hesitate for too long," he affirmed.

Olmert is facing a corruption scandal, accused of allegedly taking improper funds over a decade – before he came to office – from an American fund-raiser from New York, Rabbi Morris Talansky, a case apparently leaked by his own associates.

Olmert's Kadima Party wants to avoid early elections to sustain the leverage of this centrist party, with a scenario calling for Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni to replace Olmert.

But the battle for the prime ministership is already under way. Defense Minister Ehud Barak wants to end the honeymoon enjoyed by Kadima and restore the influence of the Labor party, in an eventual parliamentary election that would pave his way back into office.

But interestingly, Barak's call for Olmert to resign could work against him in the long run and extend Kadima's rule until 2010.

On the other side, Likud leader Binyamin Netanyahu, wants to build on his high poll numbers, which he believes would give him a landslide victory in early elections. Ultimately, Likud and Labor would like to see the demise of Kadima, returning Israeli politics to its traditional divide between the left and right.

Yet a formula needs to be found on how the three contenders can agree in conceding the premiership to another. Kadima has an unprecedented 29 seats in the Knesset, and is in no rush to change that. Labor has 19, down from the 21 seats it held in the 2003 elections; and Shas holds 12. The big blow was for Likud which lost heavily to Kadima, going from 27 seats in 2003 to 12 in 2006.

No motion to dissolve the Knesset is likely to be passed, leaving the current assembly in place until 2010. Instead of parliamentary elections, Kadima could opt for a primary where around 65,000 of its members would pick a new leader by September.

The founding of Kadima in November 2005 was former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's intent to form a national platform to push for unilateral disengagement from Gaza, remove Israeli settlements, and draw the borders of a novice Palestinian state.

In view of the lack of progress in advancing peace talks with the Palestinians, Olmert's resignation could be welcomed by the Bush administration, so long as Livni replaces Olmert and she remains faithful to Sharon's plan.

Washington might look at a swift transfer of power as an opportunity for a fresh start. Livni has been calling for Olmert to resign since May 2007, following the Winograd Commission's interim report on the summer 2006 war on Lebanon.

Already, reports highlighting her experience as a Mossad agent have surfaced. According to the London Sunday Times, Livni served as a Mossad agent in Paris in the 1980s overseeing missions to kill Palestinian militants across Europe. The report stressed that she was not "an office girl."

At this point Olmert resignation is not a matter of when, but rather a question of how.

Today, let's focus on the Irgun, the militant Zionist group that operated in Palestine between 1931 and 1948 and included both Livni's mother and father as key members. As a recent Guardian article points out, Livni's childhood was "steeped in the enduring loyalties of Menachim Begin's so-called fighting family"- with her father acting as Commander of Operations of Irgun's military wing until being arrested shortly before the notorious bombing of the British base at the King David Hotel in Jerusalem.

For background, the aggressive Irgun militia was primarily connected with a string of terror attacks on British troops and politicians during the Mandate period - and perhaps most gruesomely for the massacre of the entire Palestinian village of Deir Yassin in 1948 - helping to trigger a frenzied exodus of Palestinians from their homes in Jerusalem to refugee camps of the West Bank (where many remain today).

Although Livni's father and mother (a female Irgun fighter) were officially listed as 'detained' during both the King David bombing and the Deir Yassin massacre, there is no doubting the childhood influence their experiences and hard-line militia beliefs must have imparted to the young Tzipi.

As a 'child of the Irgun' Livni's future was to be guided by these early lessons in radical Zionism - leading her down her own path of paramilitary service - as she was to hold several secret posts with the Mossad (Israel's Intelligence Agency) most notably being stationed in Paris - an assignment she still resolutely refuses to discuss.

A firm supporter of Ariel Sharon's visions for the Likud and later the Kadima party, Livni's politics lean somewhat left of the former Prime Minister, but her firm stance against even basic discussions on subjects such as 'the right of return' of Palestinian families to Israel - makes her a suspicious if not tenuous partner in the peace process.

At best, she will inject a fresh atmosphere into a clearly lagging set of stale negotiations. At worst, she will continue to guide Israel down a hybrid Kadima/Likud right-wing path meaning more walls, less justice, and no return of refugees to their homeland.

Playing the card of the optimist, we'll have to wait and see.

Oh, and she's an extremely close, personal friend of Condoleeza Rice.

Scary.

Do hysterical American neocons know about this? Israel is appeasing. Someone should stop them before peace breaks out...

In a related story, Ehud Olmert, who some have speculated initiated the talks with Syria as a wag-the-dog manuever to deflect attention from an ongoing bribery investigation, will be in the U.S. next week to meet with American politicians and address AIPAC. Many believe his tenure as Prime Minister will be over shortly. The Israeli Foreign Minister, Tzipi Livni, is waiting eagerly in the wings.

Pressure on Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of Israel to step down increased Thursday when Tzipi Livni, his foreign minister and a member of the same political party, urged preparations for new elections.

Livni — who until now had kept silent on the high-profile corruption investigation engulfing Olmert — said their party, Kadima, was "at a point in which it must make decisions and prepare for any scenario, including early elections."

The remarks by Livni, who is a frontrunner to succeed Olmert, seemed to be a political step designed to move Israeli politics into a post-Olmert era.

They came a day after another member of the governing coalition, Defense Minister Ehud Barak of the Labor Party, called on Olmert to step down pending the outcome of the corruption investigation.

Read On...

Adler, head of a vast media and advertising empire and long-time strategic consultant to the top political echelon, was in a pickle: He was serving as an adviser to just too many cabinet members (almost half the ministers, from all coalition parties). Many of them needed guidance on how to outmaneuver, depose, discredit and beat down their fellow cabinet members ­ other Adler clients.

To spare himself the madness, and to avoid the likely uncomfortable confrontations, Adler simply left the politicians to their own devices and indulged in a few days of relaxation and shopping in the Big Apple. Exactly one year later, there is no conflict of interests this time. Instead, there is a confluence of interests, so Adler is staying put and very much in the thick of things. As strategic adviser to both Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and Defense Minister Ehud Barak, the strategist has been working hard to advance the goals of both those clients, by seeking to move Prime Minister Ehud Olmert out of the way so that Kadima and Labor can form a new coalition with Livni at its head. Polls suggest, after all, that only with Livni at the helm of Kadima can the coalition hope to beat the opposition led by the Likud's Binyamin Netanyahu. Kadima is, after all, Adler's creation, his baby.

The offensive began on Tuesday night. Hours after Morris Talansky testified that he gave Olmert hundreds of thousands of dollars for his personal use, someone leaked to Channel 1 TV's Ayala Hasson that Barak had met with Adler in a strategy session and was set, on Wednesday afternoon, to call on Olmert to resign, or resign himself, or join up with Binyamin Netanyahu. Barak, in short, was going to capitalize on the moral outrage aroused by Talansky's testimony and lead the call for a return to more respectable political norms.

But Olmert has his own strategists, and at least one of them knows a great deal about Barak. By Wednesday morning, the prime minister's chief adviser, the former Barak strategist Tal Zilberstein, was on the radio putting Barak in his place. Sounding uncomfortably like a character out of a Mario Puzo novel, Zilberstein let loose a well-timed threat of his own: "I know Barak took envelopes himself," he charged. "He shouldn't play the part of Asa Kasher [the man who wrote the IDF code of ethics and who news editors assign reporters to speak to on stories relating to ethics]. If Barak thinks he can try and disguise himself as Asa Kasher, to roll his eyes, and to preach to others about morality, then I have a problem with him. I believe that Ehud Barak understands that he is the last person who can talk about envelopes and cash."

One not particularly subtle message being conveyed here, from Olmert to Barak via Zilberstein: Be careful what you say this afternoon. You're also vulnerable. And another: I may be going down, but if you push me too hard, I'll take you with me, with the help of the guy who was closest to you. If Barak hadn't anticipated that comeback from his old consigliore Zilberstein when he planned his moves with Adler on Tuesday night, he should have done. For nine long years before they fell out, Zilberstein was Barak's close confidant and adviser, perhaps even his closest.

In the world of Mafia fiction, orchestrating the defection of a mob boss's consigliore to the rival family is the height of sophistication, and the height of treason. In the world of Israeli politics, the defection of Zilberstein is not much different.

