Updates - Clanism kills One - Unknown One

Kleiner Nachtrag zum hervorragend verlaufenen Besuch Merkels in Israel. Bericht und Rede.

*** Gazastreifen: In Khan Younis wird ein Mann in den Dreißigern bei einem Familienstrei erschossen. Bei einem "Twito-Revenge"-Luftangriff im "nördlichen Gazastreifen" sollen zwölf Personen nach dem Verlassen einer Moschee verletzt worden sein, darunter der angebliche Haupttäter, der den Launcher betätigt habe der Twito verletzt haben soll. Zuvor sind bereits vier Täter des Islamic Jihad extralegal getötet worden. Das bekannt gegebene Aufkommen von Attacken ist verhältnissmäßig niedrig. Je ein Qassam-Raketen-Abschuß, sieben Mörsergranaten auf Militärposten und eine Schießerei am Kissufim-Crossing. Die Verhandlungen in Ägypten [ich wiederhole mich gerne: Erfolg unwahrscheinlich] stehen auf der Kippe: Top members of the IDF General Staff have expressed their opposition to the deal Egypt is trying to broker between Israel and Hamas in an effort to obtain a cessation of violence in the Gaza Strip, defense officials told The Jerusalem Post on Wednesday. [...] Gilad, defense officials said, told Suleiman that Israel would not be able to agree to any type of cease-fire with Hamas if the border between Gaza and Egypt were not first sealed and the smuggling of weapons completely stopped by the Egyptian troops deployed there. [Es ist wohl eher so das poltische Gründe eine Rolle spielen. Man tut sich schwer der Hamas eine gewisse Art an Legitimität zuzubilligen. Da man allerdings immer noch nicht die Hamas auszuschalten beschlossen hat ist das Gebaren reine Zeitverschwendung. [...] Earlier Wednesday, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told McCain that Israel can halt rocket fire from Gaza without a major ground offensive in the densely-populated coastal strip. "It is possible to stop the Qassams without conquering Gaza," Olmert told McCain. "We will stop the Qassam fire by the creation of deterrence in the South which will make [Gaza militants] think twice before they shoot again," the prime minister continued. Abschreckungspolitik? Blödsinn: A new poll shows that an overwhelming majority of Palestinians support the attack this month on a Jewish seminary in Jerusalem that killed eight young men, most of them teenagers, an indication of the alarming level of Israeli-Palestinian tension in recent weeks. The survey also shows unprecedented support for the shooting of rockets on Israeli towns from the Gaza Strip and for the end of the peace negotiations between Palestinian and Israeli leaders. Olmert will wohl die restlichen 16% auch noch "abschrecken"?] Zweitens dürfte der israelischen Soldateska stinken das ... After ruling out talks with Hamas, the militant Islamist group, the Bush administration is using Egypt as an intermediary to open a channel between Israel and representatives of the group, in what some diplomats say could be a softening of the American stance. While administration officials still say they do not plan to deal directly with Hamas, the United States has given tacit support to an attempt by Egyptian officials to mediate a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas, which controls Gaza. Riceauflauf mit Quark wird uns noch zur Peacenickerin wenns so weiter geht. Ganz interessant zu Beginn des Purim-Fests die Berichterstattung bei Yedionot Achronot über die Grenzsiedlungen. In der Ruhephase kam es iÜ zu Treibstofflieferungen in den Gazastreifen und anderen humanitären Produkten.

*** Westbank: Alles rein in den Korruptionswolf: The United States agreed on Wednesday to transfer $150 million in budgetary support to the Palestinian Authority as part of past pledges to boost President Mahmoud Abbas' government. Western-backed Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad said it was "the largest sum of assistance of any kind to be transferred to the Palestinian Authority by any donor in one trench since the Palestinian Authority's inception (in 1994)." Fayyad, who signed the agreement with U.S. Consul General Jake Walles, told reporters the U.S. contribution "was coming to us at a time of great need and it will help our efforts in building towards Palestinian statehood". [...] Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak warned Israel on Tuesday that no occupation lasts forever and urged the Palestinians to give peace a chance. "Your people's security cannot be attained by exercising a policy of collective punishment, aggression, siege, walls and building settlements," he said in comments broadcast live on state television in a speech marking the birthday of Islam's Prophet Mohammed. [...] Rouhi Fattouh, former speaker of the Palestinian Authority Legislative Council and a close aide to PA President Mahmoud Abbas, denied Wednesday that he had tried to smuggle 3,000 cellphones from Jordan. [...] Während sich die Ahrar al-Jalil auch zu der Messerattacke am Damaskus-Tor bekennt.. Jerusalem District Police Chief Aharon Franco said on Wednesday that the patrol officer called to the scene of the Mercaz Harav Yeshiva attack earlier this month should have tried to make direct contact with the terrorist, rather than waiting at the entrance to the school while the shooting continued. Franco presented his assessment on the matter during a meeting with the Knesset Interior Committee. According to an investigation of the attack, in which eight yeshiva students were killed, some 16 minutes elapsed from the moment the terrorist fired his first gunshot until he was subdued by fire from an Israel Defense Forces officer, David Shapira and yeshiva student Yitzhak Dadon. The first patrol officer to reach the site of the attack did not enter the yeshiva and did not open fire at the gunman. ... Despite the fact that he had no criminal record, police discovered that he had stolen cars and weapons in Hebron in the past. [???- Blödsinn.] [...] Israeli authorities have given new directive to border police operating along the Israeli separation wall surrounding Jerusalem enabling them to open fire directly on Palestinians who try to demonstrate near the barrier, the Israeli daily Maariv reported on Wednesday. According to the new rule, sniping is forbidden if there are Israeli or foreign citizens amongst demonstrators. [...] Verhaftungswellen mäßigen sich etwas. Sechs Palästinenser werden durch die IDF, sieben Hamasniks durch die PA verhaftet. Weiterhin konzentrieren sich die Verhaftungswellen in der Mehrzahl auf Mitglieder des Islamic Jihad. [...] Zwei Söhne von Mahmoud Abbas gehen gerichtlich gegen einen Bericht im israelischen Fernsehen vor, sie würden einen großen Anteil an der "National Palestinian cell phone company" in Besitz halten. [...] In Qalkilla wird eine 75-jährige auf offener Straße von drei Vermummten erschossen. Motiv und Täterschaft vollkommen unklar. [...] In der Zone "C", unter voller israelischer Kontrolle kommt es zu mehreren Häuserzerstörungen wegen Straßenbauprojekten und Siedlungsausbauten. [...] Politisch? Null Nachrichten. [...] The interim decision issued 10 days ago by the High Court of Justice on the use of Route 443 marks the first time the justices have issued a ruling to close a road traversing occupied territory to Palestinian use, for the convenience of Israeli travelers. The interim ruling on a petition by six Palestinian villages adjacent to the highway, which links the coastal plain to Jerusalem, gave the state six months to report progress on the construction of an alternative road for Palestinian use.

