The year 2011 through 2022

The year 2011.


• 1/10/2011 Israelis destroy hotel to advance housing plan by AP.
      Jerusalem - Israeli bulldozers demolished a vacant hotel (1930s Shepherd Hotel) in an Arab neighborhood of east Jerusalem, clearing the way for a new Jewish housing development that has drawn heavy Palestinian and American condemnations, and bore poorly with new U.S. attempts to restart peace talks later this week.
  
• 1/14/2011 Lebanese government being formed by The Washington Post.
      Beirut - The Lebanese capital was largely quiet, a day after the collapse of the nation's government, as President Michel Suleiman took the first steps towards putting together a new administration.    Suleiman asked the government of Prime Minister Saad Hariri to continue in a caretaker role after 11 cabinet ministers from the Shiite Hezbollah and its allies quit in protest over Beirut's failure to denounce expected indictments, toppling the governing alliance.    Tensions have been rising over the impending indictments from a U.N.-backed tribunal investigation in the 2005 assassination of Hariri's father, former Prime Minister Rafiq al-Hariri.    It is expected that this will implicate members of the militant, Iranian-backed Hezbollah.
      On the 17th the leader of Hezbollah defended the decision to bring down Lebanon's Western-backed government, saying the Shiite militant group did so without resorting to violence and will not be intimidated by world reaction.    Sheik Hassan Nasrallah said his bloc won't support Saad Hariri returning as prime minister in talks today on forming a new government.
      On the 18th a U.N. tribunal filed the first indictment in the 2005 assassination of the former Prime Minister, and will decide if there is enough evidence for a trial.
  
• 1/15/2011 Poll: Some wouldn't live in Palestinian state by AP.
      Jerusalem - A poll suggests that more than one-third of Jerusalem Palestinians would rather remain in Israel (citizenship) even after a peace deal and the creation of a Palestinian state.    Such respondents cited freedom of movement, higher income and Israeli health insurance as the reasons behind their choice.
  
• 1/18/2011 Barak leaves Labor; peace talks in question by AP.
      Jerusalem - Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak bolted from his Labor Party to form a new centrist faction in the governing coalition, splitting the party he had led and leaving Netanyahu with a smaller but more stable parliamentary majority.    The move led to the resignation of three Labor Party ministers who had threatened to pull out of the government over the handling of the peace talks with the Palestinians, bolstering more conservative elements in the coalition and deepening doubts about prospects for peace.
  
• 1/25/2011 Memo relase angers Palestinian officials - They seemed ready to make concessions by Janine Zacharia, The Washington Post.
      Jerusalem - Palestinian Authority officials in the West Bank reacted angrily to the release of memos by al-Jazeera TV that revealed concessions negotiators were apparently willing to make to Israel in 2008.    The discussions were kept confiential out of concern that media leaks of details would undermine the peace process.    Palestinians then blamed the Qatar leadership doing this as a political campaign against the Palestinian Authority.    Demonstrators attacked al-Jazeera's office in Ramallah and borke windows and spraying graffiti on the entranceway, all over assumptions.
  
• 1/25/2011 Hezbollah moves to control Lebanese government - Sunni rivals call for 'day of rage' by Zeina Karam, AP.
      Beirut - Iranian-backed Hezbollah moved into position to control the next Lebanese government when the Shiite militant group secured enough support (65 of 128) in parliament to nominate the candidate for prime minister.    Protests by Hezbollah's Sunni rivals erupted quickly and they declared a "day of rage" today against "Persian tutelage" over Lebanon - a reference to patrons in Iran.    A government led by the militant group would be a disaster, the U.S. classifies Hezbollah as a terrorist organization and would raise tension with Israel.
      On the 26th the candidate backed by Iranian-allied Hezbollah was designated to form Lebanon's next government, angering Sunnis who protested the rising power of the Shiite militant group by burning tires and torching a van belonging to Al-Jazeera.    The president appointed Harvard-educated billionaire businessman and former premier Najib Mikati as prime minister-designate after a majority of lawmakers voted for him.    He called for another unity government.
  
• 2/17/2011 Palestinians seek vote on settlements Friday by AP.
      United Nations - The Palestinians are calling for a U.N. Security Council vote Friday on a resolution condemning Israeli settlements, after a private meeting of the 22-member Arab Group which rejected a compromise plan by the U.S.    This put the Obama administration in a diffcult position because a veto would anger the Palestinians and its many supporters, while an abstention would anger the Israelis.
  
• 3/14/2011 More settlements planned after fatal attack on family by AP.
      Jerusalem - Israel said it's approved building hundreds of settler homes after five members of an Israeli family - including three children - were killed (grisly slashing deaths) as they slept in a West Bank settlement over the weekend.
  
• 3/24/2011 One dies, more than 2 dozen hurt in bombing at bus stop by AP.
      Jerusalem - One woman was killed and more than 25 people were hurt when a bomb exploded at a bus stop in west Jerusalem, shaking Israelis already unsettled by rising Palestinian rocket attacks from Gaza.    Israel warned it would counter the growing violence; early today, its planes hit Hamas facilities and smugglers' tunnels in Gaza, Hamas said.    Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak said they won't tolerate attacks on civilians.    The armed wing of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the al-Quds Brigade, claimed responsibility and vowed to continue targeting cities deep inside Israel.
  
• 3/25/2011 Gaza militants continue firing rockets into Israel by AP.
      Jerusalem - Palestinian militants in Gaza fired a new wave of rockets that landed deep inside Israel, defying Israel's retaliatory attacks and threats.    U.S Defense Secretary Gates gave Israel a boost saying no nation could tolerate the "repugnant" attacks on its soil.    Militants fired 10 rockets and mortar shells toward Israel including two rockets that exploded north of the city of Ashdod, a key Mediterranean port city 20 miles north of Gaza.    Israeli airstrikes hit several Gaza targets in retaliation through the day.
  
• 3/28/2011 Israel rolls out system to shoot down Gaza rockets by Aron Heller, AP.
      Beersheba, Israel - Israel deployed a cutting-edge rocket defense system, rolling out the latest tool in its arsenal to stop a recent spike in attacks from the neighboring Gaza Strip.    Israel hopes the homegrown Iron Dome system will provide increased security to its citizens, but officials warned it can't do the job alone.    The government approved Iron Dome in 2007.    Its developers have compared the effort to a high-tech startup perfecting its weapons radar and software systems to use sophisticated cameras and radar to track incoming rockets to determine where they will land, and intercept and destroy them far from their targets.    Before the primitive rockets have evaded Israel's high-tech weaponry, because of their short flight path, just a few seconds which makes them hard to track.
  
• 4/10/2011 Israel hammers Gaza targets; rockets hit Israel by AP.
      Gaza City, Gaza Strip - Palestinian militants fired more than a dozen rockets at southern Israel and Israeli warplanes killed four militants int he Gaza Strip in the most intense battles since Israel's 2008-2009 offensive in the HAmas-ruled teritory.    18 Gazans have been killed since it began as the airstrikes would continue as long as the rocket attacks persist.
  
• 5/3/2011 Palestinian factions air dispute - Unity accord set to be signed by Diaa Hadid, AP.
      Cairo - Serious disagreements over control of security forces and other key issues emerged in statementsby officials of the rival Palestinian Fatah and Hamas movements, two days before they are set to sign an accord to end their bitter four-year rift.    So Hamas does not want to relinquish control of its security forces after the unity accord takes effect, which runs counter of the Fatah view that there would be a single authority with control of all the weapons in the West Bank and Gaza, as well as how to relate to Israel and who the prime minister would be.    Under a framework accord a unity caretaker government is to be formed to prepare for parliamentary and presidential elections next year.    The ministers are supposed to be technocrats, not politicians.    The deal is to be signed in Cairo on Wednesday.
  
• 5/4/2011 Rival Palestinian sects endorse unity deal by AP.
      Cairo - Fifteen Palestinian factions, including militant Islamic groups, endorsed a reconciliation deal meant to end a four-year rift between the two major Palestinian political movements, Hamas and Fatah.    The declaration paved the way for the two groups to sign the agreement today, then form a unity caretaker government to prepare for national elections next year.    Netanyahu appealed to Abbas to cancel the unity deal, which he called a hard blow to the peace process, by bringing the terrorist Hamas into their fold.
  
  

  ---

      As of May 6, 2011, I have stopped typing from news articles and began using the Electronic Edition of the Courier-Journal newspaper so from this point on the articles are from those pages and may be shortened in some cases for highlights and space considerations.
  

  ---

  
  
• 5/15/2011
  
  Palestinians, Israelis clash over teen death - Stone thrower was shot Friday by Karin Laub, Associated Press
      JERUSALEM — Masked Palestinians whirling slingshots clashed with Israeli riot police in two Arab neigh-borhoods of Jerusalem on Saturday after the shooting death of a teenage stone thrower. It was a sign of rising tensions on the eve of Palestinian commemorations of their uprooting during Israel’s 1948 creation.
      The possibility of escalation comes at a critical time for U.S. Mideast policy.    President Barack Obama’s envoy to the region, George Mitchell, resigned Friday, and the U.S. president may now have to retool the administration’s incremental approach to peacemaking.
      Mitchell held the job for more than two years, but had little to show for it.    Israelis and Palestinians on Saturday praised Mitchell and blamed each other for the failure of his mission.    Palestinian officials argued that Mitchell was destined to fail because of what they said is a faulty U.S. premise — that Israelis and Palestinians are equals who can be nudged by a persistent mediator.    As the occupier, Israel holds all the cards and only U.S. pressure on Israel will yield results, said Nabil Shaath, a veteran negotiator.
      Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke to Mitchell by phone Saturday.    Netanyahu expressed sorrow over Mitchell’s decision to step down and “over the fact that the Palestinians refused to come to the talks that Mitchell worked to promote,” according to a statement by Netanyahu’s office.
      Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is seeking to sidestep a negotiated agreement with Israel and instead seek U.N. recognition of Palestinian statehood in September.    Abbas told the Rome daily La Repubblica in an interview published Saturday that if Israel doesn’t want to negotiate with a new Palestinian unity government that includes Hamas and rival Fatah, “we’ll go to the U.N. in September and ask if our people, which is again united, finally has the right to be a state.”    With much at stake, it appears unlikely that Abbas’ security forces will allow today’s commemorations to get out of hand.    On Saturday, the main flashpoint was east Jerusa-lem.
      A 17-year-old Palestinian, Milad Ayyash, was shot and critically wounded Friday during a clash near a Jewish settler enclave there, according to a local activist, Fahri Abu Diab.    Abu Diab, citing witnesses, alleged that shots were fired from the rooftop of the Beit Yonathan settlement enclave toward the stone throwers.    Ayyash died early Saturday, said Jerusalem police spokesman Shmuel Ben Ruby. He said it remains unclear who fired the shot.    During Ayyash’s funeral procession, some Palestinians broke away from mourners, twirling slingshots to stone settlers’ homes, passing cars and border police. Riot police fired tear gas.
      Clashes also erupted at the Qalandia crossing, a passage through the wall that rings most of Jerusalem as part of Israel’s separation barrier with the West Bank.    Dozens of Palestinian teens hurled stones, while some 150 Israeli soldiers on the rooftops of nearby buildings occasionally fired tear gas.
      In Washington, meanwhile, the Obama administration will focus on the Middle East in coming days.    The president will deliver a Mideast policy speech, expected on Thursday, followed by a visit by Netanyahu.    On Tuesday, Obama will play host to Jordan’s King Abdullah II.
  