Zilberstein's radio threats worked, up to a point. Army Radio's Razi Barka'i took the bait, asking Zilberstein if he personally saw Barak take cash-stuffed envelopes. Zilberstein was evasive. Barka'i then brought on Channel 10's Raviv Drucker, one of the country's preeminent political analysts, for his analysis of the startling charge.

Now, the top-rated morning radio news show was focused not on Olmert's cash envelopes, but on Barak's alleged cash envelopes. [For the record, there is no open police investigation into Barak.] Next Drucker raised the Barak envelope charge at the Labor leader's Knesset press conference. But Barak, the ex-commando and the most celebrated Jewish warrior since Samson, was ready. "I'm not going to respond to every piece of nonsense that's put out there," he retorted. "Gather everything you have and take it immediately to the police," he swaggered.

Barak's not particularly subtle message to Olmert and Zilberstein: Bring it on. Do your worst. I've got nothing to hide and I'm calling your bluff. Zilberstein's error was to have given Barak the time to prepare that response. He may have remade the morning radio agenda, but he also gave Barak roughly four hours to formulate an answer, and to ensure the thrust of the press conference remained the demand that Olmert go, and soon, or Labor would work to bring about new elections.

Outflanked and sounding rather like sore losers, unnamed Olmert aides were being quoted by the evening news complaining that Barak and Livni had coordinated their anti-Olmert strategy with joint adviser Adler ­ hardly an incendiary allegation.

The day's cut and thrust underlines that beneath the seething political surface, a war of wits, and of threats, is raging, where old alliances mean fresh vulnerabilities and old confidences are easily betrayed.

The very fact that Zilberstein now works for Olmert against his old boss Barak constitutes a major advantage for the prime minister. Will it be enough, however, to safeguard Olmert from the strategies of Barak, Livni, and their master adviser Reuven Adler?

The Israeli mission to the United Nations is seeking clarifications after an official communique released by Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon's bureau made specific reference to the word "nakba," according to a report broadcast on Israel Radio early Friday morning.

The report said the UN chief telephoned Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to express his solidarity with the Palestinians on the day they mark the "nakba," the Arabic word meaning "catastrophe" that is used in reference to the founding of the state of Israel.

Danny Carmon, Israel's deputy ambassador to the UN, told Israel Radio that the term "'nakba' is a tool of Arab propaganda used to undermine the legitimacy of the establishment of the State of Israel, and it must not be part of the lexicon of the UN."

Ne croyez pas qu'il s'agit d'un coup de tête, au contraire: Tzipi Livni a fréquemment répété que l'utilisation du mot "nakba" par les Arabes était un acte de guerre. Par exemple, voici ce qu'elle a dit lors d'une déclaration à la Knesset le 3 décembre 2007:

On the day that the State of Israel was established, May 14, 1948, our Independence Day, the day that you, my Arab colleagues, call the "Nakba" - the disaster, Israel proclaimed in its Declaration of Independence: "We extend our hand to all neighboring states and their peoples in an offer of peace and good neighborliness, and appeal to them to establish bonds of cooperation and mutual help..." Our hands are still outstretched in peace to the entire Arab and Muslim world without exception. (...)

I believe that the solution of two nation states serves the interests of both sides. Not every celebration of ours is cause for sorrow on the other side, and vice versa. I say to my Palestinian colleagues: Do not bemoan the establishment of the State of Israel; establish your own state, rejoice in its establishment and we will rejoice with you, since for us the establishment of the Palestinian state is not our Nakba, or disaster - provided that upon its establishment the word "Nakba" be deleted from the Arabic lexicon in referring to Israel.

Et elle l'avait déjà dit lors de la conférence d'Annapolis, citant au passage le Maroc:

On the day that the State of Israel was established, May 14, 1948, our Independence Day, the day that you, my Arab colleagues, call the “Nakba” - the disaster, Israel proclaimed in its Declaration of Independence: "We extend our hand to all neighboring states and their peoples in an offer of peace and good neighborliness, and appeal to them to establish bonds of cooperation and mutual help…”

Our hands are still outstretched in peace to the entire Arab and Muslim world without exception, including the Palestinians, Lebanon, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Bahrain, Morocco and Indonesia.

I am proud at where Israel is today. I am sorry that the Arab world rejected the principle of partition in the past, and I hope and pray that today there is an understanding that instead of fighting, the right thing to do is to build a shared future in two separate states: one - the State of Israel, which was established as a Jewish state, a national home for the Jewish people; and the other - Palestine - which will be established to give a full and complete solution to Palestinians wherever they may be. Those who are in Gaza and the West Bank, and those in the refugee camps in other Arab countries with temporary status, waiting for a sense of belonging to a national state - the same feeling of wholeness that the establishment of the State of Israel gave to the Jewish refugees who were forced to leave Arab countries and Europe and became partners in building Israel.

I believe that the solution of two nation states serves the interests of both sides. Not every celebration of ours is cause for sorrow on the other side, and vice versa. I say to my Palestinian colleagues: Do not bemoan the establishment of the State of Israel; establish your own state, rejoice in its establishment and we will rejoice with you, since for us the establishment of the Palestinian state is not our Nakba, or disaster - provided that upon its establishment the word “Nakba” be deleted from the Arabic lexicon in referring to Israel.

Encore une fois, du point de vue sioniste, Tzipi Livni a raison: le contrôle du vocabulaire légitime - Yedioth Aharonoth titre son article "Israel demands UN strike 'Nakba' from its lexicon" - donne également un contrôle idéologique sur le contenu des idées légitimes; après avoir réussi à supprimer l'analogie officielle entre sionisme et racisme, après avoir réussi à transformer la résistance en terrorisme et rendu quasiment illégitime l'utilisation du terme antisioniste (se décrire antisioniste aujourd'hui est un peu comme invoquer le cinquième amendement à la Constitution étatsunienne lors de la chasse aux sorcières anti-communiste des années 40 & 50 - c'est formellement légal, mais c'est en même une présomption quasi-irréfragable de subversion idéologique illégitime - le communisme alors, l'antisémitisme aujourd'hui - qui expose l'impétrant à des sanctions judiciaires, médiatiques ou professionnelles), Israël s'attache non plus seulement à défendre son idéologie d'Etat, le sionisme, mais à déligitimer la revendication nationale palestinienne. Voilà les Arabes en général et les Palestiniens en particulier sommés de renoncer à affirmer l'existence d'une nation palestinienne ayant des droits, droits intrinséquement et inévitablement niés et bafoués par la création d'un Etat juif en Palestine. Voilà donc les Arabes et les Palestiniens sommés d'utiliser la seule terminologie sioniste, et de se soumettre ainsi, corps et âme, au sionisme, en tant qu'idéologie et réalité politique.

On aura rarement vu une entreprise aussi totalitaire dans le domaine des relations internationales, qui n'est pas sans rappeler la fameuse lettre du GIA à Chirac en 1995 lui demandant de se convertir à l'islam. Israël ne se contente pas d'une reconnaissance explicite (Maroc, Tunisie, Mauritanie, Jordanie, Egypte) ou implicite (Liban, Syrie, Arabe séoudite, Algérie) en tant qu'Etat, il lui faut en outre l'allégeance idéologique: il ne suffit plus de reconnaître Israël en tant qu'Etat, il faut désormais également adhérer à son idéologie.

D'où la surréaliste polémique sur le droit d'Israël à exister, dont la reconnaissance est réclamée par Israël et ses fidèles alliés occidentaux. En droit international public, en effet, aucun Etat n'a le droit d'exister - ils existent ou n'existent pas, et c'est là une constatation de fait (y a-t-il contrôle d'un territoire peuplé par une autorité politique) mêlée à des considérations politiques (cette autorité peut-elle être considérée comme légitime), mais de droit intrinsèque à exister, point. Des pays ont reconnu la République démocratique allemande ou Taïwan, d'autres non, mais personne n'a reconnu le droit de la RDA ou de Taïwan à exister. L'existence d'un Etat est un état de fait, avec - certes - des aspects politiques, et des conséquences juridiques.

