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The Living Force
Trump tells Israel peace means compromise; US envoy under fire Friday 9 February 2018
http://www.arabnews.com/node/1242671/world
US President Donald Trump told Israel on Friday that it too would need to make “significant compromises” for peace with the Palestinians, even as they accused one of his Middle East envoys of bogging down diplomacy with what they see as pro-Israel bias.
The Palestinians were outraged by Trump’s Dec. 6 recognition of Jerusalem as the Israeli capital, a move overturning decades of US reticence on the city’s status, and say they are looking at additional world powers as potential mediators.
In an interview with an Israeli newspaper that was excerpted ahead of its full publication on Sunday, Trump described his Jerusalem move as a “high point” of his first year in office.
The language of Trump’s announcement did not rule out a presence in Jerusalem for the Palestinians, who want the eastern part of the city — captured by Israel in a 1967 war and annexed in a move not recognized internationally — as their own capital.
“I wanted to make clear that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel. Regarding specific borders, I will grant my support to what the two sides agree between themselves,” he told the conservative Israel Hayom daily, in remarks published in Hebrew.
“I think that both sides will have to make significant compromises in order for achieving a peace deal to be possible,” Trump added, without elaborating.
The interview coincided with fresh strains between the Palestinians and the US ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, following the killing by a Palestinian of a Jewish settler.
After the settler was stabbed to death on Monday, Friedman tweeted that he had previously donated an ambulance to the slain man’s community and that he was praying for the next-of-kin, adding: “Palestinian ‘leaders’ have praised the killer.”
That drew a rebuke from the Palestinian administration.
“The American ambassador’s statements make us wonder about his relationship with the occupation,” Nabil Abu Rdainah, a spokesman for President Mahmoud Abbas, said in a statement. “Is he representing America or Israel?“
“Friedman’s recommendations and advice, which do not aim to achieve a just peace on the basis of international legitimacy, are what led to this crisis in American-Palestinian relations,” Abu Rdainah said.
Friedman, among the top Trump advisers who promoted the Jerusalem move, is a former contributor to settler causes.
In addition to East Jerusalem, Palestinians want the occupied West Bank for a future state and see Israel’s Jewish settlements there as a major obstacle. Israel disputes this.
Most world powers deem the settlements illegal, but the Trump administration has taken a softer tack.
A liberal Israeli newspaper, Haaretz, published a column criticizing Friedman’s stance and dubbing the settlement he had supported as “a mountain of curses” — a play on its Hebrew name, Har Bracha, which means “Mount Blessing.”
The ambassador took the unusual step of firing back at the daily in another tweet on Friday: “Four young children are sitting shiva (Jewish mourning rite) for their murdered father .... Have they (Haaretz) no decency?“
Haaretz’s publisher, Amos Shocken, responded over the platform with a critique that echoed Palestinian complaints.
“As long as the policy of Israel that your Government and yourself support is obstructing (the) peace process ... there will be more Shivas,” Shocken tweeted.
UN Wants to Ship Africans from Israel to “Safe Western Countries”
http://newobserveronline.com/un-wants-to-ship-africans-from-israel-to-safe-western-countries/
According to a report in the Jerusalem-based Times of Israel, Sharon Harel, the external relations officer at the UNHCR office in Israel, confirmed the existence of the deal, which will halt Israel’s current campaign to deport thousands of Africans to Rwanda.
The Times of Israel reported that the Israeli government is in “negotiations with the United Nations High Commission on Refugees to resettle a portion of African asylum seekers in third countries deemed by the UN to be ‘safe,’ possibly including Western countries.
Such an arrangement could be realized, though the necessary details need to be worked out,” said Harel.
Harel did not name the “countries interested in absorbing the refugees” but the Times of Israel pointed out that since 2013, the UNHCR “has resettled 2,400 asylum seekers in third countries which they consider safe, including the US and Canada.”
Harel said was confident that an agreement could offer a viable solution for the approximately 38,000 Africans currently in Israel. “We would see such an arrangement as a win-win for the refugees as well as the State of Israel,” she said.
Israel has already deported approximately 4,000 asylum seekers to Rwanda and Uganda since December 2013, when the deportation program started.