  
• 5/16/2011
  
  Palestinians descend on Israeli borders - At least 15 killed in surprise incursion by Aron Heller, Associated Press
      MAJDAL SHAMS, Golan Heights — Mobilized by calls on Facebook, thousands of Arab protesters marched on Israel’s borders with Syria, Lebanon and Gaza on Sunday in an unprecedented wave of demonstrations, sparking clashes that left at least 15 people dead in an annual Palestinian mourning ritual marking the anniversary of Israel’s birth.
      In a surprising turn of events, hundreds of Palestinians and supporters poured across the Syrian frontier and staged riots, drawing Israeli accusations that Syria, and its ally Iran, orchestrated the unrest to shift attention from an up-rising back home.    It was a rare incursion from the usually tightly controlled Syrian side and could upset the delicate balance between the two longtime foes.
      Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who heads to Washington at the end of the week, said he directed the military to act with “maximum restraint” — but vowed a tough response to any further provocations.    “Nobody should be mistaken.    We are determined to defend our borders and sovereignty,” he declared in a brief address broadcast live on Israeli TV stations.
      The violence showed Israel the extent of Arab anger over the Palestinian issue, beyond the residents of the West Bank and Gaza, and came at a critical time for U.S. Mideast policy. nbsp;   President Barack Obama’s envoy to the region, George Mitchell, resigned Friday after more than two years of fruitless efforts.    The U.S. president may now have to retool the administration’s approach to peacemaking.    Obama is ex-pected to deliver a Mideast policy speech this week.
      There were also deadly clashes along Israel’s nearby northern border with Lebanon, as well as in the Gaza Strip on Israel’s southern flank.    The Israeli military said 13 soldiers were hurt, none seriously.
      Sunday’s unrest — which came after activists used Facebook and other websites to urge Palestinians and supporters in neighboring nations to march on Israel — was the first time the recent protests that have swept the Arab world have been directed at Israel.
      The events carried a message for Israel: Even as it wrestles with the Palestinian demand for a state in the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem — areas Israel captured in the 1967 Mideast war — there’s a related difficulty of neighboring nations that host millions of Palestinians with hopes to return.    The fate of Palestinian refugees is one of the thorniest issues that any Israeli-Palestinian peace deal will have to address.
      Palestinians were marking the “nakba,” or “catastrophe” — the term they use to describe their defeat and displacement in the war that followed Israel’s founding on May15,1948.    Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were uprooted.    Today, the surviving refugees and their descendants number several million people.
      Each year, Palestinians throughout the region mark the nakba with protests. But never before have the marchers descended upon Israel’s borders from all sides.    The Syrian incursion was especially surprising.    Israel captured the Golan Heights from Syria in the 1967 war, and Syria demands the area back as part of any peace deal.    Despite hostility between the two nations, Syria has carefully kept the border quiet since the 1973 Mideast war.
      About midday Sunday, thousands of people approached the frontier, waving Palestinian flags, shouting slogans and throwing rocks and bottles at Israeli forces.    When hundreds of people burst through the border fence into the Israeli controlled town of Majdal Shams, surprised soldiers opened fire.    Syrian forces didn’t intervene, and Syrian officials reported four people were killed and dozens hurt.    Rioters paraded through town, flashing Syrian ID cards, holding Palestinian flags.
      “This was a surprise for everyone.    I have been here my whole life and never saw anything like this,” said Khatib Ibrahim, 51, a resident who watched the clashes unfold as he worked in his family’s grove.    The Israeli army said more than 100 people were sent back to Syria by the time the unrest died down several hours later.
  
  Simultaneous strikes     Israeli defense officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the information, admitted the military was caught off guard by the violent marches.    They also said there were strong signs Syria and its Iranian-backed Lebanese ally, Hezbollah, orchestrated the unrest.    Israel’s mili-tary spokesman, Brig. Gen. Yoav Mordechai, told Channel 2 TV he saw “fingerprints of Iranian provocation and an attempt to use ‘nakba day’ to create conflict.”
      Hezbollah’s al-Manar TV was in place to film much of the unrest, and defense officials said activists were bused in from Palestinian refugee camps across Syria.    Many of them held European passports and told interrogators they had been flown in from abroad for the march.    “It’s our land,” one of the infiltrators, Sufian Abdel Hamid, told Israel’s Channel 2 TV.    “We won’t stop trying to come back.”    ” About 25 miles to the west, Israeli troops clashed with a large crowd of Lebanese demonstrators who approached that border.    The military said it opened fire when they tried to damage the border fence.    Security officials in Lebanon reported 10 dead.
      There was also violence in a predictable location — Gaza.    Palestinian medics said 125 people were hurt when demonstrators in the Gaza Strip tried to approach a heavily fortified border crossing into Israel.    One man was killed by an Israeli sniper.    The military said he was trying to plant a bomb.    In Jordan, meanwhile, police blocked a group of protesters trying to reach the border with Israel.    In addition, hundreds of West Bank Palestinians threw stones at Israeli police and burned tires at a checkpoint outside Jerusalem before they were dispersed.
  
  
• 5/18/2011
  
  Obama: Mideast peace vital - President meets with Jordan’s king by Erica Werner, Associated Press
      WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama said Tuesday that it’s “more vital than ever” for Israel and the Palestinians to restart peace talks, as he plunged again into Mideast diplomacy with hopes of reaching an elusive accord.    Addressing reporters after an Oval Office meeting with Jordan’s King Abdullah II, Obama said the U.S. would continue to push for “an equitable and just solution to a problem that has been nagging the region for many, many years.”    The latest White House push comes with Israeli and Palestinian peace talks stalemated and amid upheavals sweeping the Middle East and North Africa.    Obama’s special Middle East envoy, former Sen. George Mitchell, resigned several days ago after a largely fruitless two-year bid for peace.    Obama is to deliver a speech on the Middle East and U.S. policy there on Thursday, and on Friday he’ll welcome Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to the White House.
      Obama said he discussed the changes roiling the Middle East with Abdullah, whose country has a peace treaty with Israel and is a key U.S. partner in seeking peace. “We both share the view that despite the many changes — or perhaps because of the many changes — that are taking place in the region, it’s more vital than ever that both Israelis and Palestinians find a way to get back to the table and begin negotiating a process whereby they can create two states that are living side by side in peace and security,” Obama said.
      Abdullah praised Obama for his continued focus on “the core issue of an Israeli and Palestinian peace.”    Yet Obama gave no indication of how the U.S. would bring about peace talks that have dried up since last September, when they were briefly restarted under U.S. pressure.    There are many, and daunting, barriers to resuming the talks.
      Netanyahu made clear in comments to his parliament Monday that he doesn’t believe a Palestinian state is possible if the militant group Hamas, which is set to join a Palestinian unity government with rival Fatah, does not recognize Israel.
      For their part, the Palestinians plan to seek U.N. recognition of a state this fall in hopes it will give them more leverage in negotiations with Israel.
      Inflaming tensions, 15 people were killed over the weekend in mass marches from Gaza, Syria and Lebanon toward Israel’s borders.
      Obama announced plans Tuesday for economic assistance to Jordan to help create the conditions for economic growth and stability.
      The changes sweeping the Middle East and North Africa have not skipped Jordan, where weeks of protests led Abdullah to dismiss his Cabinet and prime minister in February.
      Obama said the U.S. welcomes the initiatives taken by Abdullah and feels confident “that to the extent that he’s able to move those reforms forward, this will be good for the security and stability of Jordan, but also will be good for the economic prosperity of the people of Jordan.”
  
  
• 5/19/2011
  
  U.S. pushes Israel toward peace talks bBy Amy Teibel, Associated Press
      JERUSALEM — U.S. and Israeli leaders meet this week amid a deadlocked peace process, a Middle East in the grip of violence and change, and an emerging Palestinian plan to seek recognition for a state at the United Nations.
      Disagreement looms: President Barack Obama is pushing for a resumption of peace talks, while Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu considers it all but impossible to negotiate in the current environment, especially with a Palestinian leadership newly allied with the Islamic militant group Hamas.
      The White House meeting Friday comes amid a growing sense of urgency brought on by the Palestinians’ plan to sidestep the peace process and seek recognition for a state at the United Nations in September.
      Netanyahu and Obama have expressed vastly different visions about the path forward.    Obama is urging a return to the bargaining table, while Netanyahu has attacked the Palestinians’ intention to set up a “unity government” backed by both the moderate Fatah of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and the Iranian-backed Hamas.
      Obama argued Tuesday that the Mideast revolutions make it “more vital than ever that Israelis and Palestinians find a way back to the table.”    “The United States has an enormous stake in this,” he said.    Still, Obama has not specifically called on Israel to talk to Hamas, and this week’s meetings and speeches may clarify the issue.    In a speech to parliament Monday that aides said reflected his planned message to Obama, Netanyahu made clear his opposition to talks with a Palestinian government that includes Hamas.
      “A Palestinian government, half of which declares daily that it is intent on annihilating Israel, is not a partner for peace,” the Israeli leader said.
  
  
• 5/20/2011
  
  Obama backs ’67 Mideast borders - Israel criticizes idea on eve of meeting by Ben Feller, Associated Press
      WASHINGTON — Forcefully stepping into an explosive Middle East debate, President Barack Obama endorsed a key Palestinian demand for the borders of its future state Thursday and prodded Israel to accept that it can never have a truly peaceful nation based on “permanent occupation.”
      Obama’s urging that a Palestinian state be based on 1967 borders — before the Six Day War in which Is-rael occupied East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza — was a significant shift in the U.S. approach.    It drew an immediate criticism from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is to meet with Obama at the White House to-day.
      In a statement released late Thursday in Jerusalem, Netanyahu called the 1967 lines “indefensible,” saying such a withdrawal would jeopardize Israel’s security and leave major West Bank settlements outside Israeli borders, although Obama left room for adjustments reached through negotiations.    At the same time, it was not im-mediately clear whether Obama’s statement on the 1967 borders as the basis for negotiations — something the Palestinians have long sought — would be sufficient to persuade the Palestinians to drop their push for U.N. recognition of their statehood.
      Obama rejected the Palestinians’ unilateral statehood bid Thursday as he sought to underscore U.S. support for Israel notwithstanding the endorsement of the 1967 borders.
      “Symbolic actions to isolate Israel at the United Nations in September won’t create an independent state,” Obama said.
      Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas planned to convene a meeting with senior officials as soon as possible to decide on the next steps, Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said.    Abbas is determined “to give President Obama’s effort and that of the international community the chance they deserve,” Erekat said.    The U.S., the international community and even past Israeli governments have endorsed a settlement based on the 1967 lines, but Obama was far more explicit than in the past.    His position appeared to put him at odds with Netanyahu, who has not accepted the concept.
      Obama’s comments came in his most comprehensive response to date to the uprisings sweeping the Arab world. Speaking at the State Department, he called for the first time for the leader of Syria to embrace democracy or move aside, though without specifically demanding his ouster.
      As he addressed audiences abroad and at home, Obama sought to leave no doubt that the U.S. stands behind the protesters who have swelled from nation to nation across the Middle East and North Africa, while also trying to convince Americans that U.S. involvement in unstable countries halfway around the world is in their interest too.
      Obama said the United States has a historic opportunity and the responsibility to support the rights of people clamoring for freedoms.    He called for “a new chapter in American diplomacy.”    “We know that our own future is bound to this region by the forces of economics and security; history and faith,” the president said.    He hailed the killing of al-Qaida terrorist leader Osama bin Laden and declared that bin Laden’s vision of destruction was fading even before U.S. forces killed him.    The “shouts of human dignity are being heard across the region,” Obama said.
      The president noted that two leaders had stepped down — referring to Egypt and Tunisia — and said that “more may follow.”    He quoted civilian protesters who have pushed for change in Egypt, Libya, Syria and Yemen — though without noting that among those nations, only Egypt has seen the departure of a long-ruling autocratic leader.
      Obama said that while there will be setbacks accompanying progress in political transitions, the move-ments present a valuable opportunity for the U.S. to show which side it is on.
      “We have a chance to show that America values the dignity of the street vendor in Tunisia more than the raw power of a dictator,” he said, referring to the fruit vendor who killed himself in despair and sparked a chain of events that unleashed uprisings around the Arab world.
      On the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, the president cautioned that the recent power-sharing agreement between the mainstream Palestinian faction led by Abbas and the radical Hamas movement that rules Gaza “raises profound and legitimate” security questions for Israel.    Netanyahu has refused to deal with a Palestinian government that includes Hamas.
      “How can one negotiate with a party that has shown itself unwilling to recognize your right to exist?” Obama asked.    “In the weeks and months to come, Palestinian leaders will have to provide a credible answer to that question.”    The president ignored many of the most divisive issues separating the two sides.    He did not speak about the status of Jerusalem or the fate of Palestinian ref-ugees.    And he did not discuss a way to resolve Israel’s concerns about a Hamas role in a unified Palestinian government, telling the Palestinians that they would have to address the matter themselves.    On Syria, Obama said President Bashar Assad must lead his country to democracy or “get out of the way,” his most direct warning to the leader of a nation embroiled in violence.    Obama said the Syrian government “has chosen the path of murder and the mass arrests of its citizens.”    Obama said that while each country in the region is unique, there are shared values in the push for political change that will define the U.S. approach.    “Our message is simple: If you take the risks that reform entails, you will have the full support of the United States,” he said.    The speech was in some ways notable for what Obama did not mention.
      While critical of autocracy throughout the Mideast, he failed to mention the region’s largest, richest and arguably most repressive nation, U.S. ally Saudi Arabia.    Nor did he discuss Jordan, a staunch U.S. ally that has a peace deal with Israel.    Also left out was the United Arab Emirates, the wealthy, pro-American collection of mini-states on the Persian Gulf.    And he gave little attention to Iran, where U.S. attempts at outreach have gone nowhere.    The speech included somewhat tepid admonitions of U.S. allies Yemen and Bahrain.    On Yemen, a key partner in the U.S. fight against al-Qaida, Obama called on President Ali Abdullah Saleh to “follow through on his commitment to transfer power.”    His language was stron-ger for Bahrain, home to the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet, where Obama said the only way forward is dialogue between the government and opposition, “and you can’t have a real dialogue when parts of the peaceful opposition are in jail.”
  