Mais le but d'Israël va plus loin: il ne leur suffit pas de coloniser la Palestine, d'expulser les Palestiniens, de discriminer les Palestiniens restés sur place et de neutraliser la solidarité internationale avec le peuple palestinien. Non, il leur faut en plus empêcher l'idée même d'une critique du sionisme - en assimilant et faisant assimiler l'antisionisme à l'antisémitisme, et maintenant en interdisant le terme de nakba. L'expulsion et la dépossession physique des Palestiniens doit désormais se doubler d'une expulsion et d'une dépossession symbolique: il faut effacer la notion même qu'ils aient été expulsés et dépossédés.

Comme l'écrit Joseph Massad:

One of the most difficult things to grasp in the modern history of Palestine and the Palestinians is the meaning of the Nakba. Is the Nakba to be seen as a discrete event that took place and ended in 1948, or is it something else? What are the political stakes in reifying the Nakba as a past event, in commemorating it annually, in bowing before its awesome symbolism? What are the effects of making the Nakba a finite historical episode that one bemoans but must ultimately accept as a fact of history?

I will suggest to you that there is much at stake in all of this, in rendering the Nakba an event of the past, a fact on the ground that one cannot but accept, admit, and finally transcend; indeed that in order to move forward, one must leave the Nakba behind. Some have even suggested that if Israel acknowledges and apologises for the Nakba, the Palestinians would forgive and forget, and the effects of the Nakba would be relegated to historical commemorations, not unlike the one we are having this year.

In my view, the Nakba is none of these things, and the attempt to make this year the 60th anniversary of the Nakba's life and death is a grave error. The Nakba is in fact much older than 60 years and it is still with us, pulsating with life and coursing through history by piling up more calamities upon the Palestinian people. I hold that the Nakba is a historical epoch that is 127 years old and is ongoing. The year 1881 is the date when Jewish colonisation of Palestine started and, as everyone knows, it has never ended. Much as the world would like to present Palestinians as living in a post-Nakba period, I insist that we live thoroughly in Nakba times. What we are doing this year is not an act of commemorating but an act of witnessing the ongoing Nakba that continues to destroy Palestine and the Palestinians. I submit, therefore, that this year is not the 60th anniversary of the Nakba at all, but rather one more year of enduring its brutality; that the history of the Nakba has never been a history of the past but decidedly a history of the present.

Il continue, et va droit au but, dévoilant l'objectif israëlien d'oblitération non seulement de la Palestine, mais de la mémoire de la Palestine:

Since the beginning, the Palestinian people have resisted the racist and colonial logic of the Nakba, through fighting off the colonists in the 1880s and 1890s, in the 1910s, 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, and on to the present. If Palestinian resistance failed to prevent the massive expulsion of half the Palestinian people and of the outright theft of their entire country, it has succeeded in overthrowing Zionist official memory. Indeed, memory has always been a key component of Palestinian resistance. When Palestinians insist on naming their country, their cities, and their villages with their original names, they are not only resisting the vulgar names that Zionism has bestowed on the land, they are also insisting on a geographic memory that Israel has all but succeeded to erase physically. Zionist cruelty has been such that Israel insisted for 50 years after its creation in denying that the Palestinians even exist as a people, or as a name; that the very name "Palestinians" should not even be uttered. For Zionists, the very name "Palestinian" functions as some magical incantation that could obliterate them at the existential level. They are not necessarily wrong in their impression, for the name Palestinian is itself the strongest form of resistance against their official memory. The name "Palestinian" has also been generative of continuities in Palestinian culture and life, in Palestinian identity and nationality, things that Israel had hoped it obliterated completely and whose survival will always threaten its mnemonic operation of inventing a fictional memory of non-Palestine, of non- Palestinians.

Palestinian counter-memory is in direct confrontation with the Nakba's achievement of obliterating Palestine as a geographic designation and an affront to the Nakba's ongoing efforts to obliterate the Palestinians as a national group with a pre-Nakba history. The survival of the Palestinians after the Nakba started, and despite its assiduous efforts to efface them, has made the Nakba a less than successful Zionist victory. It is in this context that Israel's insistence on calling Palestinian citizens in Israel "Israeli Arabs" is designed to silence their Palestinian-ness. Zionism's insistence that Palestinian refugees be settled and given the nationality of their host countries is aimed also to erase their name.

Sa conclusion est lumineuse:

But in resisting the Nakba, the Palestinians have struck at the heart of the Zionist project that insists that the Nakba be seen as a past event. In resisting Israel, Palestinians have forced the world to witness the Nakba as present action; one that, contrary to Zionist wisdom, is indeed reversible. This is precisely what galls Israel and the Zionist movement. Israel's inability to complete its mission of thoroughly colonising Palestine, of expelling all Palestinians, of "gathering" all Jews in the world in its colony, keeps it uneasy and keeps its project always in the present continuous.

While Israel has used this situation to project itself as a victim of its own victims who refuse to grant it legitimacy to victimise them, Israel understands not only in its unconscious but also consciously that its project will remain reversible. The cruelty it has shown and continues to show to the Palestinian people is directly proportional to its belief in their ability to overthrow its achievements and reverse its colonial project. The problem for Israel is not in believing and knowing that there is not one single place in its colonial settlement that did not have a former Arab population, but in its realisation that there is no place today in its imaginary "Jewish State" that does not still have an Arab population who claims it.

That the Nakba remains unfinished is precisely because Palestinians refuse to let it transform them into mankubin. What we are witnessing at this year's commemorations, then, is not only one more year of the Nakba but also one more year of resisting it. Those who counsel the Palestinians to accept the Nakba know that to accept the Nakba is to allow it to continue unfettered. Palestinians know better. The only way to end the Nakba, Palestinians insist, is to continue to resist it.

N'oublions jamais!

All four politicians were asked by the moderator to give a speech, lasting ten minutes, about what Israel means to them. Needless to say, each one used the opportunity to present what amounted to his/ her own electoral platform. Perhaps they are smelling elections in the air.

The speeches were void of any real headlines or news; just the fact that all four of them were on the stage together was interesting in itself. What I found more interesting however was the crowd's reactions to each of the speakers. There were at least several thousand conference -goers in attendance, and I think many of them were tired and restless at the end of a very busy three-day conference.

Instead of dissecting what the speakers said, I thought I'd give you an observation of the level of chatter and patter by the audience members during the speeches as an indication of who was charismatic and who was not, who held the audience's attention and who meandered and lost the crowd, which messages were welcomed and which missed the mark. I call the it chatter-and-patter-o-meter, from 1 [audience chatted amongst themselves very little and were absorbed by what the speaker was saying] to 5 [audience basically ignored the speaker and chatted and pattered away freely].

First up was Ehud Barak, who, like any man who has spent half his life in the military, divided his comments into two sections: the first about security, where he coined the phrase "ruthless patience" ["especially at a time when the blood boils we must not act impulsively, we'll act against the terror from Gaza at the right time"] and education [my wish is to one day be both Prime Minister and Education Minister at the same time]. Chatter and patter level - 2 out of 5. He spoke with authority and passion and most people listened. He still has that mistique about him, and he is Israel's ultimate Mr. Security.

Next was Eli Yishai, who spoke about the need to reinforce Jewish values in education and integrate the ultra-Orthodox into the employment sector. He also said that Israel could only make peace with the Palestinians once they made peace with themselves. Chatter and patter level: 2 out of 5. Yishai was well received and spoke with his usual eloquence.

Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni was next. Lots of audience cheer as she walked up to the podium, including a standing ovation by 5 young activists, but the chatter and patter started almost immediately as Livni began speaking. Some people even answered their phones. Peres' aide even went up to him, whispered something into the President's ear, and retreated. This is not the first audience I've seen not overwhelmed or enthralled by Livni's speeches. She did receive a round of applause when she said Israel needed a constitution. Chatter and patter level: 4 out of 5. Our foreign minister doesn't seem to have the charisma or message to keep an audience glued to their seats and their mouths shut.

Lastly, the great orator himself, Bibi Netanyahu. I was surprised by the amount of chatter here, I'd put it at about a 3 to 3.5. Bibi just wasn't on top of his game. Once he started talking about economic projects ["let's drastically lower the price of air tickets to Israel and even Bethlehem and let's get all these Christian evangelicals to come visit us"] his eyes lit up and the chatter died down somewhat, but still he wasn't his usual crowd-pleasing self. Barak, Yishai, and Livni chatted and pattered quite a lot amongst themselves during Bibi's speech, not taking him too seriously.

