- Qassam hits Ashkelon's industrial zone
Qassam hits Ashkelon's industrial zone
Rocket fired from northern Gaza Strip lands in open area in seaside city;
two mortar shells fired at Kissufim area in southern Israel. No injuries or
damage reported in both incidents
Shmulik Hadad YNET Published: 11.21.08, 10:20 / Israel News
www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3626533,00.html
A Qassam rocket fired from the northern Gaza Strip on Friday morning landed
in an open area in the city of Ashkelon's southern industrial zone. There
were no reports of injuries or damage.
Two mortar shells were fired at the Kissufim area in southern Israel. There
were no injuries or damage in this incident as well. The Salah al-Din
Brigades, the Popular Resistance Committee's military wing, claimed
responsibility for the mortars fired at Kissufim.
On Thursday afternoon, hundreds of people gathered at the main junction at
the entrance to Ashkelon to rally against the lack of fortifications in the
seaside city to protect residents from ongoing barrages of rockets
Dozens of rockets have been launched at the western Negev in the past two
weeks, one of which was a longer-range Grad rocket that wounded 15 in an
Ashkelon shopping mall last Wednesday. Residents of the southern city had
previously been largely out of rocket range.
Children in the crowd dropped to the ground as protest organizers blared a
Color Red alert. Other protesters carried signs reading, "Don't abandon
children in the field," "Who will save my house?" and "Ashkelon deserves to
have quiet."
"We're sick of the behavior of the military and other sources. People are
shooting rockets, missiles at us and no one is responding," said resident
Moshe Nisimfor.
Rocket fire from Gaza continued the afternoon of the protest. A Qassam fired
from the northern Gaza Strip landed in an open area in the Shaar Hanegev
Regional Council, fortunately not resulting in any casualties.
Defense Minister Ehud Barak addressed the security situation in the region,
saying that "the recent waves of rocket fire are the result of our actions,
which led to the killing of 20 Hamas members. We will continue to use fore,
but if the other side works to maintain to truce we will be prepared to do
so as well."
- Intelligence sources to The Times: prospect of Israel taking preemptive military action to knock out Iran's nuclear facilities appears to have become significantly more likely in recent weeks
Bush and Olmert to meet over Iran's nuclear ambitions
Tom Baldwin in Washington The Times (UK) November 21, 2008
www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article5201621.ece
President Bush is to hold White House talks with the Israeli Prime Minister
Ehud Olmert on Monday after publication of a nuclear watchdog's report this
week showing that Iran may have stockpiled enough enriched uranium to make a
nuclear bomb.
The International Atomic Energy Agency believes that Iran has amassed 630kg
of low enriched uranium, up from 480kg in late August. Some experts believe
this is enough to produce the weapons-grade material needed for a crude
nuclear device similar in size to that which America used to destroy the
city of Nagasaki at the end of the Second World War.
Sean McCormack, the US State Department spokesman, said: "It's concerning.
This is a matter that will be taken up next week at the IAEA Board of
Governors meeting." Asked if Tehran now had sufficient material to build a
bomb, he suggested that there were different opinions. "Some said it was
enough; others said it was not enough, but close," said Mr McCormack. "In
any case, you don't want Iran to get close."
In its report, the IAEA said that Iran was working hard roughly to double
its number of operating centrifuges. European diplomats say that Iran might
have 6,000 centrifuges enriching uranium by the end of the year - and plans
to install another 3,000 early next year.
The White House, announcing the meeting with Mr Olmert, gave little
indication that Tehran's nuclear ambitions would be at the top of the
agenda. Mr Bush's press secretary, Dana Perino, said that they would discuss
"the continuing efforts to bring peace to the Middle East and a wide range
of international issues".
The timing of the talks, between two lame duck leaders with only weeks to go
before they leave office, is intriguing. Israel has stated repeatedly that
it would be unacceptable for an Iranian regime to acquire nuclear weapons.