  
• 5/21/2011
  
  Netanyahu still rejects Obama idea on borders -Premier declares objections face to face in visit Friday by Ben Feller, Associated Press
      WASHINGTON — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected the idea of using Israel’s 1967 boundaries as the basis for a neighboring Palestinian state Friday, declaring his objections face-to-face to President Barack Obama, who had raised the idea just 24 hours earlier in an effort to revive stalled peace talks.
      Although the two leaders, meeting in the Oval Office, found cordial and predictable agreement on the other central element that Obama outlined in his Mideast address Thursday, ironclad Israeli security alongside a Palestinian nation, progress on the bedrock issue of borders seemed as elusive as ever.
      In his speech, Obama gave unprecedented prominence to a long-held U.S. stand that Israel opposes: A Palestinian state should be shaped around the border lines that existed before the 1967 war in which Israel took control of the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem.
      An essential part of what Obama proposed was that Israelis and Palestinians also would have to agree to swaps of land to account for Israeli settlements and other current conditions, a point Netanyahu did not mention.
      “While Israel is prepared to make generous compromises for peace, it cannot go back to the 1967 lines,” Netanyahu declared.    “These lines are indefensible.”
      As they sat together for public comments after a private meeting, Obama sought to put the disagreement in the best light, and in the context of a relationship of two allies — but with one showing strains of impatience.
      “Obviously there are some differences between us in the precise formulations and language,” Obama said.    “That’s going to happen between friends.”    He quickly added in a reassurance to Netanyahu: “What we are in complete accord about is that a true peace can only occur if the ultimate resolution allows Israel to defend itself against threats, and that Israel’s security will remain paramount in U.S. evaluation of any prospective deal.”    Obama and Netanyahu showed cordiality before the cameras.    The president listened intently, his hand cupping his chin, as Netanyahu spoke passionately about his country’s plight and how the path to peace should run.    “Remember that, before 1967, Israel was all of nine miles wide,” Netanyahu said, emphasizing his words with his hands.    “It was half the width of the Washington Beltway,” he added.    “And these were not the boundaries of peace; they were the boundaries of repeated wars, because the attack on Israel was so attractive.”
      Obama, frustrated by Mideast peace talks that have stalled, is seeking to get both sides to confront the issues of borders and security.    Even progress on those enormous fronts would still leave unsettled the fate of Jerusalem and of Palestinian refugees.    Netanyahu underscored just how difficult that last issue is alone, declaring that Palestinians will not be allowed to settle in Israel as part of any peace plan.    “It’s not going to happen. Everybody knows it’s not going to happen,” he said.    “And I think it’s time to tell the Palestinians forthrightly it’s not going to happen.”
  
  Palestinians’ response
      Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said Netanyahu’s comments with Obama were tantamount to “his total rejection of the Obama vision and speech.”    “Without Mr. Netanyahu committing to two states on the 1967 lines, with mutually agreed swaps, he is not a partner to the peace process,” Erekat said.    “I think, when President Obama gave him a choice between dictation and negotiations, he chose dictation.”
      On the border matter, the Obama administration until now had tried to summarize the positions of each party but had not taken a position itself.    Obama’s direct reference to the 1967 borders and land swaps in his speech incensed Israel, creating tension on Netanyahu’s visit.    As Obama pushes for a return to talks that he championed strongly last year, that prospect seems bleak.
      Netanyahu said his nation could not negotiate with a Palestinian unity government that includes the radi-cal Hamas movement — which refuses to recognize Israel’s right to exist. He said Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas had to choose between continuing the deal with Hamas and making peace with Israel.
      Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said Netanyahu’s rejection of a return to 1967 lines was “clear evidence that the negotiations option was a waste of time.”
      The comments from Netanyahu and Obama, after a longer-than-slated meeting that lasted more than 90 minutes, shed little light on how the peace process will advance.    The two leaders did not take questions from the press, and White House Press Secretary Jay Carney was unable in a subsequent briefing to point to any concrete signs of progress.
      Netanyahu is to address Congress on Tuesday to press Israel’s position.    On Thursday, Netanyahu was informed shortly before Obama’s speech of its contents by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, according to U.S. officials.    Netanyahu sought in vain to get the border language removed from the speech, the officials said. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive diplomatic exchange.
  
  
• 5/23/2011
  
  Obama defends Mideast policy - Seeks to reassure pro-Israel lobby by Bradley Klapper, Associated Press
      WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama defended his endorsement of Israel’s 1967 boundaries as the basis for a future Palestine, telling America’s pro-Israel lobby Sunday that his views reflected longstanding U.S. policy that needed to be stated clearly.
      He also said the Jewish state will face growing isolation without “a credible peace process.”    Obama tried to alleviate concerns that his administration was veering in a pro-Palestinian direction — placing his Mideast policy speech Thursday in the context of Israel’s security.    He told the American Israel Public Affairs Committee that those border lines must be subject to negotiated land swaps and said these principles reflected U.S. thinking dating to President Bill Clinton’s mediation efforts.    “If there’s a controversy, then it’s not based in substance,” Obama said in a well-received speech.    “What I did on Thursday was to say publicly what has long been acknowledged privately,” he added. “I have done so because we cannot afford to wait another decade, or another two decades, or another three decades, to achieve peace.”
      The event was eagerly anticipated after Obama outlined his vision for the changing Middle East at the State Department on Thursday and then clashed in a White House meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a day later.    The speech came before a weeklong trip for Obama to Europe, where he’ll visit old friends in the Western alliance and look to secure their help with political upheaval across the Arab world and the decade-long conflict in Afghanistan.    He departed later Sunday for Ireland.    He’ll also visit England, France and Poland this week.
      Netanyahu said in a statement after Obama’s remarks that he supported the president’s desire to advance peace and resolved to work with him to find ways to renew the negotiations.    “Peace is a vital need for us all,” Netanyahu said.    The Israeli leader’s tone was far more reserved than last week, when he issued an impassioned rejection of the 1967 borders as “indefensible” and even appeared to publicly admonish Obama after a White House meeting. Netanyahu was to address the pro-Israel lobby tonight and Congress on Tuesday.
      Obama didn’t retreat from his remarks on what it would take to reach a two-state solution between Israelis and Palestinians.    Repeating a large section of his Thursday speech, he said the result must come through negotiation, and said Israeli border security and protections from acts of terrorism must be ensured.
      An Israeli withdrawal from territory should be followed by Palestinians’ responsibility for security in a nonmilitarized state.    “By definition, it means that the parties themselves — Israelis and Palestinians — will negotiate a border that is different than the one that existed on June 4, 1967,” Obama said.    That was before Israel seized the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem, and a half-million Israelis settled on war-won lands.
      “It is a well-known formula to all who have worked on this issue for a generation,” he said.    “It allows the parties themselves to account for the changes that have taken place over the last 44 years, including the new demographic realities on the ground and the needs of both sides.”    Obama’s emphasis on what’s meant by “mutually agreed land swaps” reflected part of the equation Netanyahu largely disregarded when he vociferously rejected the 1967 borders as a basis for peace.    Palestinians have expressed willingness to let Israel annex some of the largest settlements closest to the demarcation, as long as they are compensated with Israeli land equal in size and quality.    In the last serious talks in 2008, the sides split on how much West Bank land Israel would keep in the trade.
      Leading Republicans blasted Obama’s remarks, insisting he was imperiling Israeli security.    “This is the very worst time to be pushing Israel into making a deal,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., told “Fox News Sunday,” citing the uncertainty in neighboring Egypt and Syria.
      GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich said the U.S. shouldn’t apply any pressure on Israel in light of the recent reconciliation between Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ U.S. backed government and the Islamic militant group Hamas, which controls Gaza.    “How do you have peace with a Hamas organization whose stated goal is the destruction of Israel and driving every Israeli out of the country?”    Gingrich asked on CBS’ “Face the Nation.”
      Obama acknowledged that he had touched nerves by outlining his principles for peace and that “the easy thing to do, particularly for a president preparing for reelection, is to avoid any controversy.”    But he said that peace efforts needed to gain ground quickly.
  
  
• 5/25/2011
  
  Netanyahu: Israel ready for painful compromises by Amy Teibel, Associated Press
      WASHINGTON — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledged Tuesday to make “painful compromises” for peace with the Palestinians, for the first time explicitly saying that some West Bank settlements would find themselves outside Israel’s final borders.
      But he tacked on a list of conditions that have been unacceptable to the Palestinians in the past, making his peace blueprint unlikely to entice them back to the negotiating table.    Speaking before a warmly receptive Congress that showered him with more than two dozen standing ovations, Netanyahu said Israel wants and needs peace but repeated his flat rejection of a return to what he called the “indefensible” borders that Israel had before the 1967 Mideast war.
      He also restated Israel’s refusal to repatriate millions of Palestinian refugees and their families to homes in Israel that they lost in fighting over the Jewish state’s 1948 creation.
      And Netanyahu maintained anew that contested Jerusalem could not be shared with the Palestinians, who want the eastern sector of the holy city as capital of their hoped-for state.
      “Israel will never give up its quest for peace,” Netanyahu said, adding that he is “willing to make painful compromises to achieve this historic peace.”    But he that said Israel would not negotiate with terrorists and urged Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to rip up a power sharing agreement that his moderate Fatah faction has signed with the militant group Hamas, which does not recognize Israel’s right to exist.
      In the West Bank, Nabil Shaath, a senior Palestinian official, called Netanyahu’s speech “a declaration of war against the Palestinians.”    “He noted that Netanyahu had rejected all key Palestinian demands on key issues like future borders, the competing claims of Jerusalem and the fate of refugees”    Israel, which enjoys strong bipartisan backing in Congress, has been rattled by President Barack Obama’s support for drawing the future borders of a Palestinian state and a Jewish state on the basis of Israel’s pre-1967 war frontiers.
      Netanayu has scorned that position, but in his speech, he acknowledged that Obama has not called for a return to the exact borders Israel held before capturing east Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza Strip in the 1967 Mideast war.
  
  
• 5/26/2011
  
  Egypt to open Gaza crossing permanently - Action puts regime at odds with Israel by Mark Lavie, Associated Press
      CAIRO — Egypt’s decision Wednesday to end its blockade of Gaza by opening the only crossing to the Hamas-ruled Palestinian territory this weekend could ease the isolation of 1.4 million Palestinians there.    It also puts the new Egyptian regime at odds with Israel, which insists on careful monitoring of people and goods entering Gaza for security reasons.    The Rafah crossing will be open permanently starting Saturday, Egypt’s official Middle East News Agency announced.    That would provide Palestinians in Gaza their first open border to the world in four years, since Egypt and Israel slammed their crossings shut after the Islamic militant Hamas overran the Gaza Strip in 2007.
      During the closure, Egypt sometimes opened its border to allow Palestinians through for special reasons such as education or medical treatment.    But with Israel severely restricting movement of Palestinians through its Erez crossing in northern Gaza, residents there were virtual prisoners.    The old rules will be reinstated, allowing Palestinians with passports to cross into Egypt every day from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. except for Fridays and holidays.
      Entry into Gaza was more complicated.    Palestinians ran their side of the crossing. European monitors had a role at the crossing, and they have been waiting to resume that function.    Also, Israel was supposed to have a monitoring role from afar, theoretically to stop weapons and militants from entering Gaza.
      Col. Ayoub Abu Shaer, Gaza director of the Rafah terminal, said Gaza and Egypt have been discussing the changes in recent weeks.    Under the proposal, women would be able to leave Gaza without re-strictions, while men between the ages of 18 and 40 would have to obtain visas for Egypt at the border.    An Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman, Yigal Palmor, declined to comment.
  
  
• 5/29/2011
  
  Egypt reopens Gaza border - Blockade ends after four years by Ibrahim Barzak, Associated Press
      RAFAH, Gaza Strip — Egypt lifted a 4-year-old blockade of the Gaza Strip on Saturday, greatly easing travel restrictions on the 1.5 million residents of the Palestinian territory in a move that bolstered the Hamas government while dealing a setback to Israel’s efforts to isolate the militant group.
      The sense of relief was palpable as buses piled high with luggage crossed the Rafah border terminal and hundreds of people traveled abroad for overdue medical appointments, business dealings and family affairs. In Israel, fears were heightened that militants and weapons will soon pour into the territory.
      “I was so happy to hear that the Egyptian border is opening so I can finally travel for treatment,” said Mohammad Zoarob, 66, who suffers from chronic kidney disease.    He said he had been waiting for a medical permit from the Palestinian health ministry for five years so he could go to Egypt for treatment.    When Palestinian officials coincidentally approved the permit Saturday, he kissed his family goodbye, rushed to the border and was quickly whisked across.    Saturday’s expansion of the Rafah crossing was a tangible benefit of the popular unrest sweeping through the Arab world.    The blockade, which has fueled an economic crisis in Gaza, is deeply unpopular among Arabs, and Egypt’s caretaker leaders had promised to end it since the ouster of longtime President Hosni Mubarak in February.
      Israel and Egypt imposed the blockade after the Islamic militant group Hamas seized control of Gaza in June 2007. The closing aimed to weaken Hamas.
      But the Iranian-backed group remains firmly in power, operating the border crossing even at a time when it is supposed to be reconciling with the rival Fatah movement.    Until Saturday, the Rafah border terminal had functioned at a limited capacity.    Only certain classes of people, such as students, businessmen or medical patients, were eligible to travel and the crossing was often subject to closings, leading to huge backlogs that forced people to wait for months.    Under the new system, virtually anyone can travel, and a much larger number of Palestinians are expected to be able to cross, six days a week.    Hundreds of Gazans gathered early Saturday as the first busload of passengers crossed the border at 9 a.m.    Two Egyptian officers stood guard next to a large Egyptian flag atop the border gate as the vehicle rumbled through.    One after another buses crossed Rafah, pulling blue carts behind them with luggage piled high.
      Nearby, Khaled Halaweh, 28, said he was headed to Egypt to study for a master’s degree in engineering at Alexandria University.    “The closure did not affect only the travel of passengers or the flowing of goods.    Our brains and our thoughts were under blockade,” said Halaweh, who said he hadn’t been out of Gaza for seven years.    By the close of operation at 5 p.m., 410 people had crossed into Egypt, said Salama Baraka, head of police at the Rafah terminal, well above the daily average of about 300 in recent months; 39 were turned back because they did not have the proper visas or travel documents, Baraka said.
      Israeli media quoted Egyptian officials as saying some were also on Egyptian “terror lists.”    In the past, Egypt had rejected passengers found to be on “black-lists.”    An additional 150 people crossed from Egypt into Gaza.
      The new opening will not resolve Gazans’ travel woes completely, though.    Men between the ages of 18 and 40 still will have to obtain Egyptian visas, a process that can take months.    Women, children and older men must get travel permits, which can be obtained in several days.
  