To summarize, in descending order of charisma:

Barak: 2 out of 5

Yishai: 2 out of 5

Bibi: 3-3.5 out of 5

Livni: 4 out of 5

According to an Israeli government website called Israelfestival.com, the festival included "non-stop entertainment, [a] fashion show, a variety of ethnic food for sale, Israeli folk dancing, arts and
crafts, Israeli and Jewish cultural and heritage pavilions and art exhibits".

The centrepiece ceremony takes place in West Jerusalem and be attended by Israel's political and military leaders as well as foreign dignitaries. Among those expected are US President George W Bush,
French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Israeli media and non-governmental organisations have already begun celebrations in earnest. For example, Israeli television has begun airing a new series called Shishim (meaning "60"), which looks back at the six decades since Israel was created in May 1948. The series, which began 31 March, is divided into six episodes, each devoted to one of the decades following the founding of the state.

Israel hopes that the high-pitched celebrations will serve as an opportunity to promote Israel and enhance its questionable standing abroad. "It is an opportunity to celebrate our achievements, our
successes, our national being," boasted Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, who was not yet born in 1948.

From the Zionist viewpoint, Israel is a story of success. Today, Israel is a political and military force to be reckoned with, even if its power is based on the patronage of foreign entities. A country of
no more than seven million people, including nearly 1.5 million non-Jews (mainly Palestinians), Israel more or less directs the politics and policies of world's only superpower, the United States, thanks mainly to powerful Jewish lobbies in Washington.

The power of the Jewish lobby largely explains how massive American financial and military support is to Israel, which is measured in hundreds of billions of dollars. Were it not for this nearly unlimited
financial, economic, technological, political and military backing, Israel would never have been able to survive, especially given its predator tactics.

Israel, which has been mounting a vitriolic incitement campaign against Iran for its acquisition of nuclear technology, is a nuclear power on par with other established nuclear powers, and its military
supremacy -- at least until summer of 2006 -- has covered the vast bulk of the Middle East from Turkey to Iran and from North Africa to east and central Africa.

Economically, Israel is also a regional economic superpower, with a GNP bordering on $0.5 trillion. In fact, Israel is among a few pioneering states in the field of electronics and the development of
new generations of medicine, with Israeli pharmaceutical firms' share of the world market reaching billions of dollars.

Notwithstanding all its success and achievements, Israel remains a state based on racism, apartheid and criminality against the Palestinian people whose homeland it seized and whom it is trying to
obliterate to this day. To be sure, Israel has failed. Palestinians remain, both as a human entity and as a national entity.

Israel, in order to achieve its goals, always sought to acquire, by hook or by crook, as much Palestinian land as possible while taking in as few Palestinian people as possible. The policies and tactics employed by Israel to achieve this goal are both blunt and insidious and amount to ethnic cleansing and the international crime of genocide. Israel has institutionalised racism, bulldozed hundreds of Palestinian towns and villages, shamelessly confiscated Palestinian land and property, including private homes, and recently built the so-called "Separation Wall" in the West Bank, aimed first and foremost at annexing to Israel as much Palestinian land as possible.

On top of all of this, Israel has perfected the practice of state-sponsored mass terror; a deliberate policy aimed at making Palestinian life as unbearable as possible with the ultimate goal of forcing Palestinians to leave their homes and land altogether. This is done in broad daylight; in full view of key world powers, such as the US, EU, Russia and China, which either keep silent or issue a few terse and innocuous words about the need to stick to a peace process that has form but very little substance.

Today, as Israel is getting ready to celebrate its 60th birthday, the massive theft of Palestinian land in the West Bank, especially in East Jerusalem and its surroundings, continues unabated. Against all odds, the Palestinian people have survived. Indeed, Palestinian resilience to Israeli oppression is legendary -- a trait that continues to baffle and frustrate Israeli strategists. Perhaps it is this resilience that is encouraging influential Israeli political, military and religious leaders to openly call for genocide of the Palestinians.

Recently, Israel's Deputy Defence Minister Matan Vilnai threatened to "inflict a greater holocaust" on Palestinians. Similarly, a growing number of rabbis associated with the two largest religious camps in
Israel, the Haredi ultra-Orthodox religious sector and the national Zionist religious sector, issuing one edict after the other, permitting soldiers to murder at will Palestinian civilians, including children, on the grounds that in war all among the enemy population ought to be treated as combatants, including children.

One might imagine that this is exaggerated, but it is not. Recently Rabbi Yisrael Rosen, director of the Tsomet Institute, a religious seminary attended by Israeli settlers in the West Bank, declared: "All
of the Palestinians must be killed; men, women, infants, and even their beasts." And the chief rabbi of the City of Safad, Shmuel Eliyahu, urged the state and the army recently to hang the children of
a Palestinian fighter who last month attacked the Merkaz Haarav Centre, run for Jewish settlers in West Jerusalem, killing eight pre-military Talmudic students in retaliation for the killing by the Israeli army of more than 130 Palestinians, most of them innocent civilians, in the Gaza Strip.

The mushrooming of fascist impulses is not confined to the religious sector. In March, the Israeli media quoted Knesset members and former cabinet ministers as threatening to extend discriminatory laws against non-Jews in ways reminiscent of Nuremberg Laws passed in Nazi Germany. One Israeli Knesset member reportedly told his Arab colleague: "the day will come when we will kick you out of this house."

Such instances raise no eyebrows in a country where some rabbis, like David Batsri, openly teach that non-Jews are animals and donkeys. A recent opinion survey published this week showed that as many as 75 per cent of Israeli Jews support ethnic cleansing of Arabs from mandate Palestine -- Israel proper and the occupied Palestinian territories of the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip.
Understandably, the poll drew angry reactions from the Israeli Arab community. Jamal Zahalqa, an Israeli Arab Knesset member, suggested that Arabs are being treated in ways similar to the way Jews were treated in the Third Reich ahead of World War II.

"The hateful smell of racism and fascism is wafting everywhere in this country. You must know that we didn't come to Israel from abroad... On the contrary; it was Israel that invaded us. We are the indigenous people of the land, and we receive our legitimacy from our belonging to this land, not from having Israeli citizenship," he said.

Zahalqa described the poll as "additional evidence underscoring the growing rampancy of racism and fascism in Israel as a result of the ongoing waves of hate against everything and anything Arab."

The fears of Zahalqa and other Israeli Arabs are real. Recently, hundreds of Arab residents from Jaffa, Lod and Ramleh took to the streets to protest against the planned eviction by the state of thousands of Arab residents from Jaffa. Authorities had issued warrants for the evacuation and destruction of hundreds of homes, claiming infringements on building regulations. The state also claimed that, "the families [had] lost the right to continue living in their homes, since these homes belonged to their parents ... "

"We are here and we won't leave. We will either live on this land or die on this land. We will not let you touch our lands or our holy places," said Sheikh Raed Salah, leader of the Arab movement in Israel. "All your rulings belong in the trashcan. We are not afraid of you. We will continue to live in our homeland," he added.

Last year, Richard Falk, a renowned American Jewish professor of international law and practice, wrote an article entitled "Slouching toward a Palestinian holocaust," in which he warned that Israel was moving towards the perpetration of a holocaust against the Palestinians. "Is it an irresponsible overstatement to associate the treatment of Palestinians with this criminalised Nazi record of collective atrocity? I think not," said Falk.

Justifying the Israel-equals-Nazi analogy, Falk argued that developments in Gaza (the blockade against its estimated 1.5 million inhabitants), were especially disturbing because they expressed
vividly a deliberate intention on the part of Israel and its backers to subject an entire human community to life- endangering conditions of maximal cruelty. "The suggestion that this pattern of conduct is a holocaust-in-the-making represents a rather desperate appeal to the governments of the world and to international public opinion to act urgently to prevent these current genocidal tendencies from culminating into a collective tragedy," Falk wrote.

