AxisMundi Jerusalem
Inside Israel and the Palestinian Territories
from Global News Journal:
Berlusconi charms Israel with EU talk
Berlusconi and Netanyahu shake hands during a meeting in Italy last year
Silvio Berlusconi is seldom shy about making headlines, and he's also known to turn on the charm when he meets foreign leaders.
So it was hardly surprising the Italian prime minister kicked off a three-day visit to Israel on Monday by declaring his hope that Israel might one day become a member of the European Union.
"My greatest dream, a
Netanyahu and Berlusconi shake hands during a meeting in Italy last year
Tony Blair assailed at a Palestinian mosque
Tony Blair, the Middle East envoy for the “Quartet” of powers – the European Union, the United States, Russia and the United Nations, was assailed by a Palestinian man during a visit to a mosque in the West Bank city of Hebron on Tuesday.
“You are terrorism,” the man shouted as guards tried to cover his mouth. “He is not welcome in the land of Palestine.”
Blair did not appear to be shaken. He told reporters most Palestinians and Israelis want a peaceful resolution to the conflict. “Frankly it’s not protests that will do that. It’s patient negotiation,” he added.
Read more about the incident and why many Arabs don’t like the former British prime minister here.
Click below to watch the incident, filmed live at the ancient mosque of Hebron on October 20, 2009:
PHOTO: Middle East envoy Tony Blair passes through an Israeli checkpoint during his visit to the West Bank city of Hebron October 20, 2009. REUTERS/Nayef Hashlamoun
Bravo to the courageous Palestinian man unafraid to confront the war-mongering, apologist to US and British imperialism, Tony Blair. Blair is right on one count: there are people on all sides who really do want a real peace; peace with justice, that is, and not the alleged “peace” of a defeated people, quieted by exhaustion and military defeat. Shame on bully Blair and his old friend bully Bush. Yes, indeed, Olmert, Bush, Blair – to the Hague!
from Global News Journal:
Austrian far-right leader isolated over Israel stance
Senior figures from across Austria's political spectrum have condemned the head of the far-right Freedom Party, Heinz-Christian Strache, over his party's European election campaign directed against Israel and Turkey.
In an advertisement in the newspaper Kronen Zeitung, Freedom opposes the accession of Turkey and Israel to the European Union. Although Turkey is in EU accession talks, Israel is not.
Heinz-Christian Strache prepares for a TV discussion in Vienna, Sept. 17, 2008. REUTERS/Heinz-Peter Bader (AUSTRIA)
"What is the most distasteful and despicable is the style," says Ernst Strasser, the conservatives' candidate in next month's elections for the European Parliament, referring to Strache's campaign. "This style is abusive. He vilifies other religions and ethnicities."
According to Chancellor Werner Faymann, Strache is "a hate monger, a disgrace".
"It makes absolutely no sense for Israel to be mentioned. Israel is not a candidate for accession. There isn't even an accession process. The only reason to mention Israel is to serve anti-Semitic prejudices. It is disgraceful."
I do not quite get it. Mr. Fayman may object to Strahe’s style (although words are more important),but certainly, Strache is not the first or the only one who is objecting to “Israel and other ethnicities”. Not that that is the most important, to begin with.
If Austria in general is not enamoured by far right, and only “senior figures from accross Austria’s political spectrum” are condemning Strahe’s rude words against Israel and Turkey, how come, then, that Mr.Heider who exuded much more directly expressed hate of almost anything “not Austrian”, got such a wide following, not to mention the most elaborate state funeral that I have ever seen; the politicians, the Church, the young and the old in their full splendor, flowers and candles and all the paraphernalia of the pomp. Why such a big deal about Strache, then.
A covert challenge to Iran’s nuclear ambitions?
Israeli officials aren’t talking, but Britain’s Daily Telegraph newspaper is quoting intelligence experts and an unnamed former CIA agent as saying that Israel is waging a covert war of sabotage inside Iran in an effort to delay its suspected attempts to build a nuclear weapon.
An intelligence source in the Middle East has told Reuters the Israeli campaign includes sending letter bombs or anthrax-tainted mail to scientists involved in Iran’s nuclear programme and sabotaging related infrastructure. European countries and the United States are also part of the cloak-and-dagger war, the source said.
It could all be disinformation, of course, to keep pressure on Iran to halt uranium enrichment which Tehran insists is aimed only at generating electricity. But scientists working for Israel’s enemies have been targeted in the past.
In the early 1960s, Wolfgang Lotz, later known as the Israeli Mossad’s “champagne spy”, was living the high life of a rich, German exile in Egypt. He was actually a German-born Israeli tasked, among other things, with keeping a close eye on German scientists working in Egypt. The Mossad feared they could help Cairo, then in a state of war with Israel, to build long-range missiles. The spy agency wrote letters to the scientists, making sure to mention the names of their wives and children, and urged them to halt their work if they wanted to keep their loved ones safe.
