Mideast briefs

By JTA

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Holocaust museum using Google Earth

JERUSALEM (JTA)—The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum is using Google Earth to pinpoint genocide testimony. Its “World is Witness” program launched April 4 tracks witnesses in Rwanda and Congo who describe the 1994 Rwanda genocide. It is to be the first of a number of reports on genocide.

The museum already tracks Holocaust history and testimony as well as the Darfur genocide through Google Earth, the popular online mapper of the Earth and space.

Mosque turns blue for Israel’s 60th birthday

JERUSALEM (JTA)—Residents of an Israeli-Arab village painted their mosque blue and white in honor of the Jewish state’s 60th anniversary. Breaking with many Israeli Arabs who have declared they will boycott next month’s celebrations, residents of A-Taibe in the Gilboa region have painted the dome of their mosque in the national colors. “We are citizens of the state of Israel,” village elder, Hisham Zouabi, explained to the daily newspaper Ma’ariv. “For us religion encourages us to bring nations together. The goal is simple: coexistence. A Jew who comes here should not feel that the place is hostile but like home.”

Olmert, Abbas talking

JERUSALEM (JTA)—Ehud Olmert and Mahmoud Abbas resumed direct talks after more than a month-long break. The Israeli prime minister hosted the Palestinian Authority president at his Jerusalem residence April 7 for their first meeting since Feb. 19. As part of peace talks revived under U.S. auspices last year, Olmert and Abbas are meant to hold talks every two weeks. But Abbas suspended contacts last month following a bloody Israeli offensive against Hamas rocket crews in the Gaza Strip. A Palestinian shooting spree at Jerusalem’s Mercaz HaRav yeshiva a few days later triggered Israeli calls on Olmert to scrap the negotiations altogether. The two leaders were joined at the April 7 meeting by their chief negotiators, Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and the Palestinian Authority’s former prime minister, Ahmed Queria.

Egypt may guard Gaza

JERUSALEM (JTA)—Egypt is considering deploying troops in the Gaza Strip as part of a proposed future Arab peacekeeper force. Channel 2 reported April 5 that Cairo, unnerved by the continued reign of Hamas Islamists in Gaza and the recent rupture of that territory’s border with the Egyptian Sinai, recently signaled that it could contribute troops for a peacekeeping garrison. Egypt ruled Gaza before losing the territory to Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War, and a return of Egyptian forces to the strip would have major ramifications for Palestinian statehood hopes and the regional balance of power. Though Israel could be expected to welcome the stability of an Egyptian presence in Gaza, it would pose a challenge to Israeli counter-measures should there be continued Palestinian cross-border attacks. A Jerusalem official played down the Channel 2 report as “premature.”