UK – Breaking News

By Chris Marsden

(source: World Socialist WebSite)

Published by the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI)

Today’s talks in Washington between Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas are a means through which the United States is seeking to further its predatory interests in the Middle East.

The Obama administration placed maximum pressure on Abbas to take part and abandon, in practice if not in words, the PA’s insistence that there would be discussion without an end to settlement construction by Israel.

A 10-month freeze on settlement construction on the West Bank is due to expire on September 26 and Netanyahu has made clear to his party and coalition government allies that it will not be renewed. The Palestinians threatened that there would be no negotiations if this happened and appealed for support from Washington.

The Mid-East Quartet—the US, European Union, United Nations and Russia—are formally opposed to settlement construction. But the US placed no demands on Israel and stressed instead that talks must proceed “without precondition,” as insisted on by Tel Aviv.

Read More »Us mid east talks a conspiracy against the palestinians

Where Are The Missing Settlers?

By Jonathan Cook

source: Countercurrents.org

"There are about half a million Jews living illegally on land occupied by Israel in the 1967 war. Give or take the odd few thousand (Israel is slow to update its figures), there are nearly 300,000 settlers in the West Bank and a further 200,000 in East Jerusalem…"

Nazareth : Talks between Barack Obama and the Israeli and Palestinian leaderships over the past fortnight have unleashed a flood of media interest in the settlements Israel has been constructing on Palestinian territory for more than four decades. The US president’s message is unambiguous: the continuing growth of the settlements makes impossible the establishment of a Palestinian state, and therefore peace between Israelis and Palestinians.

The implication of Mr Obama’s policy is that, once Israel has frozen the settlements, it will have to begin dismantling a significant number of them to restore territory needed for a Palestinian state.Understandably, in an era of rolling news many media outlets have been scrambling for instant copy on the settlers, relying chiefly on the international news agencies, such as Reuters, the Associated Press (AP) and Agence France-Presse (AFP).These organisations with staff based in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv churn out a stream of reports picked up by newspapers and broadcasters around the globe.

So, given their influence on world opinion and the vital importance of the settlement issue in resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, can readers depend on the news agencies to provide fair coverage? The answer, sadly, is: no. Even on the most basic fact about the settlers — the number living on occupied Palestinian territory — the agencies regularly get it wrong.There are about half a million Jews living illegally on land occupied by Israel in the 1967 war. Give or take the odd few thousand (Israel is slow to update its figures), there are nearly 300,000 settlers in the West Bank and a further 200,000 in East Jerusalem.

Sounds simple. So what is to be made of this fairly typical line from a report issued by AFP last week: “More than 280,000 settlers currently live in settlements dotted throughout the Palestinian territory that Israel captured during the 1967 Six Day War”?Or this from AP: “The US considers the settlements — home to nearly 300,000 Israelis — obstacles to peace because they are built on captured territory the Palestinians claim for a future state”?Where are the missing 200,000 settlers?

Read More »Where are the missing settlers?

While Palestinian negotiators are weak and prone to sign any peace deal, Israel’s current leaders look set to reject every solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict

By Ghada Karmi

(source: Al-Ahram Weekly)

What an irony that the Palestinians’ archenemy, Israel, should also be their saviour. There is a real danger that the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks due to start 2 September in Washington could yield a botched deal that falls far short of the requirements of international law or elemental justice, and sets back the cause of Palestine for decades if not forever. Fortunately, this will not happen as long as Israel’s obduracy can be relied on to save the Palestinians from such a dreadful outcome.

Time and again, when Israel was thrown a lifeline by its Arab neighbours that could have ensured its legitimacy and security, its folly and greed lost it those opportunities. But, since those same opportunities came at great cost to Palestinian rights, Israel’s obduracy had the perverse effect of safeguarding them. All peace proposals after 1967 were based on maintaining Israel as a regional power and forcing the Palestinians to settle for less than they were entitled to. They were repeatedly offered paltry settlements that in effect legitimised Israel’s hold on a majority of their land and undermined their right of return. Had Israel agreed, the Palestinian cause would have been lost long ago.

But it never happened. Israel foiled each proposal and, though robbing the Palestinians of ever more land and resources, the basics of the Palestinian case remained intact. When in the 1979 Camp David negotiations Egypt sought to give the Palestinians of the West Bank and Gaza a basis for a future independent state, Israel refused. As it also spurned a succession of Arab peace proposals, most recently the Saudi plan of 2002, offering Israel peace and recognition in return for a Palestinian state. And when, in the 1993 Oslo Accords, the Palestine Liberation Organisation finally capitulated and accepted Israel’s occupation of Palestine’s remnants so long as it would end and enable the establishment of an independent state on this morsel, Israel responded by taking more land.

Read More »Israeli intransigence is the only hope

The Cultural Attaché of the Islamic Republic Iran hosts 20th anniversary commemoration of the death of Imam Ruhollah al- Musawi al- Khomeini at UNISA on Sunday, June 14 2009. Media Review Network was invited to attend this programme. Bibi Ayesha Laher, media liaison officer at the Network represented the organization at the commemoration.

Khomeini: Man with a mission
 
He stood for the principle of justice based on the teachings of Islam and brought about a revolution that materialized in the shape of Islamic Republic of Iran.

On September 24, 1902, a child was born in a family of strong religious traditions in Khomein, a small town in the central province of Iran, some 349 kilometers to the south-west of Tehran. He was born to a devout family educated in the theology and devoted to migration and Jihad and the progeny of Fatima al-Zahra.

The child was named Ruhollah al-Musawi al-Khomeini, who later on altered the destiny of Iran and the world of Islam. He guided a revolution against which the dominant powers of the time and all enemies of freedom and independence of nations stood up and rushed to suppress it. But, thank Allah, they only met with failure in their efforts. The revolutionary thought and the philosophy promoted by Khomeini won the battle for Iran.
That day no one knew that the boy born in a remote area would be the one whom future shall recognise as Imam Khomeini; he who would oppose agents of the world powers to defend the independence of his country and the dignity of the Islamic Ummah; he who would become the reviver of the Allah’s religion.

Read More »Khomeini man with a mission