Middle East briefs
By JTA
P.A. to shun Israel’s celebrants
JERUSALEM (JTA)—The Palestinian Authority threatened to boycott President Bush and foreign dignitaries who attend Israel’s Independence Day celebrations.
Unnamed aides to Mahmoud Abbas told Reuters that the P.A. president will consider as “temporarily” persona non grata the dozens of top foreign dignitaries who are expected to visit Israel for its 60th birthday bash this month.
Palestinians describe the 1948 founding of Israel to be their nakba, or “catastrophe,” though a U.N. partition plan—violently rejected by the Arabs at the time—called for a Palestinian state to be created alongside the Jewish state. Bush is widely expected to use his mid-May visit to push for progress in peace talks between Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. It was not immediately clear how the United States would respond to the prospect of its president being boycotted by Abbas’ administration in the West Bank.
Official: Bush will pursue peace to end
WASHINGTON (JTA)—The Bush administration will pursue peace between Israel and the Palestinians until its final days, a top official said. The talks are “actively being worked by the administration and I would expect you’ll see us working it very hard until the final days of the administration,” John Negroponte, the deputy secretary of state, said in an interview April 27 on PBS in listing the administration’s priorities in its final months.
Erekat: No peace, no moderates
JERUSALEM (JTA)—A failure to achieve a peace agreement this year could force out Palestinian moderates, the top Palestinian negotiator said. “If we have an agreement by the end of this year and we put the agreement to a national public referendum, I really believe that we will prevail,” Saeb Erekat said last month, after Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas met with President Bush and urged him to press Israel to freeze West Bank settlements. “But to be candid with you and honest with you, if we don’t—and I mean President Abbas and his team—have an agreement by 2008, we stand the chance to disappear.” Erekat, who was addressing Washington’s Palestine Center think tank, said a failure to achieve a peace agreement would bolster arguments by the Hamas terrorist group that violence is effective in forcing out Israelis, referring to slogans Hamas used after Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip in 2005 without negotiating the withdrawal with Abbas’ government.
CIA: Syria could have made 2 nukes
WASHINGTON (JTA)—Israel destroyed a Syrian nuclear reactor that was nearly ready to produce material for two bombs, the CIA chief said. Michael Hayden said April 28 that the secret, unfinished reactor that the United States believes Israel bombed Sept. 6 in northeastern Syria eventually would have made fissile material for bombs. “In the course of a year after they got full up, they would have produced enough plutonium for one or two weapons,” he told reporters. Israel has refused to provide details on the target of the airstrike, leaving the CIA to deliver an extensive briefing last month on indications that Syria was pursuing nuclear weapons with North Korean help.
Ex-Prisoner of Zion appeals for Palestinian
JERUSALEM (JTA)—A former Prisoner of Zion has launched a campaign to stay the execution of a condemned Palestinian. Ida Nudel wrote to Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on behalf of Ima’ad Sa’ad, who was sentenced to death in April by a Palestinian Authority military court. Sa’ad, 25, was convicted on charges that his assistance to Israeli security forces led to the killing of four Palestinian terrorists. In a letter to Olmert, Nudel described the sentence as “inhuman” and demanded the suspension of any talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority until the execution is stayed. She also urged the suspension of Israeli and international aid to the Palestinian Authority, and appealed to the United Nations and the Vatican. “If these diplomatic measures are not sufficient,” Nudel said in her letter, “Israel should employ its skilled military to launch a rescue operation for Ima’ad Sa’ad.” Nudel is working on the case with the human-rights center Shurat HaDin-Israel Law Center. Two years ago, Nudel and the center successfully petitioned Israel’s High Court of Justice to help stay the execution of 50 Palestinians charged and convicted in Palestinian military courts of working with Israel’s security services.
Israel opens key roadblock
JERUSALEM (JTA)—Israel opened a key roadblock in the West Bank. The military roadblock outside Nablus was opened April 28, some five years after it was built in a bid to limit Palestinian terrorists from traveling freely out of the city. The move came after Quartet envoy Tony Blair met Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak to press for an easing of conditions in the West Bank, where Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is trying to assert control. Military officials said the Nablus roadblock would remain open as long as the security situation allows.
Report: North Koreans killed in Syria
JERUSALEM (JTA)—Ten North Korean advisers reportedly were killed during Israel’s bombing of a suspected Syrian nuclear reactor. Citing South Korean intelligence estimates, the Japanese broadcaster NHK reported that 10 members of North Korea’s nuclear and military services died during the Sept. 6 airstrike, while another two or three survived the attack. North Korea was one of the first countries to condemn Israel’s attack, though it has not volunteered information on what extent it may have been involved in the Syrian project.
