Olmert Recognizes PA Flag

By Hana Levi Julian

Many in Israel and abroad were surprised when the flags of the State of Israel and the Palestinian Authority flew side-by-side for the first time, at the official Prime Minister’s Residence.

For the first time in the history of the State of Israel, the red, black, green and white flag of the Palestinian Authority stood next to the official state flag of Israel bearing the blue Jewish Star flanked by two stripes on its field of white, last Saturday Night.

It was the first of several surprises.

The meeting between Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas came days earlier than expected, with government spokesmen saying security concerns had advanced the meeting and delayed the announcement.

Several agreements were ironed out within that first meeting. These included the release of $100 million in frozen tax money for the PA, loosening of travel restrictions on PA Arabs in Judea and Samaria and increasing the number of permits for them to work inside Israel's pre-1967 borders.

In addition to the usual smiling photo ops, both men seemed intent on creating a message of unity, warmth and formal diplomacy.

The Jewish Prime Minister addressed Abu Mazen – Abbas’s nom de guerre – as “Mr. President.” Until now, Abbas has been referred to as the PA Chairman.

With that appellation and a kiss on each cheek, Olmert launched a new era of diplomatic relations for the PA leader, prompting the New York-based Jewish Daily Forward to comment that it appeared to be a meeting of two heads of state.

Forward writer Gershon Gorenberg wrote in his analysis that it was hard to tell which man needed the other more, describing them as “flailing in stormy waters, but which man was drowning, which was rescuing him and did the rescue stand a chance of success?”

Even as Abbas spoke publicly of the importance of upholding the limited ceasefire agreement, his ability to control those who are launching the Kassam rocket attacks is questionable.

The Islamic Jihad terror organization, which has vowed to continue its assaults against Israeli communities, made good on its threat just three days after the PA flag waved in the Jerusalem wind.

Two boys in Sderot were severely injured in a Kassam attack on Tuesday, the 57th missile to be fired at Israel since the truce went into effect last month. Terrorists also succeeded in scoring a direct hit on a strategic facility in the southern coastal city of Ashkelon, a more frequent target in recent months.

President Moshe Katzav visited Barzilai Medical Center in Ashkelon onThursday and comforted 14-year-old Adir Basad, who was critically wounded inTuesday’s attack. The boy regained consciousness Thursday morning and his condition has improved.

The Basad family asked the president to take action that would lead to a proper response to the Kassams. The IDF was told Wednesday that it would be allowed to use “pinpoint operations” to destroy terrorist cells in the act of launching Kassam attacks.

The government resolved to continue the ceasefire with the terrorists, despite the increasing violations by terrorist rocket crews, but to take action against specific Kassam cells when they are detected.

http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?art_id=iol1039801429529W643&set_id=1&click_id=123&sf=
US comes down on Israeli sex slave trade

December 13 2002 at 07:43PM
Jerusalem - About three thousand women, mainly from the former Soviet Union, are sold each year into a brisk Israeli sex industry that takes in about a billion dollars annually, a parliamentary report said on Sunday, slamming Israel's justice system for being lax on punishments.

The women, seeking to escape poverty at home, are usually smuggled in by traffickers who promise them legitimate jobs. Once in Israel, they are sold for between $3 000 and $6 000 each (about R27 500 and R55 000). They receive between $25-$30 per customer, of which the pimp takes between 80 and 90 percent, the preliminary report said.

The women work about 12 hours a day, six or seven days a week and service an average of 10 to 15 clients daily, it added. Often, the women live in dismal conditions and sometimes they are physically abused or live in fear of their pimps, the report said.

Israeli courts generally reach a plea bargain with the pimps and sentence them to either a few months of community service or up to an average of two years in prison, punishments which the committee said are too weak to serve as deterrents.

An average of 10 to 15 clients daily
It suggested that these crimes should have minimum prison sentences to deter the sex traders, who sexually exploit the women and often jail, blackmail and enslave them.

In July 2001, a US State Department report placed Israel in the third section of its "black list" on countries whose laws don't meet US criteria for dealing with this crime and threatened economic sanctions.

Israel has reformed the law somewhat since then, but the committee said it is not enough to confront the problem effectively.

In addition to changes in the law, the committee suggested an authority be formed to fight the "war against trafficking in people". - Sapa-AP

http://www.aljazeerah.info/Opinion%20editorials/2006%20Opinion%20Editorials/December/27%20o/US-Israeli%20Pre-emption%20of%20Arab%20Mediation%20in%20Palestinian%20Divide%20By%20Nicola%20Nasser.htm
( http://www.aljazeerah.info/ )

US-Israeli Pre-emption of Arab Mediation in Palestinian Divide

By Nicola Nasser

Al-Jazeerah, December 27, 2006

The US administration and Israel are accelerating their coordinated meddling in the internal Palestinian divide between the Fatah-led presidency and the Hamas-led government to pre-empt a series of Arab mediation efforts, the latest of which is a UAE-Syrian try according to a member of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).