*** Israel intern, oder "viele Rassisten, wenig Helden": Israel must carry out measures to reduce water use in order to prevent a humanitarian crisis, the General Secretary of the National Water Authority Professor Uri Shani said during a speech at the authority's fifth annual conference on Wednesday. Shani added that he is "afraid of what will happen in 2009 if we go on another year like this." The President of the National Water Authority, Shimon Tal accused Israel of failing to properly carry out initiatives meant to solve the country's growing "water crisis" over the past six years. Tal said that in the past year, national desalinization plants have only produced a little over 130 million cubic meters of potable water, far short of the projected output of 350 million cubic meters [...] Israel's Jewish community increasingly supports the delegitimization, discrimination and even deportation of Arabs, found a report on racism in Israel, set to be released Wednesday. The report, to be presented at a press conference in Nazareth by Mossawa, the Advocacy Center for Arab Citizens of Israel, states that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has clearly impacted public opinion, and warns that ideas such as population exchange and racial segregation are gaining ground. It also warns that several Jewish politicians are gaining influence based on a platform of racial hatred. + Hebron and Kiryat Arba Chief Rabbi Dov Lior plans to issue a halachic ruling forbidding Israeli Jews from rent apartments to Israeli Arabs or Palestinians or to employ them. [...] Israel's airline security faced a legal challenge Wednesday from a civil rights group charging that its practice of ethnic profiling is racist because it singles out Arabs for tougher treatment. [Snip] Aziza Muadi, of the Lower Galilee town of Maghar, has a dream - to establish a large educational institute that will teach environmental conservation, recycling and ecology. But considering the low awareness of environmental issues in the Arab sector, Muadi decided to start small: She recently began coordinating a group of 17 women who are now promoting environmental education in Maghar. The women, aged 30 to 35, come from varied backgrounds - Druze, Moslem and Christian. They are being instructed by the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel. [...] On August 6, 1948 the leadership of the Council of Women's Organizations sent a letter to the ministers of the interim government of the State of Israel. "With a sense of spiritual uplift we are following the process of the founding of the State and the creation of the initial patterns for our self rule," said the document. "At the same time, we are forced to express our deep anxiety in light of the miniscule part women play in the framework that is supposed to guide our political and public lives."

Retaining his tough stance against Iran, US Vice President Dick Cheney said Wednesday that Teheran may have restarted the nuclear weaponization program that a US intelligence report said was halted in 2003. Speaking in Oman, a US-allied Arab monarchy and neighbor of Iran's, Cheney told ABC News, "The important thing to keep in mind is the objective that we share with many of our friends in the region, and that is that a nuclear-armed Iran would be very destabilizing for the entire area." [...] Israel's minister of defense has become a minister of war, says my colleague Gideon Levy. He condemns Ehud Barak's actions and expresses his bitter disappointment in the man. Sadly, Israel is not Switzerland[1]. Its neighbors are not Luxembourg and Lichtenstein, and its defense minister is not a character from the opera dressed in a fancy uniform with a feather-plumed hat. As a country that has known nothing but war in every shape and form since the day it was born, Israel's defense minister is indeed a minister of war. This is not a derogatory term but a realistic job description. [...] [1]- Swiss Ambassador to Israel Walter Heffner on Wednesday was called for a meeting in the offices of the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem in response to a deal signed between Switzerland and Iran on Monday for the supply of Iranian natural gas to Europe. General secretary of the Western Europe department of the Foreign Ministry Rafi Barak on Wednesday criticized the visit of Swiss Foreign Minister Micheline Calmy-Rey to Teheran, calling it an "unfriendly gesture" to Israel. [Also, wenn man die Rüstungsaktivitäten mit Indien und China betrachtet hat Israel schon viel gemeinsam mit der ... Schweiz, die allerdings nur Gas traden wollen.] +++ Selbstverständlich ist die EGL auch in Deutschland im Strommarkt involviert, Frau Merkel.