Altough Tehran insists that its uranium enrichment programme is for peaceful
purposes, President Ahmadinejad has vowed to wipe Israel off the face of the
earth.
During his visit to Washington, which begins on Sunday, Mr Olmert is
expected to meet the Vice-President Dick Cheney, the Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice, and Robert Gates, the Defence Secretary.
Intelligence sources have told The Times that the prospect of Israel taking
preemptive military action to knock out Iran's nuclear facilities appears to
have become significantly more likely in recent weeks. Such an operation
would require at least tacit US cooperation because it would almost
certainly involve Israeli warplanes flying through US-controlled airspace in
Iraq.
Barack Obama is known to have raised this issue when he visited Israel last
summer. Diplomats in Washington have confirmed that he discussed with
European leaders concerns that the first months of his presidency could be
thrown off-course by such a military crisis.
Although he campaigned on a promise to talk to America's enemies, Mr Obama
hopes a more moderate government will emerge from Iran's own elections in
June before he opens negotiations with Tehran.
European leaders are in favour of greater engagement with Iran, but wary of
undermining the tough united front adopted with the US. The UN Security
Council has made four resolutions in two years requesting Iran to halt its
uranium enrichment activities.
- Netanyahu vows rapid Palestinian economic growth
Netanyahu vows rapid Palestinian economic growth
Gil Hoffman , THE JERUSALEM POST Nov. 19, 2008
www.jpost.com
/servlet/Satellite?cid=1226404780901&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
Likud prime ministerial candidate Binyamin Netanyahu promised a dramatic
turnaround in the Palestinian economy if he wins the February 10 election,
in a speech to the United Jewish Communities General Assembly in Jerusalem
on Thursday.
Netanyahu, who was credited with turning around the Israeli economy when he
was finance minister from 2003 to 2005, said he would ensure that the same
happened to the Palestinians as part of his economic peace plan.
The plan calls for continuing diplomatic negotiations with the Palestinian
leadership, regional cooperation with Jordan and mass investment in the
Palestinian Authority to give the Palestinians an incentive to seek peace.
He said he had several projects in mind for Arab cities in the West Bank and
along the seam line.
Netanyahu said that negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians had not
succeeded because they were devoted to solving final-status issues like
Jerusalem and refugees and not on improving the lives of the Palestinians.
He proposed shifting the focus to the economy to make it easier to reach an
agreement later on.
"What has been tried until now with negotiations that try to reach a deal on
'Jerusalem or bust' has led to failure, and it will again and again,"
Netanyahu told the crowd. "Economic development doesn't solve problems, but
it mitigates them and makes a stronger partner on the other side, because it
gives them something to live for."
Such an approach worked in Northern Ireland and was gradually working in
Cyprus, Netanyahu said.
It was important to learn from positive examples around the world and that's
what he did when researching his plans for improving the Israeli economy,
its internal security and education system, he said.
The economic plan Netanyahu outlined for Israel included lowering taxes,
real estate reform and rapid development of trains and roads to connect the
North and South to the center of the country.
On internal security, he suggested stiffening penalties, adding more police,
special units and local policing efforts.
To improve the education system, Netanyahu called for paying teachers more,
insisting on only the top 10 percent of college graduates becoming teachers,
helping weak pupils immediately, giving principals more power to manage
their schools, focusing more on the core curriculum and insisting on
transmitting Jewish and Zionist values.
Labor chairman Ehud Barak lashed out at Netanyahu in an interview with Army
Radio. He warned that the Likud leader's policies would cause Israel to
clash with the international community.
"The Likud, even with its team of stars, would bring us to a dead end of
diplomatic and security issues, a conflict with the world and the entire
region, and the destruction of Israeli society," Barak said.
Responding to a question about Labor's low numbers in the polls, Barak said
that in a time of economic crisis and security challenges, it would be wrong
to rely on polls, which he said were tantamount to "cancelling the election
and voting by SMS."