Hamas, Israel trade blame over deaths
JERUSALEM (JTA)—Hamas and Israel traded blame over the killing of a Palestinian woman and four of her children in Gaza. Israeli troops backed by tanks and aircraft entered Beit Hanoun, a northern Gaza town, early on April 28 to search for Palestinian rocket crews and snipers. During the ensuing clashes, an explosion ripped through a Beit Hanoun home, killing a Palestinian woman and four of her young children. An unrelated youth also died. Gaza’s ruling Hamas faction blamed Israeli shelling for the deaths, which drew Palestinian vows of revenge despite recent efforts by Egypt to secure a truce in the territory. But Israeli military officials, after investigating the incident, said forces in Beit Hanoun had fired only on Palestinian gunmen. In one of these incidents, the officials said, explosives carried by a gunman went off, causing the carnage in the home.
MF: P.A. making strides
WASHINGTON (JTA)—The International Monetary Fund praised the Palestinian Authority for “bold reforms.” The report last month by the body, which seeks to promote economic stability, praises the P.A. government for freezing hiring and reducing subsidies. P.A. Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, formerly the IMF representative to the Palestinian Authority, has pledged to cut spending in hopes of winning loans and funding as a means of shoring up the credibility of his government, considered moderate by Palestinian standards.
After Syria strike, Olmert upbeat
JERUSALEM (JTA)—Ehud Olmert hinted that Israel’s airstrike in Syria last year could foreshadow similar actions against other national enemies. In his first public comments since U.S. intelligence officials told Congress in April that Israel bombed a secret Syrian nuclear reactor on Sept. 6, the prime minister appeared to refer obliquely to the incident as a boon for the Jewish state’s long-term well-being. “It seems to me that today it can be stated confidently—and not, God forbid, arrogantly—that the Israeli people has a government that knows how to protect it, that it has a leadership that knows how to look out for its security and future,”
Assad: We never sought nukes
JERUSALEM (JTA)—Syria never developed a secret nuclear reactor nor sought weapons of mass destruction, Bashar Assad said April 27. The Syrian president, making his first public comments since last month’s disclosures by the CIA that Israel bombed a North Korean-built reactor in northern Syria last September, dismissed the allegations as false. “Is it logical? A nuclear site did not have protection with surface-to-air defenses? A nuclear site within the footprint of satellites in the middle of Syria in an open area in the desert?” Assad asked in Qatar’s al-Watan newspaper. “The truth is that the raid was at a military site under construction,” he said, adding, “We are against mass-destruction weapons for Israel, Iran or others. Where would we use it? On Israel it would kill the Palestinians. I do not see this as logical.” Independent experts have suggested that Syria did not fortify its suspected reactor in order to avoid drawing attention and because the building was not yet operational. Besides a nuclear program, Syria is believed to have extensive arsenals, as well as biological and chemical warheads for its long-range missiles.
Israel rejects Hamas truce offer
JERUSALEM (JTA)—Israel rejected a Hamas proposal for a conditional six-month truce in the Gaza Strip. Hamas leaders said following talks with Egyptian mediators last month that they would be prepared to halt rocket fire from Gaza for six months if Israel agrees to stop its military operations and lifts the embargo on the territory. Were such a ceasefire to take hold, Hamas said, Egypt would talk to Israel about the option of extending it to the West Bank. Previous Hamas truce offers demanded that they apply simultaneously in both areas. Jerusalem officials rejected the proposal as a ruse, saying Hamas was trying to buy time in which to recover from recent fighting and build up its forces.
Yad Vashem celebrates survivors in Israel
JERUSALEM (JTA)—A new Yad Vashem exhibit celebrates the contribution of Holocaust survivors to building the state of Israel. “My Homeland: Holocaust Survivors in Israel” was inaugurated April 28 by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert at Yad Vashem, whose organizers noted that the exhibit at the Holocaust Martyr’s and Heroes’ Remembrance Authority was unusually cheerful for the venue. “The joy and optimism stem from the works of the survivors who assimilated among us and became part of our strength in the most natural manner,” curator Yehudit Schendar told Israel Radio.