  
• 8/3/2011
  
  Israel, U.S. trying to revive Palestinian peace talks
      Jerusalem - Israel is working with the United States to find a way to revive peace negotiations with the Palestinians in a desperate attempt to avert a diplomatic showdown at the U.N. next month, an Israeli official confirmed Tuesday.    The talks are focusing on two issues: the borders between Israel and a future Palestine, and Israel’s demand that the Palestinians recognize the country as the Jewish homeland.
  
  
• 8/7/2011
  
  Hundreds of thousands protest cost of living
      Jerusalem - At least a quarter of a million Israelis, fed up with the mounting cost of living, poured into the streets of the country’s major cities Saturday night to demand their leaders act.
      The snowballing protest, which started out three weeks ago with a few 20-somethings pitching a tent encampment, has become a big headache for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.    An aide said the government would soon devise a program to break the monopolies and cartels he blames for Israel’s ills.
  
  
• 8/20/2011
  
  Airstrikes, rockets follow attack on Israel by Associated Press
      JERUSALEM — Israeli airstrikes killed four Palestinian militants in Gaza while Palestinians fired rockets into southern Israel, hitting a synagogue and a school and wounding several Israelis in the aftermath of the deadliest attack against Israelis in three years.    Palestinian militants in Gaza launched more than two dozen rockets into Is-rael on Friday, the Israeli military said.    One smashed into a Jewish seminary, damaging a synagogue in the port city of Ashdod and wounding six Israelis standing outside, Israeli emergency services said.    One hit an empty school and another, aimed at the city of Ashkelon, was intercepted by the new Israeli anti-missile system, Iron Dome.    Israeli aircraft struck several targets in Gaza on Friday in retaliation for the rocket attacks, the military said, killing four Palestinian militants.    One strike hit a motorcycle carrying senior militants from the Palestinian group Israel says is behind Thursday’s violence.    Another five militants were killed Thursday night. Gunmen who appear to have originated in Gaza and crossed into southern Israel through the Egyptian desert ambushed vehicles traveling on a remote road, killing eight people.    Two were Israeli security forces members responding to the incursion.
      The sudden spike in violence threatened to upset already frayed ties between Israel and Egypt and escalate the conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.
  
  
• 8/22/2011
  
  Hamas: Gaza militants agree to cease-fire
      Jerusalem - Gaza militants have agreed to a cease-fire with Israel to stop three days of violence, a Hamas official said Sunday, after a deadly attack on Israelis near the Egypt-Israel border set off a round of Israeli airstrikes and rocket barrages from Gaza.
      The flareup also threatened Israel-Egypt relations, after Egypt said five of its police officers were killed by Israeli fire as Israel’s troops and aircraft pursued the militants responsible for killing eight people Thursday.
      A spokesman for the Israeli government would not comment.
  
  
• 8/23/2011
  
  Rockets fly amid cease-fire - Israel reports no new injuries by Ian Deitch, Associated Press
      JERUSALEM — Palestinian militants in the Hamas- ruled Gaza Strip launched rockets and mortar shells into southern Israel Monday, despite an unofficial truce meant to defuse escalating violence.
      Around midday, a group that had held out from joining the ceasefire announced it would comply. Even so, Palestinians launched two rockets into Israel a few hours later, the military said.    They caused no injuries but damaged property and set a fire to a field.    The latest violence began with a deadly attack on Israelis near the Egypt-Israel border on Thursday when gunmen who appear to have originated in Gaza ambushed vehicles, killing eight people.    Six were civilians and two were members of Israeli security forces responding to the incursion.    That touched off deadly Israeli airstrikes and heavy Palestinian rocket fire from Gaza.    Palestinians pummeled southern Israel with about 70 rockets Saturday night, killing 1 Israeli and wounding several others.    About 15 Palestinians, most of them gunmen, were killed in Israeli air-strikes.
      “Most of those who dispatched the terrorists to carry out the attacks are now under the ground,” Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said Monday evening.    A Hamas official said militant groups in Gaza agreed to the truce to end three days of clashes between Israel and Gaza militants. Hamas security personnel would enforce the Egypt-brokered agreement, he said.
  
  
• 9/5/2011
  
  Israelis brace for possible turmoil in the West Bank by Daniella Cheslow, Associated Press
      ELAZAR, West Bank — Israeli forces hope to prevent bloodshed when Palestinians march to support a statehood drive this month, but they’re preparing for worst-case scenarios, even authorizing West Bank settlers to shoot Pal-estinians who approach their communities.    Palestinians insist the rallies will be peaceful — a view shared by Israel’s own security estimates — and will steer clear of settlements.    Yet, the combustible atmosphere and the long and deadly past of Israeli- Palestinian conflict raise fears that things may spin out of control.
      For the Palestinians, the mass marches are intended to boost their campaign to get the U.N. to recognize an independent state, a strategy they are trying because talks intended to bring about a state through a peace deal with Israel have been stalled for two years.
      Settlers living on land the Palestinians want for their future state have long been targets for militants; likewise, some settlers have attacked Palestinian civilians.    The fear among settlers now is that even unarmed crowds — if large enough — may overrun their enclaves.
      Ilan Paz, a retired Israeli general who served in the West Bank for 10 years, said a scenario with hundreds of casualties is not impossible.    “You can’t know how this sort of protest will end,” he said.    “All sorts of local incidents can lead to injuries, and this can cause a deterioration in the situation.”    There are 300,000 Israeli settlers in the West Bank, living amid 2.5 million Palestinians.    Settlements are usually guarded by troops and crews of area residents the military arms.    Many settlers carry private guns; clashes between settlers and Palestinians are common.    Israel’s army is training soldiers used to battling gunmen in non-lethal riot control tactics and in-viting settlers to see drills at a military camp in a rural part of central Israel.
      The mass demonstrations are set for around the time of the Sept. 13-22 U.N. General Assembly session, where the Palestinians hope to be granted official endorsement as a state.    But some doubt the rallies will happen at all; several Palestinian activist groups say they won’t take part, believing the effort would achieve little.
      The police preparations are expected to cost Israel about $20 million, said a senior officer.    Purchases include 16 longrange tear gas launchers, 15 trained Belgian horses to boost police mounted forces, and a weeklong riot training course for a quarter of Israel’s 28,000 police officers, he said.
      Police expect Israeli controlled east Jerusalem, home to 250,000 Palestinians, to be a flash point, he added.    He spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the precautions.    Security forces are stockpiling tear gas, stun grenades, water cannons and other non-lethal weapons.
  
  
• 9/9/2011
  
  Abbas determined about statehood
      Ramallah, West Bank - Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said Thursday that no amount of international pressure or last-minute concessions, including a settlement freeze in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, would stop him from bringing the Palestinian statehood plan to the U.N. Security Council this month.    In a briefing with foreign journalists in Ramallah, Abbas brushed aside warnings he said he received this week from American officials about a possible “confrontation” with the United States and the diplomatic flurry launched by the Mideast Quartet — comprised of the U.S., Russia, the European Union and the United Nations — to craft a compromise.
  
  
• 9/11/2011
  
  Israel, Egypt try to stem riot fallout - U.S. helps end embassy attack by Maggie Michael, Associated Press
      CAIRO — Israeli and Egyptian leaders tried Saturday to limit the damage after protesters stormed Israel’s embassy in Cairo, trashing offices and prompting the evacuation of the staff from Egypt in the worst crisis between the countries since their 1979 peace treaty.    The 13-hour rampage deepened Israel’s fears that it is growing increasingly isolated amid the Arab world’s uprisings and, in particular, that Egypt is turning steadily against it after the fall of Hosni Mubarak, the authoritarian leader who was a close ally.    In Israelis’ eyes, the scene of cars burning outside the embassy and the tale of six Israeli guards trapped inside for hours in a steel-doored safe room underscored their view that anti-Israeli sentiment in Egypt is running free.
      Egypt’s new military rulers, in turn, appear caught between preserving ties with Israel — which guarantee them billions in U.S. military aid — and pressure from the public.    Many Egyptians demand an end to what they see as a cozy relationship under Mubarak, who they feel knuckled under to Israel and the U.S. and did nothing to pressure for concessions to the Palestinians.
      Egyptian security forces did nothing as hundreds of protesters massed Friday outside the high rise residential building where the Israeli Embassy is located and tore down a concrete security wall.    They also did little initially when about 30 protesters climbed in a third-story window after nightfall, raced up to the embassy floors, broke into an office and began throwing documents to the crowd below.    They ransacked the embassy for hours until police finally cleared them out early Saturday.    Frantic Israeli calls to President Barack Obama brought U.S. intercession to help ease the violence.    An Egyptian security official said the military did not order police to clamp down on the protests in order to “avoid a massacre.”    They couldn’t move more quickly to clear out protesters inside the embassy because the fervent crowd outside “considered them heroes,” he said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to talk to the press.
      In a Saturday evening address, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu avoided any condemnations.    “We will continue to keep the peace with Egypt; it is an interest of both countries,” Netanyahu said.    He and his Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman credited Obama for help-ing.
      “I asked him to help, it was a decisive moment. … He said he would do everything he could to help, and he did so.    He deployed all means and influence, and I think we owe him a special thank you,” Netanyahu said.    Lieberman said that after Netanyahu’s call to Obama, “we immediately felt a change, a little more movement on the Egyptian side, and I think that without elaborating, the U.S. representatives did extraordinary work and they deserve the credit.”
  
  
• 9/16/2011
  
  House Democrats turn to E.U. on Palestinians
      Washington - House Democrats are appealing to European leaders to oppose the Palestinian Authority’s pursuit of statehood recognition by the U.N.    In a letter Thursday to 40 European heads of state, Dem-ocrats warned that such a step would have “devastating consequences for the peace process and the Palestinians.”    The Palestinians said Thursday that they will ask the Security Council next week to accept them as a full member of the U.N. Israel and the U.S. oppose the move, saying it would hurt negotiations leading to a two-state solution.
  
  
• 9/17/2011
  
  Palestinians eye full U.N. membership by Mohammed Daraghmeh, Associated Press
      RAMALLAH, West Bank — The Palestinian president said Friday that he would ask the U.N. Security Council next week to endorse his people’s decades-long quest for statehood, but he emphasized that he doesn’t seek to isolate or delegitimize Israel.
      Mahmoud Abbas’ plan to seek full membership at the United Nations and bypass negotiations with Israel sets the stage for a diplomatic confrontation with Israel and the U.S., which has indicated it would veto the measure in the Security Council.
      Abbas appeared to leave himself some wiggle room in his address to the Palestinian people before leav-ing for the annual U.N. General Assembly session in New York next week, saying he didn’t rule out other, unspecified options.    Those could include seeking a lesser, “nonmember state” observer status from the General Assembly, a more easily obtainable goal.
      He also acknowledged that his U.N. move wouldn’t end the Israeli occupation and cautioned against out-size hopes.
      “We don’t want to raise expectations by saying we are going to come back with full independence,” Abbas said in an address to Palestinian leaders.    He said he was going to the U.N. to “ask the world to shoulder its responsibilities” by backing the establishment of a Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem.
      Abbas urged the Palestinian people to refrain from violence, saying “anything other than peaceful moves will harm us and sabotage our endeavors.”
      And he asserted twice that his aim was not to isolate or delegitimize Israel — a charge Israel often levels at the Palestinians and their supporters.    “No one can isolate Israel. No one can delegitimize Israel. It is a recognized state,” he said.    “We want to delegitimze the occupation, not the state of Israel. The occupation is the nightmare of our existence.”
      Both the U.S. and Israel fear the U.N. move could lead to violence and other negative consequences and stress that statehood should come about through negotiations, the cornerstone of Mideast peace efforts for the past two decades.    The Palestinians already are planning two mass demonstrations in the West Bank next week, al-though they say the marches will be peaceful.
      The Palestinians said they are turning to the U.N. after concluding that peace talks will yield no break-through.    Although the U.N. move won’t change things on the ground, they hope it will give them greater leverage in future negotiations by elevating their international profile.
  