- Watchdog group: Disqualify Sakhnin party that fielded terrorist
[Dr. Aaron Lerner - IMRA: This is the national Hadash party.]
Watchdog group: Disqualify Sakhnin party that fielded terrorist candidate
Dan Izenberg , THE JERUSALEM POST Nov. 20, 2008
www.jpost.com
/servlet/Satellite?cid=1226404793667&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
The Movement for Quality Government on Thursday petitioned the High Court of
Justice to disqualify a Sakhnin political party that fielded a candidate for
the local council who served six years in jail for helping terrorists
perpetrate a suicide bombing and lied to election authorities about her
conviction.
The candidate, Tagrid Sa'adi, ran as a candidate on the list of the
Democratic Front of Sakhnin. She resigned from the list after the Movement
for Quality Government (MQG) petitioned the High Court shortly before the
election, after learning about the affair in the daily Yediot Aharonot.
Now the MQG wants the High Court to disqualify the party for which she ran
on the grounds that it knew about her past, knew that she had lied to the
elections chairman in Sakhnin, boasted about having her on the list and
called her a "prisoner of freedom." Attorneys Eliad Shraga, Zroya
Luzon-Meidad and Mika Koner-Karton wrote that they learned from a Channel 1
news report that "Sa'adi's party celebrated her conviction on terrorist
charges and that it emphasized in its campaign propaganda its support for
her involvement in the murderous terrorist action."
Sa'adi was convicted of maintaining contact with a member of the Popular
Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) in Hebron. In March 2002, the
PFLP activist told her he intended to send a suicide bomber into Israel and
asked for her help. Sa'adi was supposed to meet the woman in Jerusalem and
drive her to Haifa. At the last minute, Sa'adi said she could not meet the
woman because her mother had been hospitalized. The terrorists decided to
dispatch the suicide bomber on a terror mission anyway, and she blew herself
up on April 12, 2002 in the Mahane Yehuda market, killing six people.
According to the Local Authorities Election Law, anyone sentenced to at
least three months in jail may not run for office for seven years from the
end of the jail term unless he applies for a ruling from the elections
chairman that the crime he committed did not involve moral turpitude. Sa'adi
did not ask the elections chairman for such a ruling nor indicate that she
had finished serving a six-year sentence one year earlier.
The petitioners charged that describing Sa'adi as a "prisoner of freedom"
"expresses the clear support of the Sakhnin list for her involvement in
terrorist activity that undermines the existence of Israel and the fact that
it is a democratic state and [the party's behavior] cannot be understood in
any other way."
- [Not clear how many votes may burn] Meimad breaks with Labor ahead of elections, will run separate list
[Dr. Aaron Lerner - IMRA: Unless this move is an intermediate step by Ami
Ayalon as he seeks a safe place on a party list [by Meimad merging later
with Meretz in a deal that gives him a place on their list without having to
run in primaries] this move is very likely to simply burn leftist votes as
the party fails to garner enough votes for three seats - the minimum for
getting into the next Knesset.]
Meimad breaks with Labor ahead of elections, will run separate list
Etgar Lefkovits , THE JERUSALEM POST Nov. 20, 2008
www.jpost.com
/servlet/Satellite?cid=1226404794119&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
Ending a nearly decade-long partnership with the Labor Party, the dovish
religious party Meimad met late Thursday to vote through a decision by party
chairman MK Rabbi Michael Melchior to run as a separate list in the upcoming
national elections, with former Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) Chief Ami
Ayalon replacing him at the top of the party list. The move was approved by
66 votes to 2.
The decision comes as a pair of public opinion polls indicate that the
once-dominant Labor Party will suffer a stinging blow in the February 10
elections, garnering only 8-10 Knesset seats and, in a humiliating defeat,
becoming the fifth-largest party in Israel.