In sum, from the standpoint of fascism, Israel has much to celebrate in terms of political and military achievements. But in terms of justice, morality and humanity, one struggles to name a country on
earth that so openly practices oppression and racism. As such Israel, on its 60th birthday, remains what it was when born six decades ago: a state built on blood, murder, theft and lies.

Is Israel about to change its ways? Don't hold your breath, Israeli leaders might say. Unless, that is, you're Palestinian.

in Ramallah

Source

Eine weitere ganz gewöhnliche Woche ist im südlichen Israel vergangen. Beschossen von Raketen aus Hamastan im Gazastreifen, haben die Einwohner von Sderot, Aschkelon und den nahe gelegenen Städten zugesehen, wie ihre nationalen Führer über Stellvertreter Verhandlungen mit der Hamas führten, um hunderte Terroristen aus israelischen Gefängnissen frei zu lassen und die Waffen-Versorgungslinien der Hamas zu konsolidieren, indem israelische Antiterror-Operationen während einer „Waffenruhe“ eingestellt werden. Zwischen ihren Trips zum örtlichen Bunker sahen sie zu, wie israelische Lastwagen am Morgen Treibstoff und andere Versorgungsgüter an die Hamas lieferten und sie sahen zu, wie die Hamas am Nachmittag den Treibstoff und die Versorgungsgüter in Depots an der Grenze einlagerte. Am Abend sahen sie dann in den Nachrichten Berichte, die die Behauptung der Hamas nachplapperten, dass Israel den Krankenhäusern im Gazastreifen Treibstoff und Zivilisten im Gazastreifen die Grundnahrungsmittel vorenthält.

Mittwochabend versuchten sie in Sderot den Holocaust-Gedenktag zu begehen, wurden aber von einfliegenden Raketen unterbrochen. Die Hamas ihrerseits beging den Holocaust mit einer Dokumentarreihe, in der behauptet wurde, der Völkermord am europäischen Judentum sei ein satanisches jüdisches Komplott, um die jüdische Bevölkerung ihrer Behinderten zu entledigen und die Weltmedien zu manipulieren.

Die Hamas bestimmte die Schlagzeilen dieser Woche mit dem Vorwurf, Israel sei verantwortlich für den Tod einer palästinensischen Frau und vier ihrer Kinder durch eine Explosion in Beit Hanun im Gazastreifen, als die IDF Hamas-Terroristen aus der Luft beschoss. Die IDF unternahm zwei Untersuchungen, die zeigten, dass die Frau und ihre Kinder durch etwas anderes getötet wurden: eine Nachfolge-Explosion, die von den Bomben verursacht wurde, die die Hamas-Terroristen – einer davon war ihr Ehemann – zu dem Zeitpunkt mit sich führten, als die IDF sie beschoss.

Die Vorwürfe der Hamas, dass die IDF vier Kinder und ihre Mutter tötete, wurde von den internationalen wie den israelischen Meiden als Tatsache berichtet. Diese „Tatsache“ wurde erst in Frage gestellt, als die IDF ihre Untersuchungen begann. Weder die örtlichen noch die internationalen Medien fanden, dass die Tatsache, dass die Quelle ihrer Berichte die Hamas war, ein Grund wäre die Richtigkeit ihrer ersten Berichte in Frage zu stellen.

Wenn ihre Sprecher nicht damit beschäftigt sind die Juden der Planung von Völkermord und die Israelis der Ermordung von Müttern und Kindern zu beschuldigen, widmet die Hamas ihre Bemühungen der Beschuldigung, Israel töte kranke Palästinenser, indem es ihnen verwehrt nach Israel zu kommen, um dort kostenlose medizinische Versorgung zu erhalten. Da keine gute Tat der Juden von der UNO unbestraft bleibt, strafte die Weltgesundheits-Organisation (WHO) Israel im letzten Monat ab, weil es mehr als 7.000 Palästinensern aus dem Gazastreifen im Jahr 2007 kostenlose medizinische Versorgung gewährte. Indem sie die Hamas-Propaganda nachplapperte, beschuldigte die WHO Israel, es habe zwischen Oktober 2007 und März 2008 den Tod von 33 kranken Palästinensern verursacht. Sie starben, so die WHO, wegen der herzlosen Weigerung des jüdischen Staates sie in seine Krankenhäuser aufzunehmen.

Der WHO-Bericht enthielt keine Erwähnung der Tatsache, dass die Hamas jetzt die Krankenhäuser und Kliniken im Gazastreifen kontrolliert. Nicht erwähnt wurde die Tatsache, dass Israel keine Verantwortung für die gesundheitliche Versorgung von nicht seinen eigenen Bürgern aus Feindgebiet trägt; oder die Tatsache, dass es keinen Ort auf der Welt gibt, wo solche Versorgung geleistet wird – außer in Israel. Nicht erwähnt wurde, dass die Hamas aus Propagandagründen Güter für die Krankenhäuser abfängt und hortet. Ägypten wurde keine Verantwortung zugewiesen – das ist das zweite Land, das an den Gazastreifen grenzt und das keinerlei palästinensische Patienten ins Land lässt. Der Bericht stellt an keiner Stelle die Glaubwürdigkeit seiner Quellen aus dem Gazastreifen in Frage.

Andrea Levin, Geschäftsführerin des Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA) stellte diese Woche in der Jerusalem Post fest, dass es nur der schnellen und detaillierten Antwort israelischer Offizieller bei der Zurückweisung der Vorwürfe der Hamas zu verdanken ist, dass Israel nicht weithin dafür verurteilt wurde kranke Menschen zu ermorden.

Der interessanteste Aspekt dieser Medienberichte besteht darin, dass die Nachrichtenagenturen, die die wilden Vorwürfe der Hamas berichten, zum größten Teil nicht einmal Korrespondenten im Gazastreifen haben. Die Angewohnheit der Hamas westliche Journalisten zu kidnappen – selbst wenn sie pro-Hamas sind – veranlasste die meisten westlichen Medienorgane ihre Korrespondenten vor mehr als einem Jahr aus dem Gazastreifen abzuziehen. Die israelischen Medien hatten keine Korrespondenten mehr vor Ort, seit Israel sich im September 2005 aus dem Streifen zurückzog.

Doch dieselben Medienorgane, die erkannten, dass die Hamas zu radikal ist, als dass man ihnen trauen könnte, sie würden das Leben der Reporter respektieren, lehnen es ab die Wahrheitsliebe der Geschichten der Hamas in Frage zu stellen und sind mehr als bereit diese Stories deutlich über den Punkt professioneller Peinlichkeit hinaus als glaubwürdige Fakten zu betrachten. In der Tat hat kein Medienorgan – weder israelisch noch aus dem Ausland – je gefragt, ob es Sinn macht, die Hamas-Propaganda überhaupt zu bringen. Sie haben sich auf jeden Fall nicht die Mühe gemacht ihr Publikum darüber zu informieren, dass die Quelle ihrer Geschichten eine völkermörderische Terrorgruppe ist, die derzeit einen Raketenfeldzug gegen israelische Zivilisten führt – deren Ziel es ist diese zu terrorisieren und zu töten, nur weil sie Juden sind.

Aber den Medien kann vielleicht vergeben werden, dass sie sich weigern zuzugeben, dass ihre Berichte aus dem Gazastreifen allgemein nicht mehr sind als terroristische Propaganda, denn sie sind bei weitem nicht allein in ihrer Ablehnung der Anerkennung der Bedeutung des Regimes der Hamas. Von Jimmy Carter über die Bush-Administration bis hin zur Regierung Olmert-Livni-Barak lautet der Tagesbefehl: Leugnung.

Carter verteidigt seine Haltung sich mit Hamas-Führern in Syrien und Judäa zu treffen mit der Feststellung, dass die jihadistische, völkermörderische, vom Iran gesponserte Terrorgruppe die palästinensischen Wahlen gewonnen hat. Da die Mehrheit der Palästinenser für die Hamas stimmte und sie immer noch unterstützt, ist die jihadistische, völkermörderische, vom Iran gesponserte Terrorgruppe legitim, argumentiert Carter. Ohne sie kann sicher keine Friedensvereinbarung getroffen werden.