  
• 9/18/2011
  
  President faces test in U.N. vote - Palestinian push for statehood puts Obama, U.S. in tight spot by Ben Feller, Associated Press
      WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama once envisioned this would be the moment when world leaders would gather to herald a new state of Palestine.
      What waits for him instead at the United Nations this week is closer to a diplomatic nightmare that may isolate the U.S., anger Congress, deepen the Mideast divide and cloud the rest of his agenda.    Fed up with failed talks with Israel, the Palestinians plan to appeal directly to the U.N. for President Obama statehood.
      Obama is adamant that their approach will undermine the chances of a Palestinian state by ignoring the unresolved issues with Israel.    So now he is in the unenviable spot of opposing an effort whose goals he supports and he’s nearly standing alone in doing so.    From the U.S. perspective, the options aren’t good.
      Should the Palestinians press their case for full U.N. membership to the Security Council, as seems likely, the U.S. will veto it.    If the Palestinians go before the General Assembly for a lesser but still elevat-ed form of member recognition, the U.S. lacks a veto there and will simply vote against it, placing it firmly in the minority and perhaps inflaming the Arab world.    U.S. diplomats were making a furious effort to sway the Palestinians to drop their bid and restart talks with Israel over borders and security.    But as the time grew short before Obama’s scheduled arrival in New York on Monday, his administration already was trying to look beyond any U.N. action in hopes of influencing whatever comes next.    “This is lose, lose, lose,” said Andrew Exum, a senior fellow with the Center for a New American Security.    A resolution before the U.N. Security Council will hurt the United States with the Arabic-speaking world if Obama is seen as standing in the way.    “The Israeli government and the state of Israel will feel more isolated.    And Palestinian frustration will only grow.”    That frustration is surely felt at the White House, too.
      Obama faces questions about his commitment to Israel and his backing among Jewish voters before the 2012 presidential election despite a record of support for Israel that analysts say has been strong and fair.    He hasn’t been able to sway Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to abandon a bid that Obama calls a distraction.
      Members of Congress are angry about what they see as the Palestinians’ end-run around Israel and warning of intervening themselves.    The world has watched as Obama’s domestic fights with Republican lawmakers have undermined the standing of them all.    “There’s no question that he comes in with a per-ception, globally, that his hands are tied,” said Shibley Telhami, a scholar of Middle East policy and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.
      On the sidelines of the gathering, Obama will meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in hopes of finding a way to restart Mideast negotiations.    The White House said it had no such talks to announce with Abbas.
      Even if the U.N. action on the Palestinian bid takes place after Obama departs New York, it is already casting a shadow over his broader message.    Over a busy stretch of meetings and speeches on Tuesday and Wednesday, Obama will give attention to the uprisings that have tossed aside dictators and sped hope for democracy across North Africa and the Middle East.    The president and the U.N. itself want to hold up the international intervention in Libya as a success story of unity and strategic might.    Yet Obama steps back on the world stage under the weight of Mideast peace expectations that he himself set with his U.N. address of last year.    “We should reach for what’s best within ourselves,” Obama said last September in pushing for a negotiated agreement on a sovereign Palestinian state.    “If we do, when we come back here next year, we can have an agreement that will lead to a new member of the United Nations.”    Instead, Israeli-Palestinian talks collapsed.    Obama tried in May to inject some life by spelling out terms that could get both sides back to talking.
      He endorsed ironclad Israeli security and an independent Palestine that would be on the borders that existed before the1967 war, in which Israel occupied East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza Strip, as adjusted by land swaps agreed upon by both sides.    Obama intends to stick with those principles and keep pushing for direct talks.    U.S. and European diplomats have been scrambling for the past week to craft a formula to avert the U.N. showdown.    Their efforts have thus far come to naught.    But envoys from the international group of Mideast negotiators — the U.S., the U.N., Russia and the European Union — planned to meet again today in New York.    “It’s a hard problem that’s taken, of course, decades to address,” deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes said.    “But I think our fundamental message is going to be if you support Palestinian aspirations, if you support a Palestinian state, the way to accomplish that is through negotiations with Israel.”
  
  
• 9/19/2011
  
  Palestinians’ U.N. bid raises stakes - Diplomats scramble to avert showdown by Matthew Lee, Associated Press
      NEW YORK — The U.S. and E.U. raced Sunday to avert or delay a looming U.N. showdown over Palestinian statehood that could crush already dim Mideast peace prospects, with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and the European Union’s top diplomat meeting in a bid to craft a winning strategy.
      Clinton and EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton discussed the situation in New York as part of an increasingly desperate effort to bring Israel and the Palestinians back to talks without antagonizing either or embroiling the region in new turmoil.    But with each side locked in intractable positions on the expected Palestinian bid for U.N. recognition this week, chances for a breakthrough seem slim.    Officials said the effort may be more damage control than diplomacy.
      “We are meeting to talk about the way forward,” Clinton said as she shook hands with Ashton in a hotel.    She declined to say if mediators were making progress.
      The Palestinians are frustrated by their inability to win from Israel concessions such as a freeze on settlements in the West Bank and east Jerusalem.    They want to seize the moment to try to gain greater standing and attention with a high stakes wager on statehood and U.N. membership.    The U.S. and Israel vehemently opposed this move.
      Just a year ago, President Barack Obama said he wanted the U.N. to be welcoming Palestine as its newest member this year.    But talks long have broken down, and the U.S. is in the unenviable position of leading the opposition to something it actually wants.    The U.S. promised a veto of the Palestinian bid at the Security Council, leading to fears the action could spark violence in the region.
      The U.S. side was working to secure additional opposition to recognition, officials said    Without nine affirmative votes in the 15-member Council, the Palestinian resolution would fail; the U.S. hopes it won’t have to act alone.    Averting or diluting the Palestinian resolution had been international diplomats’ goal.    They hoped to parlay that success into a meeting between the Israeli and Palestinian leaders where the two sides re-launched talks.    Yet the Palestinians have refused to back down and give up the little leverage they hope to win.
      Maen Rashid Areikat, the Palestinian’s top representative to the U.S., told CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday the Palestinians may accept an alternative, but it must include “clear terms of reference to return to the negotiations, clear time frame and an endgame.”
      Still, even with a loss in the Security Council, the Palestinians were expected to take their case for recognition to the General Assembly, where they enjoy widespread support and the U.S. cannot block it.    A nod from the General Assembly could give the Palestinians access to international judicial bodies such as the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court.
      Envoys from the Quartet — the U.S., EU, U.N. and Russia — also met Sunday. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon also was supposed to speak with Quartet envoy Tony Blair.
  
  
• 9/20/2011
  
  Palestine showdown looms - U.S. seeks to stall U.N. membership by Tarek el-Tablawy, Associated Press
      UNITED NATIONS — Palestinians brushed aside heated Israeli objections and a promised U.S. veto, vowing Monday to submit a letter requesting full U.N. membership before their president, Mahmoud Abbas, addresses the General Assembly at week’s end.    Amid frenzied global diplomacy, Abbas said he had not been swayed by what he called “tremendous pressure” to drop the bid for United Nations recognition and resume peace negotiations with Israel instead.
      Separately, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called on Abbas to meet with him for talks, marking yet another effort to curtail the Palestinians’ bid for membership.
      Abbas will present the letter to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Friday, ahead of the Palestinian leader’s speech to the General Assembly, according to senior Abbas aide Nabil Shaath.
      Although any submission by the Palestinians will mean a wait of weeks or months for the U.N. action, it has sparked diplomatic activity with Mideast mediators scrambling to find a way to draw the two sides back to the negotiating table.
      The Palestinians’ bid at the U.N. is the first step to statehood for Palestinians who have for decades complained of being guests in their own land.
      Shaath said the secretary-general promised to “speed up the discussion of the request.”
      Shaath said last ditch efforts to dissuade Abbas from approaching the Security Council had failed because the offers fell short of Palestinian aspirations, and added that some parties had threatened the Palestinians with harsh punitive measures but that they had decided to move ahead nonetheless.
      The comment appeared to reflect the warnings by some in the U.S. Congress that current and future financial aid to the Palestinian Authority could be in jeopardy if they move ahead with the membership bid.
      “We do not seek a confrontation with the United States,” Shaath said.    “We have no desire to confront the U.S.”
      Each side in the on-again, off again Israeli-Palestinian talks have accused the other of being untrustworthy and intransigent participants in the peace process.    In a statement, Netanyahu called on Abbas to begin “direct negotiations in New York and continue them in Jerusalem and Ramallah.”
      Ban must receive the letter from Abbas and approve it before it moves forward in the arduous and complicated process for a new member.    Ban “reiterated his support for the two-state solution and stressed his desire to ensure that the international community and the two parties can find a way forward for resuming negotiations within a legitimate and balanced framework,” U.N. spokesman Martin Nesirky said after the secretary-general met with Abbas on Monday.
      The comment underscored the desires of the Quartet of Mideast mediators — the U.S., the U.N., the European Union and Russia — that Palestinian statehood should not be granted before a resumption of peace talks.    The long-stalled negotiations have been unable to solve key issues of Israeli settlement building in the West Bank and the status of east Jerusalem, which the Palestinians want as their capital.    Despite Palestinian plans, a White House official said the situation remained fluid, noting that Abbas had still not formally filed the membership letter.
  
  Palestine and Israel’s future
      The world — or at least the large part of it that hates Israel and wishes it would go away — moves a step nearer that goal this week when the United Nations votes on whether to recognize a Palestinian state.    The vote violates the Declaration of Principles signed by the PLO in 1993, which committed the terrorist group and precursor to the Palestinian Authority to direct negotiations with Israel over a future state.    This violation is further evidence the Palestinian side cannot be trusted to live up to signed agreements and promises.    Jerusalem Post columnist Caroline Glick rightly calls the prospective UN vote “diplomatic aggression.”
      Israel — like the Jewish people for centuries — has become the fall guy for people who prefer their anti-Semitism cloaked in diplomatic niceties.    The Palestinians could have peace any time they wish and probably a state, too, if they acknowledged Israel’s right to exist and practiced verbal, religious and military disar-mamen.    One has a right to question the veracity of a people who claim they want peace, while remaining active in ideological, theological and military warfare aimed at its publicly stated objective: the eradication of the Jewish state.
      The United States has pledged to veto the Palestinian Authority’s membership application if it comes before the U.N. Security Council, but the General Assembly is another matter.    There only a majority vote would be needed to grant the Palestinian government permanent observer status.    From that point forward it would be death by a thousand diplomatic cuts until Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad finally decides to fulfill his own prophecy and drop a nuclear bomb on Jerusalem or Tel Aviv.    Following that horror, European and Amer-ican diplomats will wring their hands and say it would not have happened had Israel been more “flexible” and ceded additional territory.
      Before Israel is allowed to disappear again (as Palestinian maps and school textbooks already depict) and the Jews who survive are sent into exile (who would take them?), it is worth noting a few of the numerous contributions Israel has made to the world, compared to what the Arab-Muslim-Palestinian culture has contributed.
      This tiny land, with less than 1/1,000th of the world’s population, has produced innovative scientists that have contributed to cell phone, computer and medical technology, including the development of “a disposable colonoscopic camera that makes most of the discomfort surrounding colonoscopies obsolete,” discovery of “the molecular trigger that causes psoriasis,” as well as “the first large-scale solar power plant — now working in California’s Mojave Desert.”
      These innovations, and many others, took place while Israel was engaged in wars, suffering terrorist attacks from enemies who seek its destruction and spending more per capita on its defense than any other country.
      If Israel were to be made even more vulnerable and possibly eradicated by unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state, the moral stain on the West would be a “mark of Cain” for generations to come. What other nation, what other people, would the so-called “civilized” world allow to be targeted for annihilation like Israel has been?
      Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, will come to the U.N. to deliver a speech on the same day Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas is scheduled to give his speech calling for the body to support Palestinian statehood.    “The General Assembly is not a place where Israel usually receives a fair hearing,” Netanyahu said last week, “but I still decided to tell the truth before anyone who would like to hear it.”
      The U.N. can’t handle the truth and few member states will like hearing it.    The blood of the Jewish people will be on their hands if they continue to empower individuals and nations whose goal is to create Holocaust II and a “Palestine” without Jews.
      Cal Thomas is a columnist with Tribune Media Services.
  