The PLO official, who preferred to remain anonymous, said that President Mahmoud Abbas authorized the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to negotiate with Syria on behalf of Hamas, whose politburo chairman, Khaled Misha’al, is based in Damascus, a draft for forming a Palestinian national unity government on the basis of the national consensus document (the prisoners’ document), recognizing the PLO by Hamas, and respecting the accords signed by the PLO with Israel.

However the undeclared UAE-Syrian effort-in-the-offing seems to have been overtaken by the latest Israeli-U.S. moves to foil Arab mediation. Faced practically with choosing between national unity and lifting the Israeli-U.S. siege, the PLO leadership has opted to give priority to the second option, a choice that led it to voluntarily accept bypassing the Palestinian government by visiting western leaders and diplomats, to turn a blind eye to the western diplomatic boycott imposed on this government and to receive selective “humanitarian aid” through the PA presidency.

Within this context Abbas met with the Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in Jerusalem on Saturday in a long-awaited summit, during which Olmert only “promised” to release $100 million out of more than $600 million illegally held by Israel as a “humanitarian” gesture, but failed to agree on a prisoner swap and deferred to joint committees the Palestinian demands of releasing some of more than 10.0000 Palestinian detainees in Israeli jails -- including the Speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) and more then 60 cabinet ministers and lawmakers -- the easing of West Bank travel military restrictions and increasing the traffic through the main cargo crossing between Gaza Strip and Israel.

The meager results of the meeting won’t lift or essentially alleviate the year-long tight economic and financial siege. Expressing Moscow's support for Abbas' efforts to resolve the crisis through national consensus, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told a press conference in Moscow last week that foreign interests had “knowingly and deliberately intervened to thwart the Palestinian dialogue on the formation of a national unity government.”

The question now is not of getting the Israelis and Palestinians to talk, but of getting the Palestinians to talk to each other so they can talk to others.

Arab League Secretary General Amr Mousa canceled a plan for an emergency meeting of Arab foreign ministers on Monday to resolve the inter-Palestinian crisis after conferring with the Palestinian president. Abbas “told me that there are mediations by some Arab states which may lead to a result and progress in (solving) the Palestinian crisis,” he said.

The Palestinian unity government would be anathema to Israel and timing of Olmert’s move and other U.S moves leave no doubts about their aim to preclude Arab mediation, thwart the potential for a successful Palestinian dialogue, and suggest reasons other than those mentioned by Mousa and Abbas for shelving the Arab League plans.

Egypt, Qatar and Yemen are heavily involved in mediation with the rival Palestinian factions. A Qatari mediation effort was foiled in October by the PLO insistence on Hamas’ commitment to the Israeli-initiated, U.S. and Quartet-adopted conditions.

The Israeli interest in “thwarting” Palestinian dialogue is self-evident. However the U.S. “thwarting” efforts unilaterally and through international forums need elaboration. On Thursday, President George W. Bush signed the Palestinian Anti-Terrorism Act barring direct U.S. aid to the “Hamas-controlled Palestinian Authority” (PA) as long as Hamas refuses to recognize Israel, renounce violence and recognize existing agreements.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who is expected in Israel and the PA in January, said she would ask the Congress for $100 million to “strengthen the security forces” of the PA loyal to Abbas; but strengthen these forces against whom?

Also as part of western efforts to shore up Abbas and further tighten siege on Hamas, the Quartet of the U.S., the U.N., the EU and Russia has backed the continuation for three months of the Temporary International Mechanism to provide aid directly to the Palestinian people by bypassing the Hamas-led Government.

Hamas considers forming a national unity government the right approach to lifting the siege, and not vice versa. Without consensus and prior consultation, the Islamic Resistance Movement fears a crackdown in Abbas’ call on December 16 for early presidential and legislative election and has welcomed and invited Arab mediation efforts to alleviate its fears, which are vindicated by the Israeli and U.S. incessant calls on Abbas to dismantle it or pressure it into accepting the Israeli conditions, which the Quartet adopted as preconditions to lift the siege.

Hamas is now insisting on Israeli reciprocity, an overdue Palestinian demand and a principle that the PLO should have set as a precondition since Israel showed its bad faith when it sliced Jerusalem out of the rest of the Palestinian territories occupied in 1967 immediately after signing the Declaration of Principles in Washington in 1993, but especially after extremists in 1995 assassinated the Israelis’ hero of peace, Yitzhak Rabin, which carried the right to power ever since.