Aber dann klärte die Hamas, kurz nachdem sich ihre Führer mit Carter getroffen haben, dass jeder Handel, den man mit Israel erzielen würde, lediglich eine Taktik im fortgesetzten Krieg zur Vernichtung Israel ist. Also mag es zwar wahr sein, dass ohne die Hamas kein palästinensisch-israelischer Frieden möglich ist, aber es ist absolut wahr, dass mit der Hamas kein palästinensisch-israelischer Friedensschluss möglich ist.

Weit davon entfernt die Notwendigkeit von Verhandlungen mit der Hamas zu demonstrieren, zeigt deren Popularität die Vergeblichkeit einer palästinensischen Gesellschaft eine friedliche Koexistenz abzuschmeicheln, die sich der Vernichtung ihres Nachbarn verschrieben hat. doch so, wie die Medien und Carter es ablehnen die Bedeutung des Terrorregimes der Hamas zu erkennen, lehnt es die Bush-Administration ab die Bedeutung ihres auf breiter öffentlicher Basis stehenden Unterstützung bei den Palästinensern zu erkennen.

In ihren Äußerungen am Dienstag vor dem American Jewish Committee gab Außenministerin Condoleezza Rice zu, dass die palästinensische Gesellschaft heute überwiegend Israels Auslöschung durch Terrorismus unterstützt, als sie sagte: „Zunehmend sind Palästinenser, die von einer Zweistaaten-Lösung sprechen, in meinem Alter. Und ich bin nicht sonderlich alt; aber ich bin älter als die meisten der palästinensischen Bevölkerung.“

Aber dann, nachdem sie zugab, dass die meisten Palästinenser die friedliche Koexistenz mit Israel nicht unterstützen, vertrat sie die Auffassung, dass Israel ihnen mehr Land geben muss, mehr Waffen und mehr Geld, weil, wie sie es sieht, es jetzt and er Zeit für einen palästinensischen Staat ist und die Führer „harte Entscheidungen treffen müssen, mit Vertrauen zum Wohl des Friedens und zum Wohl ihres Volkes“.

Weiter erklärte Rice, dass diese Beschwichtigung erfolgen muss, während man es dem Hamas-Regime im Gazastreifen ermöglicht im Amt zu bleiben. Sie formulierte es so: „Die einzig verantwortliche Politik besteht darin die Hamas zu isolieren und sich gegen ihre Bedrohungen zu verteidigen, bis die Hamas die Wahl trifft den Frieden zu unterstützen.“

Aus der Perspektive von Rice darf nicht nur die Hamas nicht besiegt werden, sondern es wäre unverantwortlich zu versuchen sie zu besiegen. Die einzig „verantwortliche“ Politik wäre für Israel der Hamas zu erlauben weiterhin Waffen anzuhäufen und ihre Armee aufzubauen, während man versucht eine Waffenruhe mit ihr zu erreichen. Und dann muss Israel, was Rice betrifft, seine Antiterror-Operationen in Judäa und Samaria einschränken, dortige israelische Gemeinden und die in den Jerusalemer Stadtteilen aus der Zeit nach 1967 austrocknen und von den USA ausgebildeten und bewaffneten Fatah-Milizen (die ebenfalls den Terror unterstützen) erlauben zu tausenden in palästinensischen Städten und Gemeinden stationiert zu werden. Dies, so glaubt sie, ist der beste Weg die Hamas dazu zu bringen, sich in eine friedfertige politische Partei zu verwandeln, die mit den Juden in Frieden leben will.

Was Israel angeht, so stimmt die Regierung Olmert-Livni-Barak eindeutig mit Rice überein, denn sie folgt deren Politik.

Am Mittwoch lehnte es Premierminister Ehud Olmert ab bei einem Treffen des Sicherheitskabinetts die Beteiligung seiner Regierung an Waffenstillstands-Verhandlungen mit der Hamas zu kommentieren. Als er vom Minister für innere Sicherheit Avi Dichter über seine offensichtliche Entscheidung der Hamas mit ihrer vom Iran ausgebildeten und bewaffneten Terrorarmee zu erlauben im Gazastreifen das Kommando zu behalten, sagte Olmert einfach, dass es in angemessen sei solche Dinge zu diskutieren.

Am Donnerstag berichtete die Jerusalem Post, dass die Regierung wegen des vorgeschlagenen Waffenstillstandsabkommens mit der Hamas begeistert ist und seltsamerweise behauptet, dass dies den Weg für eine zweite, damit nicht zusammenhängende Vereinbarung bereiten könnte, bei der Israel die Geisel Gilad Shalit aus der Gefangenschaft bei der Hamas auslösen kann, indem man hunderter Terroristen frei lässt.

Außerdem behauptet die Regierung triumphierend, dass die Hamas zugestimmt habe, dass Fatah-Streitkräftean der internationalen Grenze zu Ägypten stationiert werden. Aber da sowohl die Hamas wie auch die Fatah sich eines fast ungehinderten Zuflusses an Waffen durch diese Grenze erfreuten, als die Fatah dafür verantwortlich war, ist es alles andere als klar, warum das eine positive Entwicklung sein sollte.

Die einfachen Wahrheiten, die die Medien, Jimmy Carter, die Bush-Administration und die Regierung Olmert-Livni-Barak alles nicht bereit sind zuzugeben, sind die, dass die Hamas eine völkermörderische Terrorgruppe ist, die sich der Vernichtung Israels verschworen hat und dass sie den Willen der Mehrheit der Palästinenser repräsentiert, die sie 2006 ins Amt wählten und sie heute weiter unterstützen.

Diese einfache Wirklichkeit demonstriert, dass es für Israel und die internationale Gemeinschaft nur eine verantwortliche Politik gibt, die es zu unterstützen gilt, wenn sie wirklich an Frieden zwischen Israel und den Palästinensern interessiert sind. Diese Politik besteht darin, dass Israel die Terrorarmee der Hamas im Gazastreifen platt macht und ihre Regierung stürzt. Nur wenn sie gezwungen werden einen echten Preis für ihrer Unterstützung von Terror und Jihad zu zahlen – statt sie mit weiteren Übergaben von Land durch Israel zu belohnen – werden die Palästinenser gezwungen werden diese Unterstützung zu überdenken. Nur wenn sie begreifen, dass Terror sie ins Nichts führt – statt überall hin, wohin sie wollen – werden die Palästinenser gezwungen sein Israel als unabänderliche Realität zu akzeptieren, mit der sie in Frieden leben müssen.

Dichters Verurteilung der Pro-Hamas-Politik seiner Regierung am Mittwoch war nicht das erste Mal, dass der Einwohner von Aschkelon und ehemalige Kopf des Shin Bet darlegte, dass die Politik der Regierung Olmert-Livni-Barak für das Land gefährlich ist. Dichter könnte zusammen mit dem Verkehrsminister und ehemaligen Verteidigungsminister Schaul Mofaz – der die Regierungspolitik gleichermaßen als gefährlich kritisiert hat – die jetzige Situation beenden, wenn die beiden den Mut hätten entsprechend ihrer Überzeugungen zu handeln. Würden sie sich mit acht ihrer Kolelgen aus der Kadima-Fraktion der Knesset zusammentun und die Regierung verlassen, würden sie Neuwahlen herbeiführen.

Bisher aber haben sie es abgelehnt zu handeln. Bis sie es tun, ermöglichen es Dichter, Mofaz und ihre Kollegen Olmert, Außenministerin Tzipi Livni und Verteidigungsminister Ehud Barak weiterhin das Leben von Hunderttausenden von Israelis mit ihrem Getöse und Appeasement der Hamas zu gefährden. Bis sie es tun sind sie genauso wie die Medien, Carter, die Bush-Administration und ihre Regierungskollegen schuldig, der Hamas einen Persilschein auszustellen und sie zu schützen – zum Schaden ihres eigenen Landes und des Friedens.

Accordo segreto raggiunto tra Livni e Ahmed Qurei

ROMA, 14 apr. (Apcom) - Il ministro degli esteri israeliano Tzipi Livni e il negoziatore palestinese Abu Ala sarebbero pervenuti a un accordo sul trasferimento dell'aeroporto di Atarot vicino a Gerusalemme all'Autorità palestinese nel quadro delle loro negoziazioni segrete. Lo ha rivelato il Jerusalem Post che cita il quotidiano di Gerusalemme Kol Hazman.

