Skip to content

Palestine – Features

Israel implicated in hariri murder

  • by

(source: Voice of the Cape Online / Al Jazeera)

Hezbollah leader, Hassan Nasrallah, has implicated Israel for the murder of the former Lebanese prime minister, Rafiq al-Hariri.In a video address to journalists from an undisclosed location on Monday, Nasrallah said he had evidence to prove Israel’s complicity in al-Hariri’s assassination in a bomb explosion in the Lebanese capital, Beirut.

"He has not provided undisputed, solid proof that implicates Israel," Al Jazeera’s Rula Amin reporting from Beirut said.The Hezbollah leader, however, said that "there is enough evidence pointing to Israel," our correspondent said.

Al-Hariri and 22 others were killed on the Beirut seafront on February 14, 2005.The assassination sparked an international outcry and led to the withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon.The murder has been widely blamed on Syria, but Damascus has routinely denied involvement.

Blaming Israel

Fawaz Gerges, a Middle East analyst, told Al Jazeera that Nasrallah "talked about who has the most to benefit from the assassination … [by trying to] provide a very complex case by drawing a historical link between Israel" and the killing.

Nasrallah said Israel used spying and covert operations to attempt to drive a wedge between Hezbollah and the Lebanese government.Among the material presented was what he described as Israeli reconaissance footage intercepted by Hezbollah of areas frequented by al-Hariri.Aaron Klein, a political commentator in Jerusalem, told Al Jazeera that the contents of Nasrallah’s rare speech were not surprising.

"This is exactly what everybody in Israel was expecting, which was to use the Jewish state as a scapegoat because he is up against a rock and a hard place," Klein said.

UN probe

A UN court probing the assassination of al-Haririis planning to charge Hezbollah members in the killing, Nasrallah said in July.Nasrallah criticised the UN investigation because it "does not look into the possibility that Israel is implicated, we believe it is biased".

Our correspondent said that Hezbollah considers the tribunal "an Israeli project to create strife in Lebanon".Impending charges from the international body had pushed Lebanon into a "very sensitive phase",  Klein said. Hezbollah fought a devestating war with Israel in 2006.

Klein said that a UN verdict against Hezbollah would be "devastating for them in terms of the internal politics" as it could spark anger among other sectors of Lebanese society.Rula Amin said that "Hezbollah is trying to dismiss the findings of international investigations. They want to discredit the basic information that investigators had depended on in making their conclusions".

"He is trying to say that the findings are not credible and politically motivated … he is trying to do is build a case in which he says Israel is a legitimate suspect," our correspondent said.

Read More »Israel implicated in hariri murder

Us envoys business link to Egypt

  • by

Obama scrambles to limit damage after Frank Wisner makes robust call for Mubarak to remain in place as leader

By Robert Fisk in Cairo

(source: Independent UK)

Frank Wisner, President Barack Obama’s envoy to Cairo who infuriated the White House this weekend by urging Hosni Mubarak to remain President of Egypt, works for a New York and Washington law firm which works for the dictator’s own Egyptian government.

 frank_wisner_550271t.jpg

Mr Wisner is a retired State Department 36-year “career” diplomat ?

in otherwords, he was not a political appointee

 

Mr Wisner’s astonishing remarks – “President Mubarak’s continued leadership is critical: it’s his opportunity to write his own legacy” – shocked the democratic opposition in Egypt and called into question Mr Obama’s judgement, as well as that of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

The US State Department and Mr Wisner himself have now both claimed that his remarks were made in a “personal capacity”. But there is nothing “personal” about Mr Wisner’s connections with the litigation firm Patton Boggs, which openly boasts that it advises “the Egyptian military, the Egyptian Economic Development Agency, and has handled arbitrations and litigation on the [Mubarak] government’s behalf in Europe and the US”. Oddly, not a single journalist raised this extraordinary connection with US government officials – nor the blatant conflict of interest it appears to represent.

Mr Wisner is a retired State Department 36-year career diplomat – he served as US ambassador to Egypt, Zambia, the Philippines and India under eight American presidents. In other words, he was not a political appointee. But it is inconceivable Hillary Clinton did not know of his employment by a company that works for the very dictator which Mr Wisner now defends in the face of a massive democratic opposition in Egypt.

So why on earth was he sent to talk to Mubarak, who is in effect a client of Mr Wisner’s current employers?

 

Read More »Us envoys business link to Egypt

Israel has to accept that the arab spring changes the game

  • by

(source: TheIndependent.co.uk)

The Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt has had a chequered history since its official inauguration in 2005. During its first two years of operation security periodically broke down in the face of angry and desperate Palestinians. The EU supervisory mission had neither the mandate nor the manpower to keep order. After 2007, when Hamas topped the poll in Palestinian elections and seized control of Gaza, the crossing was mostly kept sealed by Egypt in response to Israel’s security concerns.

This history alone would be sufficient reason to welcome the reopening of the crossing this weekend. But Rafah is not just another border crossing, and its reopening is a development of far greater significance than the mercifully restrained response it has provoked so far would suggest. Situated on Gaza’s only external border with a country other than Israel, it provides a needed safety-valve for Palestinians cooped up in one of the most densely populated territories anywhere in the world. For a country to be able to manage its external borders is also a necessary precursor to statehood. A state that cannot control its borders, or is not allowed to, can hardly be said to exercise sovereignty. The opening of the border is additionally to be welcomed for both those reasons.

But there is also a signal that the opening of the Rafah crossing does not send. In the past, the functioning of the crossing was a barometer for the state of the peace process between Israel and the Palestinians. It was first opened amid the optimism that accompanied Israel’s 2005 withdrawal from Gaza, and it was closed for fear that Hamas and its supporters would bring in weapons. This latest opening is different. It is the first time this border has been opened without Israel’s express say-so.

Read More »Israel has to accept that the arab spring changes the game