The PLO has demilitarized to more than 90%, according to Abbas, the six-year old Intifada, and practically brought the demilitarized uprising to a standstill too, while incessantly repeating its willingness to immediately go into unconditional negotiations with the Israel.

Late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat led the PLO and his Fatah movement to a mutual recognition with Israel, renounced violence and revoked the Palestinian National Charter, and reinforced the autonomy of the PA, which he got in return, with “state security courts” in order to swiftly punish the “enemies of peace” with Israel; in 1996 more than 2000 of those “enemies of peace” were imprisoned and tortured. His successor Abbas condemned their violent anti-occupation resistance as terrorist acts.

Both men received nothing in return for all their “good will.” They were disavowed as no partners in the deadlocked peace process. Israel besieged Arafat in his own office in the West Bank town of Ramallah for three years until his death on November 11, 2004, suspiciously by poison. Their signed accords were all violated by Israel who reoccupied their autonomous gains as the Israeli state terrorism against their people continue to this day unabated, rendering all their peace endeavors counterproductive and futile and leading to Hamas’ landslide electoral victory.

For years, Israel had been leaving no stone unturned in its effort to precipitate a Palestinian civil war. In the early days after the Oslo Accord, it pressurized the Arafat to crack down on Hamas, but he did not fall into the Israeli trap. Abbas also evaded falling into the trap by insisting on dialogue to maneuver Hamas into ceasefire through joining the political process, leading Israelis to accuse him of “dialogue with terror,” and successfully averted infighting, but the tight siege imposed on the PA since Hamas’ electoral victory in January 2006 seems to be loosening his resolve.

Should the US and Israel push the Hamas-led government to the wall, they may trigger a third Palestinian Intifada, Misha’al had warned in Cairo. Should the Palestinian divide be denied Arab mediation and further fueled to slide into a civil war the Palestinian - Israeli peace process would be deferred indefinitely and none in the proximity would be spared the repercussions.

Mediation by marginal PLO factions, Egypt and the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) secured last week a ceasefire in the low key infighting in the Gaza Strip, which claimed more than 325 lives and more than 4,000 wounded in 2006, according to Abbas, but the national dialogue is still deadlocked.

Under the pressures of the potential risks of an escalating Palestinian crisis, King Abdullah II on Tuesday contravened Jordan's unannounced boycott of the Hamas-led government, and in clear divergence from the all-demanding declared policy of the country’s U.S. strategic ally, invited Abbas and Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh for a joint summit in Amman, but his royal invitation has yet to be honored.

However the UAE’s and Syrian middle ground between Hamas and Fatah and Palestinian presidency and government qualifies both countries for a successful mediation.

Syrian President Bashar Al Assad arrived in the UAE on Dec. 18, flying in from Yemen, and held three meetings with President Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan; next day he met with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in Moscow and told reporters that “Syria backs the Palestinian national unity through forming a Palestinian national unity government.”

Briefing reporters on the Russian vision on the Palestinian issue, President Assad said, “in fact... The Russian vision on Palestine is a detailed, objective and real vision and we fully agree with it… it is a vision based on the Palestinians' unity.”

Assad's earlier talks in Yemen with President Ali Abdullah Saleh also discussed mediating the Palestinian divide, two days after the arrival in Sanaa of US assistant secretary for Near Eastern affairs, David Welch, for talks with President Saleh. “I'll leave it to President Saleh to convey their views to President Assad,” Welch said. “They know the views of the United States,” Asia Times online quoted him as saying on Dec. 22.

Should the Bush administration reconsider its currently known “views” of the Palestinian divide and engage Syria instead of alienating it, as recommended by the Baker-Hamilton report, to initiate a U.S.-Syrian understanding that could allow Damascus, hand in hand with Abu Dhabi, to break through the Hamas-Fatah divide, history could be replayed to avert a Palestinian civil war as it had put an end to the Lebanese civil war in the seventies of the last century, and could potentially make the resumption of the peace process closer than more remote on both the Palestinian and Syrian tracks of peace talks with Israel.

*Nicola Nasser is a veteran Arab journalist based in Ramallah, West Bank of the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories.

http://www.aljazeerah.info/News%20archives/2006%20News%20Archives/December/28%20n/EU%20expresses%20dismay%20that%20Israel%20is%20contravening%20international%20law%20and%20EU%20wishes%20in%20West%20Bank.htm ( http://www.aljazeerah.info/ )

EU expresses dismay that Israel is contravening international law and EU wishes in West Bank

Palestine News Network Thursday, 28 December 2006

The presidency of the European Union issued an urgent statement expressing its “deep concern upon receiving the news that the Israeli government has authorized construction of the settlement of Maskiot in the West Bank.”

