Tuesday, April 09, 2013
Abdullah and Abbas Playing the Jerusalem Card
To start, Jordan's "custodianship" over the Islamic sites in Jerusalem -- including Al-Aqsa mosque -- were granted by Israel. The peace treaty signed between Israel and Jordan in 1994 gave Jordan the privilege of overseeing and managing Al-Aqsa mosque and other Islamic sites in Jerusalem. Therefore, Abdullah has no right or entitlement to "exert any efforts to persevere Jerusalem from Judaization" -- as his agreement with Abbas claims.John Kerry’s plan: still missing a peace
Further, Abdullah seems to forget that the Hashemite rule over Jordan came into existence based on the Faisal-Weizmann Agreement, signed in 1919 between Chaim Weizmann and the Hashemite Prince Faisal.
Israelis have good reason to be skeptical about peace plans – but at the same time, to learn from the lessons of past failures and successes and go forward. While there is a cold peace with Egypt – now so fragile – and Jordan, more Israelis have been killed in the 15 years following the Oslo Accords than in the two previous decades of undeclared wars. Therefore the burden of proof is on those who deny that the Saudi plan offers something between dhimmitude at best and a staged dismantling of Israel as the Jewish national home – and turning a blind eye to genocidal terror and incitement to genocidal terror.PA Refuses to Change ‘A Few Words’ for Kerry
Kerry’s latest “listening tour” is drawing the familiar echo of “no.” The Palestinian Authority boasts that Kerry asked it to change a “few words” in the Saudi Peace Initiative. Nice try. John.
In typical State Dept. tunnel thinking, he dug up the Saudi Peace Plan in an effort win the support of the Arab League and, according to senior PA negotiator Saeb Erekat, asked Ramallah to make a small compromise in the wording.'US softening opposition to Fatah-Hamas unity' By Khaled Abu Toameh
“Kerry asked us to change a few words in the Arab Peace Initiative but we refused,” Erekat told the Voice of Palestine radio station Sunday, according to the Washington Post.
The US appears to have softened its opposition to unity between Fatah and Hamas, a top Fatah official in the West Bank said Monday.A 10-Step Process: How US Secretary of State John Kerry Could Bring Abbas and the Palestinian Authority to the Peace Table
Azzam al-Ahmed, a member of the Fatah Central Committee and a senior adviser to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, said that US opposition to the unity idea was “less strong.”
Here is a suggested 10-step process for how the Hon. John Kerry could, indeed, conduct an inquiry about the readiness of the PA to assume a posture of peace.Bigotry, ‘The New York Times’ and Israel
The New York Times’ coverage of Israel is increasingly a landscape of half-truths and worse, shaped not by where facts lead but by preconceived storylines.BBC claims US kept in the dark on 2007 Syrian nuclear reactor strike
Palestinian actions are cast as reactive to Israel’s, without autonomous motive and essentially without fault, while Israel is the main actor, the party that causes events, the one held accountable and very often the one indicted.
A comparison of two incidents reported by the Times underscores the pattern and the radically different treatment meted out to the sides in much of the coverage.
The suggestion that the United States government was not aware of Israeli intentions regarding the Syrian nuclear reactor is of course at odds with the extensive account provided earlier this year in Commentary Magazine by former US National Security Council member Elliot Abrahams. According to that account, the US knew very well what was on the cards and hence the BBC’s statement is misleading and inaccurate.Morsy’s Christian Problem
This is the same President Morsi that openly espoused anti-Semitic and hateful views on video and then claims to be taken out of context. This is the same president who during the constitutional crisis openly stated that he enjoys the support of 90% of all Egyptians and that the protesters were pushed by the church. This is the same president who during his reign , Beshoy Kamel was sentenced to six years for insulting “Islam and the president’s family” on Facebook, Alber Saber was arrested for “blasphemy” on Facebook , and 10-year-old Nabil Nagy Rizk and 9-year-old Mina Nady Farag from Beni Suef were arrested in October 2012 on charges of tearing up the Quran. The children were illegally arrested, and Morsi didn’t move a finger to release them. They were, after all, Christians.Iran inaugurates new uranium mine, processing plant
Defiant Tehran marks ‘National Nuclear Technology Day’ after latest round of talks with Western powers fails to produce dealCanadian FM: If Israel strikes, Iran will only have itself to blame
Still, John Baird stresses opposition to unilateral Israeli military action against the Iranians, who he calls the ‘biggest threat’ to world securityAnti-Semitic demonstration banned in Budapest
Hungary banned an anti-Semitic demonstration planned for the same day as a Holocaust memorial march.'Intellectual Exile' Demanded for Anti-Semitic Polish Historian
An April 21 demonstration in Budapest by bikers called “Give gas” was banned on Monday. The annual March for Life Holocaust commemoration and anti-racist demonstration is scheduled to be held on the same day in Budapest, the Hungarian capital.
The Simon Wiesenthal Center on Monday called for the suspension of a Polish historian who wrote that Jews were also to blame for the Holocaust, weeks ahead of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising's 70th anniversary.
The leading Jewish human rights group, which tracks down Nazi war criminals, demanded the Polish Academy of Sciences (PAN) "suspend antisemitic member" Professor Krzysztof Jasiewicz who insisted that during the Holocaust, "Jews themselves participated in the murder of their own people..." in a recent article.
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