According to a 1999 agreement between Labor and Meimad, the latter was
allocated the 10th seat on a joint Labor-Meimad parliamentary list, which
was filled by Melchior for the past nine years. But with the polls
forecasting barely 10 seats for Labor, Melchior was told that the reserved
slot arrangement was over.
At the same time, Melchior's decision to let Ayalon (who recently left the
Labor Party over what he dubbed its failed path) run at the head of the
party list, even as Melchior retained his position as party chairman, was
seen as an attempt to inject new life and a security background into the
party as it set out a new path. Ayalon told the meeting that Meimad was a
"natural home" for him. The Jewish state, he said, "is not measured by the
number of people who keep Jewish commandments," but by "sincere concern for
each other, converts and the strangers among us."
Meimad first ran as an independent list in the 1988 elections, but failed to
get enough votes to enter the Knesset, only to team up with Labor a decade
later.
The Thursday night meeting of the party's 120-member leadership council did
not deal with the additional members of the party's new list, even though
Melchior has been courting environmental and educational groups, Melchior
spokesman Nir Hirschman said.
Nor was it determined Thursday how the list would be chosen, or whether the
expanded party would retain its name.
Melchior, who like Ayalon advocates territorial concessions with the
Palestinians, has in the past been derisively dubbed by Likud opposition
leader Binyamin Netanyahu, who is leading the race to become prime minister,
as "Yossi Beilin with a kippa."
- Israel to Jordan: We don't plan to topple Hamas in Gaza soon
Israel to Jordan: We don't plan to topple Hamas in Gaza soon
Khaled Abu Toameh , THE JERUSALEM POST Nov. 20, 2008
www.jpost.com
/servlet/Satellite?cid=1226404783836&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Defense Minister Ehud Barak assured Jordan's
King Abdullah this week that Israel does not intend to launch a major
offensive to bring down the Hamas regime in Gaza in the near future,
Jordanian sources told The Jerusalem Post on Thursday. The two Israeli
leaders did not rule out a range of less dramatic military operations
against Hamas and other terror operatives in the Strip.
Olmert and Barak, who met with Abdullah in Amman on Tuesday, told the king
that Israel greatly values its peace partnership with Jordan and would bear
the interests of the Hashemite leadership in mind as it grapples with the
dilemmas posed by Hamas's rule in Gaza.
Abdullah on Thursday briefed Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas
in Aqaba on the results of the secretive Tuesday meeting.
The Prime Minister's Office on Thursday refused to confirm that the meeting
had even taken place. But Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni did respond to news
of the talks, at which Abdullah cautioned his Israeli guests that a
large-scale military operation in Gaza would have serious repercussions for
his country and the region.
While Israel respected the importance of its relations with its Arab peace
partners, and heeded their concerns, Livni said, it would continue to act
according to its own interests.
"Israel does indeed have strategic ties with its neighbors, Egypt and
Jordan, and listens to their needs, but the bottom line remains that the
country acts according to the interests of the Israeli citizen," she said,
during a visit to the Tefen Industrial Park.
Abdullah is also understood to have relayed to Olmert and Barak a message
from Hamas in which the movement emphasized its keenness on maintaining the
truce with Israel.
Top Jordanian security officials have been holding a "frank dialogue" with
Hamas representatives in the past few weeks in a bid to ease tensions
between the two parties.
Tuesday's meeting was arranged after the Jordanians said they received
information according to which Israel was planning a major operation in the
Gaza Strip - not only to stop the rocket attacks, but also to topple the
Hamas regime, the sources said.
According to the information, a large-scale action was envisaged that might
claim the lives of many Israelis and Palestinians - and stir unrest on the
Arab and Muslim street.
The Israeli military drive, the Jordanians were told, was also aimed at
restoring the regime of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to the
Gaza Strip after eliminating the Hamas leadership and overthrowing their
government.
The Jordanians' biggest fear was that Olmert and Barak were each planning to
embark on such an "adventure" for reasons related to the upcoming general
elections in Israel, the sources said.