Il foglio cita fonti autorevoli del ministero degli Esteri israeliano che avrebbero confermato che l'accordo sarebbe stato già raggiunto e che Israele ha dato "l'approvazione finale".

Secondo le fonti, con questo atto Israele riconosce la necessità di rinforzare l'Autorità palestinese in Cisgiordania con l'obiettivo che essa possa contrastare il potere di Hamas a Gaza

Secondo il quotidiano, il sindaco di Gerusalemme Lupolianski avrebbe protestato per questo trasferimento in quanto costituirebbe una chiara minaccia per la sicurezza di Israele e un abbandono dell'idea di vedere Gerusalemme un giorno unificata. Secondo Lupolianski, se già ora i voli degli aerei israeliani sono attualmente a rischio, la situazione, dice il sindaco, non potrà che peggiorare una volta che i Palestinesi prenderanno il controllo dell'aeroporto.

(Alice News, 15 aprile 2008)

It was nice seeing Israeli FM Tzipi Livni stopping by Qatar yesterday to give the keynote speech at the 8th annual Doha Forum on Democracy, Development and Free Trade. Despite no ties diplomatic ties between Qatar and Israel, and boycotts by Iran and Lebanon, Tzipi kicked it with some Arab leaders, including Qatar's leader, Sheik Hamad bin Khalifah al-Thani.

Außenministerin Tzipi Livnis erfolgreiche Reise nach Katar, wo der Sender beheimatet ist, bringt Al-Jazeera in eine sehr ungemütliche Lage. Haaretz liefert die Erklärung:

Währenddessen hat der Sender jeglichen Hinweis auf das Treffen am Montag in Katar zwischen Außenministerin Tzipi Livni und Hamad bin Khalifa, dem Emir von Katar, ausgelassen. Er berichtete stattdessen von Livnis Treffen mit ihrem Pendant aus Oman.

Katars nationales Fernsehen strahlte Bilder vom Treffen Livnis mit dem Staatsoberhaupt von Katar aus.

In Doha schüttelte Livni dem Emir von Katar, Scheich Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani, die Hand. Neben seiner Herrschaft über Katar finanzierte Hamad Al-Jazeeras Start mit geschätzten 150 Millionen Dollar. (Livni traf sich mit den Machern von Al-Jazeera).

Und was unternimmt Al-Jazeera, wenn seine Hauptgönner sich für Israel erwärmen? Haaretz fügt hinzu:

Der in Katar ansässige Fernsehsender Al-Jazeera stimmte zu, seine Berichterstattung über den arabisch-israelischen Konflikt mit Israel zu erörtern, nachdem Israel sich dafür entschieden hatte, Embargomaßnahmen gegen das Medienunternehmen zu verhängen, weil dessen Berichterstattung voreingenommen sei.

Dazu passend: Israel setzt Al-Jazeera auf die Schwarze Liste

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Gelo in Israele per la visita di Carter

Niente incontri con Olmert e la Livni

L'ex presidente difende la scelta di vedere il leader di Hamas a Damasco Il mediatore americano accolto nello Stato ebraico solo da Peres. Visita a Sderot e colloquio con il padre di Shalit

NEW YORK — Non avrebbe potuto essere più glaciale l'accoglienza riservata da Israele all'ex presidente americano Jimmy Carter, da ieri a Gerusalemme per una missione privata nella regione che prevede, tra l'altro, un incontro a Damasco con il leader di Hamas, Khaled Meshaal. Il primo contatto in oltre due anni tra un politico Usa d'alto profilo e Hamas.

Soltanto il presidente Shimon Peres ha accettato di incontrare l'83enne Premio Nobel. Ma si sarebbe trattato di un meeting poco cordiale, durante il quale Peres avrebbe redarguito l'artefice degli storici accordi di Camp David tra Israele ed Egitto (nel 1978), ricordandogli che la sua attività politica degli ultimi anni «ha arrecato danno al processo di pace».

Forse per questo motivo nessun membro del governo israeliano gli ha dato udienza. Carter è stato snobbato dal premier di centrodestra Ehud Olmert, dal ministro degli Esteri Tzipi Livni, da quello della Difesa Ehud Barak e anche dal leader dell'opposizione di destra Benyanjn Netanyahu.

A nulla è valsa la sua tanto reclamizzata visita a Sderot, (la città vittima delle quotidiane gragnole di razzi da Gaza) e l'incontro con il padre del soldato israeliano catturato nel giugno 2006 da Hamas, Gilad Shalit.

In Israele non si è ancora sopito il clamore per Palestine: Peace, not Apartheid, il controverso saggio del 2006 in cui Carter accusa lo Stato ebraico di praticare coi palestinesi una politica razzista simile a quella attuata dal Sudafrica nei confronti dei neri durante l'Apartheid. Ma proprio come allora, anche oggi Carter difende a spada tratta le sue scelte.

«E' molto importante che ci sia qualcuno disposto a incontrare i leader di Hamas e ad ascoltare il loro punto di vista», ha spiegato in una intervista alla Abc, dove ha ribadito che intende «verificare la flessibilità di Hamas, per tentare di convincerlo a cessare gli attacchi contro civili innocenti in Israele e a cooperare con Al Fatah per unire i palestinesi».

«Non ho dubbi sul fatto che se Israele vuole trovare la pace con giustizia nei suoi rapporti con i palestinesi — ha aggiunto Carter — debba veder incluso Hamas nel processo di pace». Una tesi che lo vede completamente isolato in America, dove considerare Hamas un'organizzazione terrorista è un precetto bipartisan che unisce Casa Bianca e Partito Democratico.

Il segretario di Stato americano Condoleezza Rice ha criticato l'iniziativa di Carter, dopo che il Dipartimento di Stato statunitense aveva insistito invano perché rinunciasse al viaggio. «Trovo difficile capire cosa possiamo guadagnare nel parlare di pace con Hamas — ha detto la Rice —, quando Hamas è, di fatto, l'ostacolo stesso alla pace».

di Alessandra Farkas

(Fonte: Corriere della Sera, 14 Aprile 2008)

According to a source in Washington, Palestinian Authority President, Mahmoud Abbas has informed President George W. Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that he intends to break off peace talks with Israel unless prime minister Ehud Olmert agrees by

April to the concessions demanded by the Palestinians. After that, Abbas says, the Palestinians may weigh "alternative actions on the ground" - a transparent threat for his Fatah organization to renew a campaign of terror against Israel.

This is actually Abbas' second threat to renew terrorism. Two weeks ago, he told the Jordanian publication, A Dustour, that while he prefers negotiations for now, he does not exclude an alternative option in the future.

So what are his specific demands?

1. Olmert must buckle to Palestinian demands.

2. Foreign minister Tzipi Livni must deliver to Ahmed Qureia a final list of Israeli concessions on the core issues of borders, refugees, Jerusalem and water.

3. Israeli must halt all construction in Jerusalem and the settlements immediately.

DEBKAfile's Middle East sources add the following explanation to Abbas's ultimatum, seeing it timed to profit from three coming events:

First: US Vice President Dick Cheney's visit on March 22. Palestinian officials will emphasize to him that they have run out of patience with Olmert and that some American arm-twisting is in order.

Second: The forthcoming Arab League summit on March 29 in Damascus. Abbas is jockeying for a position that will upstage the Gaza issue, which is high on the summit's agenda, and steal the thunder from radical Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal's triumphal performance. For this, he needs a more radical platform than tame submission to the US-sponsored peace line.

Third: A fighting stance would pave the way for reconciliation talks with Hamas on the formation of a Palestinian unity government. This would be applauded by all the Arab rulers present.

For Abbas, time is running out with his own people. A new Palestinian popularity poll in mid-March placed Hamas prime minister of Gaza Ismail Haniyeh in the lead - 47 percent to the PA chairman's 46 percent. Significantly, Haniyeh gained 10 percent in popularity after Hamas smashed the Gaza-Egyptian border wall and escalated its missile onslaught on Israel.

Fourth: The Palestinian leader is under fire from his own followers for "letting" Israel celebrate its 60th year of statehood in May without discernible progress toward Palestinian independence. The resumption of a Fatah-dominated terror offensive to mar Israel's anniversary events might quell the dissatisfaction with his leadership.