Meanwhile, Israeli President Reuven Rivlin has announced his support for the plan to deport all the Africans in Israel, saying that the Jewish state “must take care of its own before the poor of other nations.”
“We are in a situation whereby for quite a few years we have had to deal with the problem, to grab the bull by its horns and to understand that the needy among our people come before the poor of another, while at the same time [acknowledging] we have a duty to every refugee,” Rivlin said. “First of all, we have to take care of our people, our citizens. We need to ease their lives.”
Several options to kick-start Mideast peace talks: Palestinian UN envoy Thursday 8 February 2018
http://www.arabnews.com/node/1242496/middle-east
President Mahmoud Abbas last month said he would only accept a broad, internationally backed panel to broker peace talks with Israel.
“We’re saying a collective approach involving several players at minimum would have a better chance of succeeding than the approach of only one country that is so close to Israel,” Mansour told reporters.
The Palestinians are furious at US President Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital in December and cut to US funding for the UN agency that helps Palestinian refugees (UNRWA).
Mansour said a collective peace process could “be in the format of the (UN) Security Council, that would be something that we will look at seriously.”
“The Quartet plus China plus the League of Arab States plus maybe others ... we could also look at that. Or the collective process might be of the nature of the French Paris conference or international conference,” he said.
The so-called Quartet sponsoring the stalled peace process comprises the United Nations, the United States, Russia and the European Union, while in January last year France invited dozens of countries to Paris to show support for a peace process.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and Abbas plan to discuss a possible new mediation mechanism to replace the Middle East Quartet when they meet next week, the Interfax news agency said on Wednesday, citing a Palestinian diplomat in Russia.
Abbas is due to address the United Nations Security Council on Feb. 20 during the body’s monthly meeting on the Middle East.
Trump has said his administration had a peace proposal in the works. Mansour said the United States had given no indication of what the peace plan might be.
“But of course if they started with Jerusalem is off the table and punishing UNRWA ... what is left on the table?” Mansour said. “They lost the neutrality that is required of any broker that helps two parties to reach a peace treaty.”
“The old approach failed, and we’re looking for a new approach,” he said.
http://www.arabnews.com/node/1242671/world
US President Donald Trump told Israel on Friday that it too would need to make “significant compromises” for peace with the Palestinians, even as they accused one of his Middle East envoys of bogging down diplomacy with what they see as pro-Israel bias.
The Palestinians were outraged by Trump’s Dec. 6 recognition of Jerusalem as the Israeli capital, a move overturning decades of US reticence on the city’s status, and say they are looking at additional world powers as potential mediators.
In an interview with an Israeli newspaper that was excerpted ahead of its full publication on Sunday, Trump described his Jerusalem move as a “high point” of his first year in office.
The language of Trump’s announcement did not rule out a presence in Jerusalem for the Palestinians, who want the eastern part of the city — captured by Israel in a 1967 war and annexed in a move not recognized internationally — as their own capital.
“I wanted to make clear that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel. Regarding specific borders, I will grant my support to what the two sides agree between themselves,” he told the conservative Israel Hayom daily, in remarks published in Hebrew.
“I think that both sides will have to make significant compromises in order for achieving a peace deal to be possible,” Trump added, without elaborating.
The interview coincided with fresh strains between the Palestinians and the US ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, following the killing by a Palestinian of a Jewish settler.
After the settler was stabbed to death on Monday, Friedman tweeted that he had previously donated an ambulance to the slain man’s community and that he was praying for the next-of-kin, adding: “Palestinian ‘leaders’ have praised the killer.”
That drew a rebuke from the Palestinian administration.
“The American ambassador’s statements make us wonder about his relationship with the occupation,” Nabil Abu Rdainah, a spokesman for President Mahmoud Abbas, said in a statement. “Is he representing America or Israel?“
“Friedman’s recommendations and advice, which do not aim to achieve a just peace on the basis of international legitimacy, are what led to this crisis in American-Palestinian relations,” Abu Rdainah said.
Friedman, among the top Trump advisers who promoted the Jerusalem move, is a former contributor to settler causes.