  
• 9/21/2011
  
  Perry, Romney assail Obama’s Israel policy by Kasie Hunt, Associated Press
      NEW YORK — Republican presidential hopeful Rick Perry on Tuesday criticized the Palestinian Authority’s effort to seek formal recognition by the U.N. General Assembly and assailed the Obama administration’s broader policies in the Middle East.
      In a speech in New York, Perry pledged strong support for Israel and criticized President Barack Obama for demanding concessions from the Jewish state the Texas governor says emboldened the Palestinians to appeal for U.N. recognition.
      “We would not be here today at this very precipice of such a dangerous move if the Obama policy in the Middle East wasn’t naive and arrogant, misguided and dangerous,” Perry said in a speech in New York.    “The Obama policy of moral equivalency, which gives equal standing to the grievances of Israelis and Palestinians, including the orchestrators of terrorism, is a very dangerous insult.”
      In a statement before Perry spoke, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney also waded into the tense foreign policy dispute over Mideast policy.    He called the jockeying at the United Nations this week “an unmitigated disaster.”    He accused Obama’s administration of “repeated efforts over three years to throw Israel under the bus and undermine its negotiating position.”    Perry also criticized Obama’s stated goal that any negotiations should be based on the borders Israel had before a 1967 war that expanded the Jewish state.    While the 1967 borders have been the basis for diplomatic negotiations, they have never been embraced before by a U.S. president. Perry called that stance “insulting and naïve.”    Perry’s remarks came as the Obama administration has redoubled its efforts to block the Palestinian bid    The U.S. has promised a veto in the Security Council, but the Palestinians can press for a more limited recognition of statehood before the full — and much more supportive — General Assembly.    Perry also expressed support for allowing Jewish settlements to be constructed on the West Bank.
  
  
• 9/22/2011
  
  Palestinians: Don’t delay U.N. vote - Abbas ‘won’t accept’ block to statehood bid by Tarek El-tablawy, Associated Press
      UNITED NATIONS — A top Palestinian official said Wednesday that President Mahmoud Abbas would accept no political delays on his bid for U.N. membership, rejecting growing pressure from the U.S. and France to first return to negotiations with Israel.
      The Palestinians plan to submit their letter of application Friday when Abbas is to speak to the U.N. General Assembly, but he faced a withering lack of support as the world body opened its annual meeting.    President Barack Obama said there could be no “shortcuts” in the quest for Mideast peace, a point French President Nicolas Sarkozy echoed.
      “We will not allow any political maneuvering on this issue,” said Saeb Erekat, a senior Abbas aide and former chief of negotiations.    Sarkozy proposed a one-year timetable Wednesday for Israel and the Palestinians to reach a peace accord, part of a concerted push with the U.S. to steer the Palestinians away from an application for U.N. membership.    Sarkozy spoke shortly after Obama warned against action on the Palestinian bid before there was a peace deal. He said negotiations, not U.N. declarations, were essential to a lasting peace.    While Obama stopped short of calling directly for the Palestinians to drop their bid for full membership — an effort the U.S. has vowed to veto in the Security Council — Sarkozy sounded a more compromising tone and urged each side, and the global community, to approach the deadlocked process with new ideas and tactics.    “Sixty years without moving one centimeter forward, doesn’t that suggest that we should change the method and the scheduling here?” Sarkozy said.    “Let’s have one month to resume discussions, six months to find agreement on borders and security, one year to reach a definitive agreement.”
      A senior European Union official said the plan Sarkozy laid out matched one by EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton at a meeting Tuesady with EU foreign ministers.    The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the talks.    Abbas’ push for full membership has dominated this year’s U.N. meeting, pushing the U.S. and Israel against a wall of global sympathy for Palestinians.    It was still unclear if the latest proposal would be enough to avert a showdown.    But Sarkozy’s plan got a warmer welcome from the Palestinians than Obama’s comments.
  
  
• 9/24/2011
  
  Palestinians submit statehood bid to U.N. - Request defies will of U.S. by Mohammed Daraghmeh, Associated Press
      UNITED NATIONS — The Palestinian leader took his people’s quest for independence to the U.N. Friday, seeking its recognition of Palestine and sidestepping negotiations that have foundered for nearly two decades.
      The bid to recognize a state in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem — submitted against the will of the U.S., which had pressured President Mahmoud Abbas to drop it — laid bare the exasperation of Palestinians after 44 years of Israeli occupation.
      After Abbas submitted his formal application, international mediators called on Israelis and Palestinians to return to long stalled talks and reach an agreement no later than next year.    The U.S., European Union, United Nations and Russia urged both parties to draw up an agenda for peace talks within a month and produce comprehensive proposals on territory and security within three months.
      U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said the proposal “represents the firm conviction of the international community that a just and lasting peace can only come through negotiations between the parties.”    But similar plans have failed to produce a peace pact.
      In the West Bank, thousands of jubilant, flag waving Palestinians watched on outdoor screens and cheered Abbas. In the city of Nablus, thousands packed the main square: young men, fathers with children on their shoulders, and elderly women assisted by younger relatives.    “We want to have our own state, like any other country.    All countries must support us,” said Reem al-Masri, a 30-yearold teacher who lost a brother and two cousins in fighting with Israel.    “This is our land. We’re going to be strong in it until it’s lib-erated,” she said.
      World sympathy for the Palestinian cause was evident from the thunder of applause that greeted Abbas as he mounted the dais at the U.N.    In a scathing denunciation of Israel’s settlement policy, Abbas declared that negotiations with Israel “will be meaningless” as long as it continues building on lands the Palestinians claim for that state.    Invoking what would be a nightmare for Israel, he warned that his government could col-lapse if the construction persists.    The speech didn’t mention any Palestinian culpability for the negotiations stalemate, deadly violence against Israel, the internal rift that has produced dueling governments in the West Bank and Gaza, and ignored Jewish links to the Holy Land.    Some members of the Israeli delegation walked out of the hall as Abbas approached the podium.
      Abbas declared himself willing to return to the bargaining table, but with longstanding conditions: Israel must first stop building on lands the Palestinians claim for their future state and agree to negotiate borders based on lines it held before capturing the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem in 1967.    Israel rejects those conditions and has defied international pressure to freeze settlement construction.    And it has staked out bargaining positions far from anything the Palestinians would accept.
      Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, speaking shortly after Abbas, said his country was “willing to make painful compromises” for peace.    But while Palestinians “should live in a free state of their own,” he said, “they should be ready for compromise” and “start taking Israel’s security concerns seriously.”    The bid for statehood would not result in immediate changes: Israel would continue to occupy the West Bank and east Jerusalem and continue to restrict access to Gaza, ruled by Hamas militants.    Abbas told the General Assembly that he had submitted the request for full U.N. membership.    The request has been referred to the Security Council, and a U.S. veto is certain.
  
  9/25/2011
  
  ANALYSIS: Mideast heads for perilous standoff - Palestinians shift strategy by Mohammed Daraghmeh, Associated Press
      RAMALLAH, West Bank — With combative speeches at the United Nations, Palestinian and Israeli leaders have locked themselves into positions that seem to preclude a resumption of peace talks over a Palestinian state.    Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas will focus on rallying international support, his aides say, in hopes of pressuring Israel and driving up the political cost of holding on to the lands Israel occupied in the 1967 war.    Abbas insisted Saturday that he won’t go back to talks without an Israeli freeze on settlements or acceptance of pre-1967 borders as a starting point.
      Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, while calling for new talks, gave no sign he’s willing to consider those demands.    Instead, he reiterated in interviews with Israeli TV that the Palestinians must recognize Israel as a Jewish state and that talks would first have to address security arrangements.
      Considering the vast gaps, international mediators did not offer bridging proposals after the two leaders’ speeches, instead simply urging a resumption of talks.
      The Palestinians, bypassing what they see as pointless talks with Netanyahu, will now try to boost their standing, mainly at the U.N.    On Friday, Abbas submitted a request for U.N. membership of a state of Palestine in the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem, areas Israel captured in 1967 and since populated with half a million settlers living among about 4 million Palestinians.
      Even though the recognition bid is sure to be derailed — either by insufficient support or a U.S. veto in the U.N. Security Council — the Palestinians stand a good chance of a General Assembly status upgrade that would grant them access to U.N. agencies and international courts.
      The aim is to “pressure Israel through all U.N. agencies,” said Abbas aide Nabil Shaath.
      The shift in strategy follows two decades in which the Palestinians went along with a U.S.-led approach that the two sides work out their disputes on their own.    Twice in the past decade, negotiators seemed to make serious progress, with Israel — which had pulled its troops out of Gaza in 2005 — also offering to give up large chunks of the West Bank and parts of east Jerusalem. In the end, gaps could not be bridged.
      “For a long time, the program was just to negotiate with the occupier,” said Mustafa Barghouti, an independent West Bank politician.    “Now we should defy our occupier.    We gave them enough time.”    Abbas’ new approach, especially his defiance of the Obama administration, which opposes the recognition bid, has proved hugely popular at home.    He clearly enjoys the flag-waving crowds after six years in power with few political achievements and many setbacks, including the loss of Gaza to the Islamic militant Hamas in 2007.    Palestinian officials acknowledge they have no detailed plan beyond asking the General Assembly to admit Palestine as a nonmember observer state, with the implied recognition of the pre-1967 borders.    Abbas has not said how he’ll handle his Hamas rivals.
  
  
• 9/26/2011
  
  Abbas out of Arafat shadow - Palestinian met as hero at home by Josef Federman, Associated Press
      RAMALLAH, West Bank — President Mahmoud Abbas received a hero’s welcome Sunday from thou-sands of cheering, flagwaving Palestinians, having made a bid for United Nations recognition.    Abbas’ effort to achieve statehood appears destined to fail, but it has allowed him to step out of the shadow of his predecessor, Yasser Arafat.    The crowd repeatedly chanted his name as he spoke.    He was uncharacteristically animated, shaking his hands, waving to the audience and charming the crowd with references to “my brothers and sisters.”
      Abbas’ call Friday for the U.N. to recognize Palestinian independence has transformed him in the eyes of many Palestinians from gray bureaucrat to champion of their rights.
      Although Israel and the U.S. oppose the move and consider it a step back for long-stalled peace talks, it could help Abbas overcome internal struggles and gain the support he will need to get a deal through one day.    In a brief speech outside his headquarters in Ramallah, Abbas told the crowd that a “Palestinian Spring” had been born, similar to the mass demonstrations sweeping the region in what has become known as the Arab Spring.    “We have told the world that there is the Arab Spring, but the Palestinian Spring is here,” he said.    “A popular spring, a populist spring, a spring of peaceful struggle that will reach its goal.”    He cautioned that the Palestinians face a “long path” ahead.    “There are those who would put out obstacles … but with your presence, they will fall and we will reach our end,” he said.
      The dynamic public appearance was a noticeable change for the 76-year-old Abbas, who was elected shortly after Arafat’s death seven years ago.    Although Arafat was known for his trademark olive-green military garb and fiery speeches, Abbas favors suits and typically drones on in monotone.    In seeking U.N. recognition, Abbas “moved the feelings and emotions of the ordinary Palestinian,” said Mahdi Abdul-Hadi, a respected Palestinian academic in Jerusalem.    “He gave the people national pride after they were denied it,” Abdul-Hadi said.
      Abbas’ calls for nonviolence and his successes in restoring law and order to the West Bank have won him respect in Israel and abroad.    But at home, he is often seen as weak and ineffectual in his dealings with Israel and the rival Hamas movement, which seized control of the Gaza Strip from his forces in 2007.
  
  
• 9/27/2011
  
  Dead Sea Scrolls rolled out online - Project launched by Israeli museum, Google by Mai Fiedman, AP
      JERUSALEM — Two thousand years after they were written and decades after they were found in desert caves, some of the Dead Sea Scrolls went online Monday in a project launched by Israel’s national museum and Google.
      The appearance of five of the most important scrolls on the Internet is part of a broader attempt by the custodians of the celebrated manuscripts — who were once criticized for allowing them to be monopolized by small circles of scholars — to make them available to anyone with a computer.
      The scrolls include the biblical Book of Isaiah, the manuscript known as the Temple Scroll, and three others.    Surfers can search high-resolution images of the scrolls for specific passages, zoom in and out, and translate verses into English.    The originals are kept in a secured vault in a Jerusalem building constructed specifically to house the scrolls. Access requires at least three different keys, a magnetic card and a secret code.
      The five scrolls are among those purchased by Israeli researchers between 1947 and 1967 from antiquities dealers, having first been found by Bedouin shepherds in the Judean Desert.    The scrolls, considered by many to be the most significant archaeological find of the 20th century, are thought to have been written or collected by an ascetic Jewish sect that fled Jerusalem for the desert 2,000 years ago and settled at Qumran, on the banks of the Dead Sea.    The hundreds of manuscripts that survived, partially or in full, in caves near the site, have shed light on the development of the Hebrew Bible and the origins of Christianity.
      The most complete scrolls are held by the Israel Museum, with more pieces and smaller fragments kept in other institutions and private collections.    Tens of thousands of fragments from 900 Dead Sea manuscripts are held by the Israel Antiquities Authority, which has separately begun its own project to put them online in conjunction with Google.    Photography work on the project began this month in conjunction with a former NASA scientist. A $250,000 camera developed in Santa Barbara, California allows researchers to discern words and other details not visible to the naked eye.    The latest photography effort by two technicians is centered on a fragment of a manuscript known as the Thanksgiving Scroll.    On a computer screen was a piece of the Apocryphon of Daniel, an Aramaic text that includes a verse referring to a figure who “will be called the son of God.”    The first fragments of that will be online by the end of the year.
      The Antiquities Authority project, aimed chiefly at scholars, is tentatively set to be complete by 2016, at which point nearly all of the scrolls will be available on the Internet.
  