The Jordanian monarchy has good reason to fear the consequences of such an
operation, the sources noted. In the past, IDF operations in the West Bank
and Gaza Strip, which sometimes resulted in the killing of dozens of
Palestinians, triggered a wave of protests throughout the kingdom and the
rest of the Arab world.
In Jordan, where more than two-thirds of the population is Palestinians, the
protests were always tolerated by the authorities, largely because they did
not pose a threat to the regime.
But Abdullah and his government fear that any Israeli attempt to overthrow
the Hamas regime would spark an unprecedented wave of violence in the
kingdom.
Jordanian sources pointed out on Thursday that US-led efforts to get rid of
the Hamas government over the past two years had backfired, earning the
movement even greater support and sympathy among the Palestinians.
"There's a feeling that Hamas continues to be popular among a majority of
Palestinians," said a retired Jordanian government official.
"Hamas owes its strength and popularity to the Americans - who have been
waging a public campaign, with the help of the Palestinian Authority, to
remove the Islamist government from power. In the end it was Hamas that
managed to kick the Palestinian Authority out of the Gaza Strip."
Relations between Hamas and Jordan were strained after the late King Hussein
deported Hamas leaders and closed down their offices in Amman about 10 years
ago. The tensions reached their peak two years ago when the Jordanians
announced that they had thwarted an attempt by Hamas to smuggle weapons into
the kingdom for launching terror attacks on Israel.
The Jordanian monarch is hoping that the talks with Hamas will send a
message to the disgruntled Palestinian refugees living in the kingdom that
Jordan is not involved in the US "conspiracy" to bring down the
democratically-elected government of Hamas, the sources said.
The Jordanians are convinced that Hamas remains an influential player in the
West Bank despite the massive crackdown on its supporters by Abbas's
security forces over the past few weeks. "Abbas is still too weak and he
hardly has any credibility among his people," the former government official
said. "I'm afraid that if we hold a free election tomorrow in the West Bank,
Hamas would win."
Another reason why the Jordanians are worried about the ongoing efforts to
bring down Hamas is because of the movement's strong ties with the Muslim
Brotherhood organization in the kingdom. Together with Hamas supporters in
Jordan, the Muslim Brotherhood has been trying in recent weeks to organize a
series of protests against the continued blockade on the Gaza Strip.
Anti-Israel and anti-US protests in Arab capitals are often directed also
against the Arab heads of state under the pretext that they are pawns in the
hands of Washington. The Arab leaders are also accused by their constituents
of failing to use their good offices with the US to exert pressure on
Israel.
Unlike the majority of the Arab leaders, Abdullah is in a much more
vulnerable situation because of his country's peace treaty with Israel and
because of the Palestinian majority in the kingdom. The same applies to
Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak, who is also worried about the repercussions
of an Israeli military offensive so close to his country.
In addition to Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood, the sources said, the
Jordanians are also worried about Al-Qaida's ongoing efforts to destabilize
the monarchy. Jordan is particularly concerned that a US pullout from Iraq
would embolden Al-Qaida and other radical Islamist groups - posing a major
threat to the kingdom's security.
The pan-Arab daily Al-Hayat reported that during Tuesday's meeting, the two
sides also discussed Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations. According to
the London-based paper, Olmert briefed Abdullah on the ongoing peace talks
and the results of his most recent meeting with Abbas.
According to diplomatic officials in London quoted by the paper, Abdullah
stressed the need for continued peace negotiations and progress towards a
two-state solution, which he said was the only option for achieving peace in
the region. He also reportedly emphasized that Jordan had a strategic
interest in the establishment of a Palestinian state.
Al-Hayat also reported that Abdullah asked Olmert to take immediate steps to
ease the suffering of the Palestinian people to create an atmosphere
conducive to progress in the peace talks. He stressed the need for Israel
not to increase tension, particularly in Gaza.
Olmert's spokesman, Mark Regev, said he was not commenting on media reports
regarding the visit to Amman.