In 1990, Gerald Bull, a Canadian ballistics expert, was shot and killed in Belgium, a “hit” widely believed to have been the work of the Mossad. Bull’s Brussels-based company was helping Saddam Hussein’s Iraq build “superguns” — artillery designed to fire projectiles more than 1,200 km (750 miles), making Israel an easy target.
In a renewed expression of concern over Iran, Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak said on Monday that Iranian atomic weapons would pose an “existential threat” to the Jewish state and to “world order”.
The comment posted on February 30th, 3:46am GMT is OFFENSIVE and you should remove it IMMEDIATELY! Its author: (1) attacks a previous commenter by suggesting he/she is not from planet earth, (2) Suggest Israel is a “pig with lipstick” (3) Suggest Israel elected a Taliban-style form of government. Those comments are either offensive, incredibly factually absolutely incorrect. Further the author intentionally misspells Israel by typing izrael over-and again. Overall, the author’s entry has no facts, crazy accusations, is offenstive, and is frankly antisemitic, and you are RESPONSIBLE FOR PUBLISHING THIS TRASH. I think you moderation needs to improve, and you can begin by removing that post, before more Jewish groups discover it, and you will really feel the justified heat.
from Global News Journal:
Talking about talking to Hamas
Should Israel and/or its allies talk to men like these, the Palestinian Islamists of Hamas, who run the Gaza Strip?
That's a question that has been revived this week following the end of Israel's 22-day war in Gaza, which left Hamas rule apparently intact and 1.5 million people in desperate need, and the arrival in the White House of President Barack Obama, who has indicated he might be willing to talk to people his predecessor George W. Bush had shunned.
For now, it looks like talking about talking may be as far as it goes, as we examined in a story earlier in the week. Israel is conducting discussions through Egyptian mediators on prolonging its ceasefire, but is not interested in talking to a movement which rejects the agreements made by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and his PLO to accept Israel's right to exist. Nor are Hamas leaders willing to give Israel the implicit recognition that opening formal negotiations would give - though they do not rule out some contact.
Obama, his Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and new Middle East envoy George Mitchell, who notably negotiated an end to IRA violence in Northern Ireland, have given no sign they are about to break radically with the Bush administration's policies in the region for now, as my colleague Jonathan Wright examined today. Obama notably made his first call to regional leaders on Wednesday to Abbas, a sign many saw of a continued determination to support the secular leader in the West Bank against the movement which defeated his Fatah party in a 2006 parliamentary election and seized full control in Gaza the following year. Obama on Thursday repeated three long-standing conditions, agreed upon by the Quartet of mediating powers, for the boycott of Hamas to end.
And yet, and yet. There is talk about talks. This is notably in Europe, where governments who rallied behind Israel after it ceased fire in Gaza on Jan. 18 also face disquiet among their electorates about the fate of Gazans blockaded into their tiny enclave and denied access to basic reconstruction supplies, like cement and steel piping, after a war that killed some 1,300 and left tens of thousands homeless. Israel fears such material will be used by Hamas to rearm, including building the rockets with which it has peppered southern Israel for years. But the embargo is taking a toll on ordinary people too. As regional political analyst Mouin Rabbani put it to me: ""The Europeans and other donors, now have a problem. Are you going to say 'Let them eat cake?'"
It is perhaps significant that, in a speech declaring "victory" in Gaza, Hamas's exile leader Khaled Meshaal appeared specifically to address Europeans in urging talks: "I tell European nations," he said in Damascus, "It is time for you to deal with Hamas." Hamas officials made clear to Reuters that the offer of talks was one specifically to international powers, not to Israel.
Julie reminds me of South AFricans before talks with the ANC. I grew up on a diet of Leon Uris, horror at the holocaust, absolute admiration for the Jewish people. I look on now in horr, Gerald Kaufman was right – what they did in Gaza is akin to German attrocities during the 2nd World War. Retribution? A partisan kill one German soldier, ten civilians put up against a wall and shot. Israel’s ‘reaction’ to rockets from Hamas (also an outrage) will echo down the years – they have dishonoured all who perished in the holocaust.
And to mohammedsadevil, Tunisia, Algeria, Morroco, Lybia, and in particular Egypt were also part of the Roman empire. I guess that makes them part of Europe aswell.
I could understand that you dont like Muslims for personal reasons, but I would bet money on that the god muhammed professed is the same one you believe in, just looking at the same idea from a different angle. Do not expect to be tolerated if you don’t respect other cultures.