  Security Council will Weigh Palestinian bid
      United Nations - The U.N. Security Council will meet Wednesday to start the process of formally con-sidering the Palestinian request for membership in the world body, the council president said Monday.
      Lebanese Ambassador Nawaf Salam, who holds this month’s rotating presidency, made a brief appearance before reporters Monday and issued a statement in English and Arabic.    He said the council had met Monday afternoon and decided to take up a decision on referring the issue for further consideration in two days.    That will consist of forming a committee to study the Palestinian submission.
      The U.S. has said it would use its Security Council veto to block Palestinian membership should the measure receive the necessary nine of 15 votes.    That would keep the membership bid from moving for-ward to the 193-member General Assembly for the needed two-thirds vote. A vote in the Security Council was not expected for weeks, at the least.
  
  
• 9/28/2011
  
  New issue for east Jerusalem - Housing project adds to tension by Josef Federman, Associated Press
      JERUSALEM — Israel granted the go-ahead on Tuesday for construction of 1,100 new Jewish housing units in east Jerusalem, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ruled out any freeze in settlement construction, raising already heightened tensions after last week’s Palestinian move to seek U.N. membership.    Israel’s Interior Ministry said the homes would be built in Gilo, a sprawling Jewish enclave in southeast Jerusalem.    It said construction could begin after a mandatory 60-day period for public comment, a process that spokesman Roi Lachmanovich called a formality.
      The announcement drew swift condemnation from the Palestinians, who claim east Jerusalem as their future capital.    The United States, European Union and United Nations all expressed disappointment with Israel’s decision.
      “This sends the wrong signal at this sensitive time,” said Richard Miron, spokesman for U.N. Mid-east envoy Robert Serry.    The Palestinians have demanded that Israel halt all settlement construction in east Jerusalem and the adjacent West Bank — territories captured by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war — as a condition for resuming peace talks.    Since capturing east Jerusalem, Israel has annexed the area and ringed it with about 10 Jewish enclaves that are meant to solidify its control.    Gilo, which is close to the Palestinian city of Bethlehem, is among the largest, with about 50,000 residents.    Israel’s annexation of east Jerusalem has not been internationally recognized.
  
  
• 10/1/2011
  
  U.N. panel starts Palestine review - U.S. pushes for new peace talks by Anita Snow, Associated Press
      UNITED NATIONS — The Security Council committee that reviews U.N. membership applications met for the first time Friday to consider the Palestinians’ request for recognition by the world body before sending it on for a technical review. French Ambassador Gerard Araud told reporters after the closed meeting that the committee will ask experts to determine if the request “meets the criteria of the (U.N.) Charter,” which requires that applicants be “peace-loving” and accept its provisions.
      Araud said experts will review technical aspects of the request for the first time next week, and indicated there would be further meetings before the committee reports back to the 15-member Security Council.    U.N. diplomats say the membership committee needs only a simple majority — or eight of the 15 votes — to approve the re-quest and send it back to the council.
      “We hope that the experts will deal with this part of the exercise in a short period of time,” Pal-estinian envoy Riyad Mansour said.    After the meeting, Indian Ambassador Hardeep Singh Puri underscored his country’s support of the Palestinians’ bid, saying his country was the first non-Arab state to grant recognition of a Palestinian state when it did so in 1988.    Puri said the committee on the admission of new states “should report to the Security Council that the Palestinian application for membership be recommended to the General Assembly.”    The Indian ambassador to the U.N. said the Palestinians’ membership application “is not incompatible with, nor does it exclude, direct negotiations between the parties to resolve the final status issues.”
      The committee meeting came a week after Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas took his people’s quest for independence to U.N. headquarters, sidestepping peace negotiating efforts that have foundered for nearly two decades.
      The request for U.N. membership was made over the objections of the U.S. and Israel, which insist on a negotiated peace agreement first.    As the U.N. process plods forward, meantime, the international community is searching for a formula to bring Israel and the Palestinians back to negotiations.
      The Quartet of Mideast mediators — the U.S., European Union, Russia and U.N. — last week called for a resumption of peace talks without preconditions and a target for a final agreement by the end of 2012.
      In order for a state to become a U.N. member, its application must be recommended by the Security Council and then approved by the General Assembly by a two-thirds vote of its 193 members.
  
  
• 10/3/2011
  
  Israel welcomes talks but has concerns
      Jerusalem - Israel’s government welcomed on Sunday parts of an international proposal to resume long-stalled peace talks with the Palestinians but said it had concerns about the plan.    The plan by Mideast mediators calls for a peace deal in a year and asks both sides to produce comprehensive proposals on territory and security within three months.
      The latest timetable was presented after Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas asked the U.N. last month to recognize a state of Palestine in the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem, territories Israel captured in the 1967 War.    Israel would not specify its concerns.
  
  
• 10/12/2011
  
  Israel makes deal for soldier’s return - Swap will free Palestinians by Dan Perry, Associated Press
      JERUSALEM — In a much-anticipated prisoner exchange, Israel and Hamas announced Tuesday that an Israeli soldier abducted in Gaza five years ago would be swapped for about 1,000 Palestinians held by Israel and accused of militant activity. Israel’s government was to convene today to approve the deal, a step viewed as a formality after both Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal announced the agreement in televised comments    Netanyahu said the captured soldier, Sgt. Gilad Schalit, would return home within days. Mashaal, portraying the agreement as a victory, said the Palestinian prisoners would be freed in two stages over two months.
      Hamas and Israel are bitter enemies.    Hamas has sent dozens of suicide bombers into Israel, killing hundreds, and Israel blockaded Gaza after Hamas seized power there in 2007, carrying out a large scale invasion in 2009 to try to stop daily rocket attacks on Israel.    More than 1,500 Gaza Palestinians have been killed in Israeli raids and airstrikes since the soldier was captured.
      In the northern Gaza town of Jebaliya, thousands of Hamas supporters flocked the streets, led by masked militants.    Cars with loudspeakers played praise for Hamas.    Thousands of other Gazans rushed to their border with Egypt, clutching Palestinian and Egyptian flags, tossing flowers and cheering.
      The deal maintains a decades-long tradition of lopsided exchanges that have come under increasing criticism in Israel — and ends a period of indecision by Israeli governments torn between securing the release of a single soldier and the risk that freed militants might return to violence .    “There is built-in tension between the desire to return a kidnapped soldier … and the need to preserve the security of the citizens of Israel,” Netanyahu said.    “I believe we reached the best deal that we can reach at this time.”
  
  
• 10/13/2011
  
  Smuggled weapons flow to Sinai, Gaza by Leila Fadel, The Washington Post
      EL ARISH, Egypt — Caches of weapons from Libya are making their way east across the Egyptian border and flooding black markets in Egypt’s unstable Sinai peninsula, according to Egyptian military officials and arms traders in the Sinai.
      Surface-to-air missiles, most of them shoulder launched, have been intercepted by Egyptian security officials on the road to Sinai and in the smuggling tunnels that connect Egypt to Gaza since Moammar Gadhafi fell from power in Libya in August, a military official in Cairo said.
      Arms traders said rockets and anti-aircraft guns also are available on the clandestine market.    The situation raises concerns about security along the sensitive area that borders the Gaza Strip and Israel at a time when unrest is roiling the region.    Shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles going to Pal-estinian fighters in Gaza could add significantly to the threat against Israel, whose aircraft frequently patrol the zone, which is controlled by the militant Islamic group Hamas.
      “We don’t want to see Egypt as a pathway to smuggle weapons,” said Sameh Seif el Yazal, a retired Egyptian general in military intelligence who said several surface-to-air missiles have been intercepted on the desert road from Libya to Alexandria and north toward Gaza.    “We believe some Palestinian groups made a deal with Libyans to get weapons like shoulderfired surface-to-air missiles.”
      Israeli and U.S. officials have called on Egypt to do more to protect the sensitive area that borders the Gaza Strip and Israel.    Since Egypt’s revolution in January, a natural gas pipeline to Israel has been attacked seven times by armed militants.    A border attack by militants in August killed eight Israeli civilians and prompted a i counterstrike that killed six Egyptian soldiers.    Palestinian militants already have surface-to-surface missiles that can strike deep into Israel. But they are not known to have used more than rudimentary anti- aircraft weapons.
      The vastness of the Sinai poses a major challenge to Egypt’s efforts to maintain security there. In recent months, Egypt has sent reinforcements to bring the total number of troops on the peninsula to 20,000, but they have struggled to gain control in an area populated primarily by Bedouins who distrust the government and call the shots in an area governed by tribal customs.    A security official and an Egyptian commander who served recently in Sinai said recent seizures have included ammunition, explosives, automatic weapons and heavier weapons, including Russian-made Strela-2 and Strela-3 shoulder- fired heat-seeking antiaircraft missiles.    Near the Gaza border in Rafah,a Bedouin arms dealer known as Abu Ahmed said weapons smuggling has been easy since the uprisings in Egypt and Lib-ya.    Anti-aircraft 14.5mm machine guns are readily available, he said. And the price of Stinger-like anti-aircraft missiles has fallen from $10,000 to $4,000 because so many are on the market.
  
  
• 10/18/2011
  
  Israel-Hamas swap set to go - One soldier will be freed for 1,027 Palestinians by Matti Friedman, Associated Press
      JERUSALEM — The elaborate machinery of a prisoner swap deal between two bitter enemies swung into motion Monday, as hundreds of Palestinians and one Israeli soldier prepared to return home in one of the most dramatic recent developments in the otherwise deadlocked Israel-Palestinian conflict.    The Israel-Hamas deal, to take place this morning, is going ahead despite criticism and court appeals in Israel against the release of 1,027 Palestinians for a single captured Armored Corps sergeant, Gilad Schalit, held by militants in Gaza since 2006.
      The exchange, negotiated through mediators because Israel and Hamas will not talk directly to each other, involves a delicate series of staged releases, each one triggering the next.
      When it is over, Schalit — 19 years old at the time of his capture, and 25 now — will be free, ending what for Israel has been a prolonged and painful saga.    Israel was forced to acknowledge that it had no way of rescuing Schalit in a military operation, though the soldier was held no more than a few miles from its border.
      Instead, Israel agreed to a lopsided prisoner exchange that Hamas officials have openly said will encourage them to capture more soldiers, and which will free Palestinians convicted of some of the deadliest attacks against Israeli civilians in recent memory.
      Numerically uneven swaps for captured or dead Israeli soldiers held by armed Arab groups have taken place a number of times since the 1980s.    The last one, in 2008, saw the release of five militants in return for the bodies of two Israeli soldiers held by the Lebanese group Hezbollah.    In a deal with Hezbollah in 2004, Israel freed about 400 prisoners in return for a former army colonel and the bodies of three soldiers.
      When today’s exchange is complete, 477 Palestinians held in Israeli jails will have been released, several of them after decades behind bars. Another 550 are set to be released in two months.
      Palestinians slated to be part of the initial part of the exchange have already been moved from their original prisons to other Israeli penal installations in preparation for their release. The very first group, 27 women, are to walk free sometime after dawn.
      After that, Hamas is supposed to move Schalit from Gaza through the Rafah border terminal into Egypt, where he will be met by Israeli medical personnel, according to Israeli defense officials.
      Once the soldier is in Egypt, the officials said, the rest of the prisoners will be released under the terms of the exchange agreement.    About100 will be sent to the West Bank, and roughly 30 are to be deported to Jordan, Turkey, Qatar and Syria.
  
  
• 10/19/2011
  
  Israeli freed in swap for jailed Palestinians by Josef Federman, Associated Press
      MITZPE HILA, Israel — Gaunt and pale, Israeli soldier Gilad Schalit returned home Tuesday after more than five years in captivity, freed in a lopsided exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners that could greatly complicate Mideast peace prospects and strengthen the Islamic militant group Hamas.
      The swap set off massive celebrations in both Israel and the Palestinian territories, where crowds in Gaza called for more kidnappings of soldiers, chanting: “The people want a new Gilad!”
      The poor condition of the 25-year-old Schalit, a jarring appearance by masked Hamas men during his release and the prospects of a strengthened Hamas, bode poorly for future relations between Israel and the Palestinians. By winning the release of hundreds of militants accused in bombings of the Palestinian uprising a decade ago, Hamas reinforced its message that Palestinian goals are advanced most effectively through violent struggle and not the diplomacy favored by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
      “Israel was forced to pay the price,” Hamas’ supreme leader, Khaled Mashaal, boasted in a meet-ing in Egypt, where he greeted 40 freed prisoners who were immediately sent into exile under the terms of their release.
      Israelis rejoiced as the return of a young man whose plight had become a national obsession brought a welcome lift.    But for families who had lost relatives in Palestinian violence, it was justice denied.
      Schalit, captured 5½ years ago, is the first captive Israeli soldier to return home alive in a generation.    Under the agreement, Israel exchanged 477 prisoners — most serving life sentences. A second batch of 550 will be released in two months.
  