IAF chief: Take Iran threats seriously
JERUSALEM (JTA)—Israel’s top guns took to the American television airwaves to say Iranian threats must be taken seriously. Maj.-Gen. Eliezer Shkedy, the Israel Air Force chief, said on the CBS program “60 Minutes” that Iran’s nuclear program and hard-line leadership pose threats to the Jewish state’s existence. “They are talking about what they think about the state of Israel. They are talking about destroying and wiping us from the earth,” Shkedy told correspondent Bob Simon in an interview aired April 27. “We should remember. We cannot forget. We should trust only ourselves.”
Warplane health scare over
JERUSALEM (JTA)—Israel declared an all-clear in a health scare that grounded many of its most advanced warplanes. Israel’s F-16I jets were declared fully operational April 27 after investigations determined that the quantities of formaldehyde discovered in the breathing apparatus of some of the planes did not pose a serious risk to pilots. The discovery of the leak two months ago prompted Israel to suspend training flights in the F-16Is, considered the Air Force’s strategic vanguard.
Israelis split on keeping Golan
JERUSALEM (JTA)—Around half of Israelis would support ceding all or some of the Golan Heights under a peace deal with Syria, a poll found. According to a survey in the April25 Yediot Acharonot, 32 percent would agree to Syria’s demand for a full return of the Golan in exchange for a comprehensive peace deal, while 17 percent would support only a partial handover of the strategic plateau. Fifty-one percent of Israelis want to keep all of the Golan, which the Jewish state captured in the 1967 Six-Day War and later annexed, even if at the cost of peace with Syria.
Palestinian kills two Israeli guards
JERUSALEM (JTA)—A Palestinian terrorist killed two Israeli security guards at an industrial zone on the West Bank-Israel boundary. Two Israelis in their 50s who were checking Palestinian laborers as they entered the Netzanei Oz industrial zone early on April 25 were shot dead by an assailant who then fled the scene. Hamas and Islamic Jihad claimed joint responsibility for the attack.
Bush wants ‘viable’ Palestinian state
WASHINGTON (JTA)—President Bush emphasized that he wants to see a “viable” Palestinian state emerge from negotiations. “A Palestinian state is a high priority for me and my administration -- a viable state, a state that doesn’t look like Swiss cheese, a state that provides hope,” Bush said Thursday after meeting Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian Authority president. “I believe it’s in Israel’s interest and the Palestinian people’s interest to have leaders willing to work toward the achievement of that state.” In his meetings this week in Washington, Abbas urged Bush administration officials to press Israel to end settlement expansion, which Palestinians say inhibits the prospects of a contiguous Palestinian state in the West Bank. Bush is set to tour the Middle East next month, in part to help Israel celebrate its 60th anniversary. He will also meet with Abbas and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak at a summit in Sharm a-Sheik, the Egyptian Sinai resort. Israel has yet to say whether it will attend.
IAEA to investigate Syrian nukes
WASHINGTON (JTA)—The U.N. atomic agency announced it would investigate whether Syria has a secret nuclear program. The U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency’s announcement came April 25, a day after the Bush administration released photographic evidence it said demonstrated that the site Israel bombed in Syria last Sept. 6 was a nascent nuclear reactor.
Bahrain to name Jewish envoy?
WASHINGTON (JTA)—Bahrain will name a Jewish ambassador to the United States, a report said. Huda Azar Nunu, a Jewish woman who is a lawmaker in Bahrain’s upper house, will be named to the Washington position, according to a report last month in A Sharq al-Awsat, a Saudi-owned pan-Arab daily published in London.
IHackers deface Bank of Israel site
JERUSALEM (JTA)—Hackers defaced the Bank of Israel Web site with Arabic-language anti-Israel graffiti. The Bank of Israel temporarily removed the site April 25 after it had been hacked, Ha’aretz reported. It quoted officials as saying the hacking only affected external Web users, and that the bank’s internal workings were unaffected.
U.N. halts food distribution in Gaza
JERUSALEM (JTA)—The United Nations stopped distributing aid in the Gaza Strip, citing a lack of fuel. The U.N. Relief and Works Agency on April 24 said its delivery of food to nearly 700,000 Palestinians was halted because it did not have enough fuel to operate its delivery vehicles. The Associated Press reported that a local distributors’ strike has prevented fuel in Gaza from reaching the public. Sources say that Israel pumped a million liters of fuel earlier this month into the Palestinian side of the Nahal Oz fuel depot, but Palestinian distributors refused to pick up because they said it was not enough, according to AP.