In addition to East Jerusalem, Palestinians want the occupied West Bank for a future state and see Israel’s Jewish settlements there as a major obstacle. Israel disputes this.
Most world powers deem the settlements illegal, but the Trump administration has taken a softer tack.
A liberal Israeli newspaper, Haaretz, published a column criticizing Friedman’s stance and dubbing the settlement he had supported as “a mountain of curses” — a play on its Hebrew name, Har Bracha, which means “Mount Blessing.”
The ambassador took the unusual step of firing back at the daily in another tweet on Friday: “Four young children are sitting shiva (Jewish mourning rite) for their murdered father .... Have they (Haaretz) no decency?“
Haaretz’s publisher, Amos Shocken, responded over the platform with a critique that echoed Palestinian complaints.
“As long as the policy of Israel that your Government and yourself support is obstructing (the) peace process ... there will be more Shivas,” Shocken tweeted.
UN Wants to Ship Africans from Israel to “Safe Western Countries”
http://newobserveronline.com/un-wants-to-ship-africans-from-israel-to-safe-western-countries/
According to a report in the Jerusalem-based Times of Israel, Sharon Harel, the external relations officer at the UNHCR office in Israel, confirmed the existence of the deal, which will halt Israel’s current campaign to deport thousands of Africans to Rwanda.
The Times of Israel reported that the Israeli government is in “negotiations with the United Nations High Commission on Refugees to resettle a portion of African asylum seekers in third countries deemed by the UN to be ‘safe,’ possibly including Western countries.
Such an arrangement could be realized, though the necessary details need to be worked out,” said Harel.
Harel did not name the “countries interested in absorbing the refugees” but the Times of Israel pointed out that since 2013, the UNHCR “has resettled 2,400 asylum seekers in third countries which they consider safe, including the US and Canada.”
Harel said was confident that an agreement could offer a viable solution for the approximately 38,000 Africans currently in Israel. “We would see such an arrangement as a win-win for the refugees as well as the State of Israel,” she said.
Israel has already deported approximately 4,000 asylum seekers to Rwanda and Uganda since December 2013, when the deportation program started.
Meanwhile, Israeli President Reuven Rivlin has announced his support for the plan to deport all the Africans in Israel, saying that the Jewish state “must take care of its own before the poor of other nations.”
“We are in a situation whereby for quite a few years we have had to deal with the problem, to grab the bull by its horns and to understand that the needy among our people come before the poor of another, while at the same time [acknowledging] we have a duty to every refugee,” Rivlin said. “First of all, we have to take care of our people, our citizens. We need to ease their lives.”
Several options to kick-start Mideast peace talks: Palestinian UN envoy Thursday 8 February 2018
http://www.arabnews.com/node/1242496/middle-east
President Mahmoud Abbas last month said he would only accept a broad, internationally backed panel to broker peace talks with Israel.
“We’re saying a collective approach involving several players at minimum would have a better chance of succeeding than the approach of only one country that is so close to Israel,” Mansour told reporters.
The Palestinians are furious at US President Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital in December and cut to US funding for the UN agency that helps Palestinian refugees (UNRWA).
Mansour said a collective peace process could “be in the format of the (UN) Security Council, that would be something that we will look at seriously.”
“The Quartet plus China plus the League of Arab States plus maybe others ... we could also look at that. Or the collective process might be of the nature of the French Paris conference or international conference,” he said.
The so-called Quartet sponsoring the stalled peace process comprises the United Nations, the United States, Russia and the European Union, while in January last year France invited dozens of countries to Paris to show support for a peace process.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and Abbas plan to discuss a possible new mediation mechanism to replace the Middle East Quartet when they meet next week, the Interfax news agency said on Wednesday, citing a Palestinian diplomat in Russia.
Abbas is due to address the United Nations Security Council on Feb. 20 during the body’s monthly meeting on the Middle East.
Trump has said his administration had a peace proposal in the works. Mansour said the United States had given no indication of what the peace plan might be.
“But of course if they started with Jerusalem is off the table and punishing UNRWA ... what is left on the table?” Mansour said. “They lost the neutrality that is required of any broker that helps two parties to reach a peace treaty.”
“The old approach failed, and we’re looking for a new approach,” he said.