  
• 10/29/2011
  
  Refusing partition a mistake, Abbas says
      Jerusalem - The Palestinian president, in a remarkable assessment delivered on Israeli TV, said Friday the Arab world erred in rejecting the U.N.’s 1947 plan to partition Palestine into Palestinian and Jewish states.    The Arab and Palestinian refusal to accept a plan to split the then-British controlled mandate of Palestine ignited fighting, and then Arab military intervention after Israel declared independence in 1948.    The Arabs lost.    “It was our mistake.    It was an Arab mistake as a whole,” Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas told Channel 2 TV in a rare interview with the Israeli media.    “But do they (the Israelis) punish us for this mistake for 64 years?”
  
  
• 10/30/2011
  
  7 die as Israel, Gaza militants trade fire by Ian Deitch, Associated Press
      JERUSALEM — Israeli aircraft struck at Palestinian militants Saturday in Gaza who responded with a volley of rockets which rained on southern Israeli towns, Israeli and Palestinian officials said.    Palestinian officials said seven militants were killed, while on the Israeli side, five civilians were injured.
      Exchanges of fire are common between southern Israel and the Gaza strip controlled by the militant Hamas group, but this is the worst one in months.
      Gaza Health Ministry spokesman Adham Abu Salmia said that seven people were killed and 15 injured in two separate attacks on militant targets.
      An Israeli military spokesman confirmed a total of three strikes, saying the military hit Palestinian militants from the Islamic Jihad, one of several groups in Gaza which fires rockets into southern Israel.    The spokesman said that the first attack specifically targeted a cell responsible for a Wednesday rocket attack that exploded deep inside Israel.    That attack had caused no casualties.    The military “will not tolerate any attempt to harm Israeli civilians,” the spokesman said.    He spoke on condition of anonymity in accordance with military protocols.    Israel’s military released video footage taken from a military drone Saturday that shows Palestinians unloading rockets from a truck and preparing them for firing at Israel.    The strike took place shortly afterward.
      Abu Salmia said five people were killed and 11 hurt in the first attack.    Islamic Jihad took responsibility for firing the rockets.    Spokesman Abu Ahmed confirmed that one of its local field commanders, Ahmed Sheikh Khalil, was among the dead.    He said Khalil was one of the group’s chief bomb makers.    “Today it was a great loss for us in the Islamic Jihad,” he said.    “The size of our retaliation will equal our loss,” it said in a text message sent to reporters.
  
  
• 11/1/2011
  
  UNESCO admits Palestine - U.S. cuts funds, says peace efforts hurt by Sarah DiLorenzo, Associated Press
      PARIS — Palestine became a full member of UNESCO on Monday in a highly divisive breakthrough that will cost the agency a fifth of its budget.    The U.S. and other opponents say the change could harm renewed Mideast peace efforts.
      Soon after the vote, the United States cut funding to the organization because of a U.S. law that bars funding an organization that has Palestine as a member before an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal is reached.
      That decision will have an immediate effect: The United States won’t make a $60 million payment scheduled for November, according to State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland.
      UNESCO depends heavily on U.S. funding — Washington provides 22 percent of its budget or about $80 million a year — but has survived without it in the past: The United States pulled out of UNESCO under President Ronald Reagan, rejoining two decades later under President George W. Bush.
      Monday’s vote is a grand symbolic victory for the Palestinians, but it alone won’t make Palestine into a state.    The issues of borders for an eventual state, security troubles and other disputes that have thwarted Middle East peace for decades remain unresolved.
      Huge cheers went up in the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization after delegates approved the membership in a vote of 107-14 with 52 abstentions.    In a surprise, France voted “yes” — and the room erupted in cheers and applause — while the “no” votes included the United States, Israel, Sweden, the Netherlands and Germany.
      Even if the vote’s impact isn’t felt right away in the Mideast, it will be quickly felt at UNESCO, which protects historic heritage sites and works to improve world literacy, access to schooling for girls and cultural understanding, but it also has in the past been a forum for anti-Israel sentiment.
      Before the State Department announcement, White House spokesman Jay Carney called UNESCO’s decision “premature” and said it undermines the international community’s goal of a comprehensive Middle East peace plan.    He called it a distraction from the goal of restarting direct negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians.
      Aside from the U.S. funding cut, Israel’s Foreign Ministry said it “will consider its further … co-operation with the organization” after Monday’s vote.
      Palestinian officials are seeking full membership in the United Nations, but that effort is still under examination and the U.S. has pledged a veto unless there is a peace deal with Israel.
  
  
• 11/2/2011
  
  Palestinians rev up U.N. push - Hope to join other agencies by Mohammed Daraghmeh, Associated Press
      RAMALLAH, West Bank — Emboldened by their admission to the U.N.’s cultural agency, the Palestinians plan to seek membership in other international bodies as part of their campaign for statehood.
      They also are looking into a parallel and contradictory track: Having lost hope in peace talks with Israel, the Palestinians are threatening to dismantle their government in the West Bank — a move that would confront Israel with the uncomfortable prospect of directly ruling millions of Palestinians.
      For now, though, the focus is on the United Nations.    Elated by UNESCO’s decision to grant them membership, jubilant Palestinian officials said Tuesday that they wanted to seize the momentum and expand their presence at the United Nations.
      “We have gotten a precedent that might open the road for us to join other agencies,” said Ibrahim Khraishi, the Palestinian envoy to the U.N. in Geneva.
      He said the Palestinians are now studying whether they can join 16 other U.N. agencies.    After Monday’s vote by the U.N.’s Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, Palestinian Health Minister Fathi Abu Mughli was so excited that he rushed to the local offices of the World Health Organization to get infor-mation on joining, Palestinian officials said.
      The moves come as the Palestinians seek unilateral moves toward statehood that would bypass peace talks.    A test of those efforts could come next week.    The Palestinians have asked the U.N. Security Council to grant them full membership in the U.N., and a vote is tentatively set for Nov. 11.
      The U.S. a permanent member of the Security Council, has promised to veto the request.
      But the Palestinians are still trying to rally the required nine-vote majority that would trigger the veto, believing that would give them a moral victory by placing the U.S. at odds with most of the international community.
      It remains unclear whether the Palestinians can muster the votes.
  
  
• 11/3/2011
  
  Israeli leader seeks OK for strike on Iran by Associated Press
      JERUSALEM — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is trying to persuade his Cabinet to authorize a military strike against Iran’s suspected nuclear weapons program, an Israeli official said Wednesday.    The discussion comes as Israel successfully tested a missile believed capable of carrying a nuclear warhead to Iran.    It remained unclear whether Israel was genuinely poised to strike or if it was saber-rattling to prod the international community into taking a tougher line on Iran.    The International Atomic Energy Agency is to focus later this month on suspicion that Iran is secretly experimenting with nuclear weapons components.    An Israeli official who spoke on condition of anonymity said the strike option is being debated at the highest levels.    Netanyahu spokesman Mark Regev refused comment.    Iran’s military chief said his country takes Israeli threats seriously and vowed fierce retaliation.
  
  
• 11/4/2011
  
  Israel halts tax fund transfers to Palestinians by Associated Press
      JERUSALEM — Israel has carried out its threat to suspend transfer of tax payments totaling some $100 million to the Palestinian Authority to protest this week’s admission of Palestine to the U.N.’s cultural agency, officials on both sides said Thursday.
      The Palestinian bid to join UNESCO is part of a broader campaign to win U.N. recognition of an inde-pendent state of Palestine, in defiance of Israeli and U.S. opposition.    UNESCO’s acceptance of Palestine as a member Monday buoyed Palestinians but infuriated Israel because it gave them greater legitimacy.
      Israel later said it would punitively suspend a transfer of roughly $100 million in customs, border and some income taxes that it collects each month on behalf of the Palestinians and relays to their government in the West Bank.
      The Palestinians said Thursday Israel hasn’t made this month’s transfer.    Funds are usually sent in the first three days of the month.    An Israeli official said a “temporary hold” was put on the transfer “pending a final decision.”    The official spoke on condition of anonymity because Israel has yet to make its position public.    The funds are vital for the Palestinian Authority, which employs tens of thousands of people.    The cut-off is just days before a Muslim holiday.
      The U.S. cut off contributions — some $60 million — to UNESCO after the Palestinians won member-ship; Canada swiftly followed, together depriving the agency of about 25 percent of its annual funding.
  
  
• 11/12/2011
  
  Israel speeds work on airliner defense - Looted weapons raise concerns by Ian Deitch, Associated Press
      JERUSALEM — Israel has sped up work on a missile defense system for its commercial airliners be-cause of fears that Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip have obtained antiaircraft weapons looted from Libya, defense offi-cials said Friday.
      All Israeli passenger planes will be fitted with the laser-based system “within months,” or about a year ahead of schedule, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they are not allowed to brief journalists.    Israel began developing the system in 2002, after Islamic militants tried to hit an Israeli passenger plane with shoulder-fired missiles outside Mombasa, Kenya.    The missiles missed, but the incident pushed Israel to find a way to better protect its airliners. About 100 planes are being fitted with the system, named C-Music, at a cost of about $135 million.    It aims to improve on earlier technology installed on a smaller number of jets flying to destinations known to be home to militant groups or otherwise considered dangerous, especially in Afri-ca and parts of Asia.    That device fired flares to lure heat-seeking missiles away from the plane.    The officials said the new system uses lasers to more effectively jam heatseeking mechanisms and throw missiles off target.
      The project was sped up because of fears that weapons looted during the civil war in Libya have been smuggled into the Hamasruled Gaza Strip, the officials said.
      Israel has maintained a tight blockade on the Gaza Strip to prevent weapons smuggling since the militant group Hamas seized control of the territory from its more moderate Palestinian rivals in 2007.    But tunnels underneath Gaza’s border with Egypt still provide an entry point for smugglers.
      During Libya’s eightmonth civil war, human rights groups and reporters came across a number of weapon depots that were left unguarded and were looted after Moammar Gadhafi’s fighters fled.
      The United Nations says preventing smuggling from Libya is difficult because of the vast desert nation’s porous borders.
  
  
• 11/22/2011
  
  Jordan king’s visit supports Abbas
      RAMALLAH, WEST BANK - Jordan’s King Abdullah II paid a rare visit to the West Bank on Monday to show support for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, as the two moderate leaders try to engage with Islamists now on the rise in the region.
      Abbas is holding power-sharing talks later this week with Khaled Mashaal, leader of the rival Islamic mil-itant group Hamas.    The two will try to end a bitter split caused by Hamas’ violent takeover of Gaza in 2007.
  
  
• 12/15/2011
  
  PM: Crackdown on Israeli extremists by Associated Press
      JERUSALEM — Israel’s prime minister ordered a crackdown Wednesday on Jewish extremists believed to be responsible for a wave of violence and vandalism against Israeli soldiers and Muslim mosques.    The move followed the arrest of suspected extremists and an attack on a disused mosque.    Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement he had accepted recommendations made by his Cabinet ministers to stop the disturbances.
      The measures grant soldiers the ability to make arrests, ban extremists from contentious areas and allow rioters to be tried in military courts.    Netanyahu stopped short of accepting a recommendation from the ministers to define the extremists as “terrorists.”
      Earlier Wednesday, Israeli police arrested six suspected Jewish extremists in a raid on a Jerusalem apartment.    The crackdown came hours after arsonists hit a mosque in Jerusalem.    Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said the six suspects, apparently in their late teens or early 20s, were held in connection to “recent events” but were not thought to be involved in the mosque attack.
      The Israeli government has vowed to root out and punish assailants who in recent months have vandal-ized mosques, military bases, cemeteries, farmlands and cars in the West Bank and Israel proper.    The at-tacks are believed to be by Jewish extremists upset over policies they feel are unfairly biased in favor of Palestinians.
      Also Wednesday, a small group of ultra-Orthodox Jews kept women from voting in local elections in Je-rusalem.    Israel’s Channel 2 TV video showed the men screaming at a few dozen women, demanding they leave a voting station.    Then the men pushed them away.
  
  
• 12/19/2011
  
  Release of Palestinians ends swap
      BEITUNIA, WEST BANK - Israel released hundreds of Palestinian prisoners Sunday, the second phase of a swap with Gaza Hamas militants that brought home an Israeli soldier after five years in captivity.
      Israel agreed to exchange a total of 1,027 prisoners for Sgt. Gilad Schalit, who was captured by Gaza militants in June 2006.    Schalit returned home in October when Israel freed the first batch of 477 prisoners.    Sunday’s release of 550 prisoners completed the swap.
  
  
  Return each year for updates for 2011 and on.
  
  Select one of the following to go to that year to view a Word Document of news article:
  
  ||    2012     ||    2013     ||    2014     ||    2015     ||     2016     ||    2017     ||    2018     ||    2019     ||    2020     ||    2021     ||    2022     ||   
  
  

File created on October 12/2011, updated on October 15, 2011, and December 31, 2011.