Re-posted with permission from www.lekarev.org.

D'Alema crea una crisi con Israele, dopo la strage dei ragazzi rabbini, per sperare in un posto all'Ue

di Carlo Panella

Massimo D'Alema ha aperto una vera e propria crisi diplomatica tra Israele e Italia. Ieri, infatti, l'ambasciatore Gideon Meir ha reagito alla reiterata valutazione del ministro degli Esteri circa la necessità che Israele negozi con Hamas, usando parole di inusuale forza polemica: “Chi ci invita a negoziare con Hamas ci invita semplicemente a negoziare sulla misura della bara e sul numero dei fiori da mettere sulla corona: Hamas vuole soltanto la distruzione di Israele”.

Mai, dal 1948 in poi, si era registrato un episodio di tale portata nelle relazioni diplomatiche tra Italia e Israele, neanche quando il governo italiano, nel 1973, decise di non permettere il sorvolo degli aerei americani che portavano rifornimenti al governo di Gerusalemme durante la guerra del Kippur. Né D'Alema può pensare che si tratti soltanto di una intemperanza verbale di Gideon Meir e tantomeno di una sua iniziativa personale (nonostante la Farnesina tenda ad accreditare ufficiosamente questa tesi, con prese di posizione di assoluto low profile). Poche settimane fa, per sottolineare il livello di tensione tra i due governi e la scarsa fiducia nutrita personalmente nei confronti di Massimo D'Alema, il ministro degli Esteri di Gerusalemme, Tzipi Livni, durante l'ultimo incontro tra le due delegazioni, ha interrotto bruscamente una lunga disquisizione strategica di D'Alema, ha ostentato il poiso, ha guardato l'orologio e gli ha detto: “Mi scusi, ma io ho soltanto un quarto d'ora per lei: mi dica che cosa pensa e sia conciso, per favore”.

La ragione della durezza delle dichiarazioni di ieri dell'ambasciatore israeliano a Roma — si badi bene non è nel merito del problema, non riguarda affatto l'opportunità o meno della trattativa con Hamas, ma è provocata dall'irritazione israeliana per le evidenti ragioni del tutto strumentali e personali che spingono D'Alema — soprattutto nelle ultime settimane di “normale amministrazione” del suo dicastero a continuare a sbracciarsi a favore ora di Hamas, ora di Hezbollah, ora dell'Iran di Ahmadinejad. Livni e Meir, infatti, sanno benissimo che D'Alema è perfettamente al corrente del fatto che Israele sta già trattando da dieci giorni con Hamas. E' una trattativa ormai semipubblica, anche se condotta in maniera più che riservata da Hosni Mubarak e dal suo capo dei servizi segreti Omar Suleiman. Una trattativa di tregua apertamente sponsorizzata anche dal presidente palestinese Abu Mazen. Di più, si è aperto anche un tenue spiraglio per la liberazione da parte di Hamas del caporale Shalit e i giornali israeliani danno puntualmente conto dell'intenso dibattito politico che ruota attorno a questa difficile trattativa. Un contesto di trattativa, per di più, che si inserisce in un lavoro diplomatico condotto in questi giorni dallo Yemen (dove si è recato il capo di Hamas, Khaled Meshal), che punta — una volta siglata una tregua di fatto tra Israele e Hamas — ad aprire la strada a una qualche forma di accordo per un modus vivendi tra i due governi palestinesi, quello di Gaza e quello di Ramallah. Uno sforzo diplomatico complesso, che di tutto ha bisogno, tranne che di estemporanei interventi frondisti della diplomazia di uno dei più importanti paesi europei.

Perché allora D'Alema ha scelto in maniera provocatoria di “mettere i piedi nel piatto”, e questo, per di più, proprio nel momento del più tragico lutto in Israele, auspicando trattative con Hamas dopo che questo gruppo aveva rivendicato a sé “l'onore dell'azione contro la scuola rabbinica di Gerusalemme” in cui terroristi palestinesi hanno massacrato otto adolescenti? La risposta a questa domanda spiega la violenza verbale della posizione israeliana: è evidente che D'Alema continua a proporre negoziati con Hamas e Hezbollah perché pensa a conquistare il voto dei paesi del fronte antisraeliano dell'Ue per concorrere alla carica di “ministro degli Esteri” dell'Unione. D'Alema pensa a Cipro, a Malta, alla Finlandia, alla Slovenia, ai paesi nordici, che dispongono di voti numericamente utili per quando, tra pochi mesi, sarà attuata la riforma delle istituzioni dell'Ue e l'alto rappresentante della Politica estera e della sicurezza comune — carica oggi di Javier Solana — assumerà anche i compiti del commissario Ue alle Relazioni esterne, Benita Ferrero-Waldner. Costretto nel ‘ridotto della Puglia”, obbligato a una presenza elettorale in Campania che gli darà dispiaceri, D'Alema punta a uscire dall'angolo rilanciandosi sulla scena internazionale, con la conquista di una qualche postazione di rilievo. Da qui la gaffe.

(Fonte: Il Foglio, 14 Marzo 2008)

Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni yesterday criticized a plan to expand a Jewish settlement in the West Bank as unhelpful but insisted it would not prejudice a final peace deal under negotiation with Palestinians.  The plan announced earlier yesterday to build hundreds of

Livni told students at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, "It's not the Israeli government policy to expand settlements these days."  The Foreign Minister characterized the planned construction as private building and "not dramatic". Homes in Jerusalem suburbs sparked an international outcry, including comments of displeasure from Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.She said Israel needed little world involvement in mediating a peace deal, and hoped moderate Israelis and Palestinians were determined enough to do so on their own.

She added, "I think the world should leave it to us. There is no need to push us. It is about our lives."

Re-posted with permission from www.lekarev.org.

PASADENA, CA -- (MARKET WIRE) -- 02/19/08 -- The following press release is being issued by Vision Media Productions.

This year will mark the 60th anniversary of Israel's statehood. On May 14th, Israelis around the world will celebrate, while Palestinians will mark the following day as The Nakba -- a day of mourning. The Nakba, or the catastrophe is remembered by many as a time of ethnic cleansing when hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were dispossessed of their homes and villages.

"These two events have long been etched side-by-side in the memories of Palestinians and Israelis," says David Hulme, author of "Identity, Ideology and the Future of Jerusalem." "Both have served to add annual fuel to this enduring conflict that seems destined to elude resolution."

Of course, neither statehood nor Nakba happened in a single day. Long before Israel declared independence on May 14th, 1948, key events pushed the two peoples inexorably toward conflict. But their fates were officially sealed by a United Nations Resolution. On November 29th, 1947 they passed Resolution 181, in support of Israel's statehood alongside an independent Arab state.

On the 60th anniversary of the UN Resolution, Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, who has angered many Arabs by what some see as an extremist stance against Palestinian Arabs, had this to say in reference to the coming May 14th celebration:

"I believe that the solution of two nation states serves the interests of both sides. Not every celebration of ours is cause for sorrow on the other side, and vice versa. I say to my Palestinian colleagues: Do not bemoan the establishment of the State of Israel; establish your own state, rejoice in its establishment and we will rejoice with you, since for us the establishment of the Palestinian state is not our Nakba, or disaster -- provided that upon its establishment the word 'Nakba' be deleted from the Arabic lexicon in referring to Israel."

Is this a realistic scenario? It seems an unlikely one, at least so far as the near future is concerned. Neither side seems ready or able to relinquish long memories of suffered wrongs, especially those memorialized by the upcoming anniversary.

Hulme notes, "Immediately following the passage of the UN resolution, Palestinians attacked the Jewish community. The Jewish forces retaliated, and by mid-January 60 years ago, Palestinians in sections of West Jerusalem were fleeing."

The stage was now set for a series of critical events leading up to independence and catastrophe.

This is the historical timeline that Middle East expert Dr. David Hulme is chronicling between now and May 15th in a special series for Causes of Conflict. In this Blog, Hulme, who is also president of Vision Media Productions, will cover the history and implications of the actions on both sides of the conflict, offering insightful analysis and exploring the question of whether Israel -- and Jerusalem in particular -- will ever find the pathway to peace.

Reference:

Livni's remarks

Israele.net