The EU wrote that Israeli settlement construction and expansion is “incompatible with the commitments made by Israel to both the European Union and the international community to return to the Road Map.”

The Road Map "is already faltering under the threat of an impossible two-state solution.” The EU pointed out that Israel's actions render “materially impossible two states of Israel and Palestine.”

The EU pointed out that Israel's settlement activity contravenes international law and is “unacceptable, particularly after having received European support for the disengagement process in Gaza.”

The statement also read that “such approval is regrettable as it comes after the long-awaited meeting between Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.”

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/81A85549-111F-45C5-8704-64EB9A1B3F32.htm
Gaza prepares for Eid al-Adha
By Laila el-Haddad

Street vendors set up stall to sell sweets at a market in Gaza City ahead of Eid al-Adha

With Eid al-Adha just a few days away, Palestinians in Gaza have begun preparations for the Muslim holiday amid bleak economic conditions, an ongoing Israeli siege and a tenuous truce between Hamas and Fatah.

On Eid al-Adha, Muslims commemorate Prophet Ibrahim's willingness to sacrifice his son for God. People slaughter an animal, share the meat, give charity and buy new clothes and toys for children.






Stallholders spread out their wares along the otherwise car-packed streets of Gaza City's old market on Wednesday ahead of Eid al-Adha (Celebration of the Sacrifice) despite inclement weather.

They were busy selling traditional Eid fare: brightly packaged chocolates, date biscuits and other sweets, children's clothing, toys, meat, and salted fish, known as fseekh.

Many traders say they hope trade this Eid, as opposed to Eid al-Fitr a few months ago, will be brisker after the government recently distributed pay cheques to about 70,000 civil servants, ranging in amount from $200 to $400.

The ministry of finance began to distribute public sector salaries in full on December 25 to those employees who had not received the funds via a deal brokered with the European Union.

Tens of thousands of Palestinian civil servants have received only part of their salaries since Hamas took office in March due to a Western aid boycott and Israel's refusal to transfer tax revenues owed to the Palestinian Authority amounting to about $52 million monthly.

One shopkeeper said: "If you asked me one week go, I would have said forget it, I might as well close shop. But now, people have some money to spend, and what better time to spend it than Eid?

Inflation

"At the same time, with the ongoing closures, everything is more expensive now for us, the sellers, and for the consumer, so people will not be buying in as large amounts as before."

According to the United Nations Office for Humanitarian Affairs, Israel has allowed, on average, 12 out of a promised 400 trucks a day to pass through Gaza's major commercial crossing, al-Mintar (Karni), since the beginning of the year.

As a result, the price of goods in Gaza has been driven up due to a scarcity in supply.

"This Eid is not really an Eid"

Abu Mustafa,
taxi driver
One shopper, casually picking through a selection of plastic guns at a toy shop full of glum shoppers, said: "For men, Eid is a huge loss, between buying a sheep for slaughter, new clothes and gifts for the children, and sweets for the guests. We try to make ends meet here and there so the kids can be happy."

Abu Mustafa, a taxi driver, keeps his checked headdress wrapped around his face to ward off the winter chill as he manoeuvres round Gaza's busy city centre souks.

"This Eid is not really an Eid," he says.

"It might have the look and showiness of Eid, but it certainly does not have the feel of Eid.

"There isn't a household that's not affected by the situation in one way or another, whether that situation is the international siege, or the infighting.

"Sure there is a calm now, but it's fleeting. Believe me, things could explode again at any moment, both internally and with Israel.

One of his passengers said: "The word optimism no longer exists in our vocabulary."

Renewed faith

Mohammad Hinbawi, a street vendor who has been selling homemade sweets for more than 20 years, disagrees.

"As long as we have this to eat, we're OK," he said, waiving a sesame sweet decisively with his hand.


Men buy toys for
the children in their family
"Sure the situation is hard, but we continue to have faith and patience in God and in our government. They have not been given a chance, so we cannot blame them."

Groups of women resolutely scurried to buy new Eid clothes for their children.

Mariam Abo Odeh, 42, said: "No matter what's happening, Eid is at the very least a welcome break from our tortuous routine.

"The market comes alive, and some excitement and happiness fills the air. That in and of itself is enough."

Nearby, women farmers sat on the ground behind a spread of their day's harvest of mint, rocket and dill.

"God willing, it will be a pleasant Eid. Our life is difficult, but the calm is reassuring. Let's hope it stays that way."

Meanwhile, thousands of Palestinian men, women and children stand waiting in poor weather for entry into Gaza on the Egyptian side of the Rafah crossing, the only passage in and out of Gaza.

The crossing has been closed by Israel since late June 2006, opening only erratically since - and for just nine hours during the past three weeks - leaving Palestinian passengers stranded on either side.