Slow news

Zuvor, Empfehlung des Tages: "i just got back from a weekend retreat-conference in tantur about peace democracy and education run by IPCRI.. oh man.. so many things were awesome about it.. i am smletering right now in the fires it has ignited within me.. the passion it has awoken.. what an amazing experience.. i will do my best to afford this weekend justice in this post.. i hope you get a taste of it.. i miss it already.." [IPCRI-Website]

In der Westbank werden 21 Palästinenser über Nacht verhaftet. Zudem werden durch die Israelis in und um Nablus elf Hamas-Anhänger verhaftet. Soeben wird ein Qassam-Raketen-einschlag in der Wüste Negev bestätigt. Unbestätigt ist ein angeblicher Angriff der PRC auf den Grenzposten Kissufim mit vierzehn "Projektilen". Am Erez-crossing kommt es zu einer kleinen Schießerei.

Noch bevor der Friedensesel dem israelischen PM Olmert einen Popularitätsschub durch seinen foto-Termin in Jerusalem bescheren kann werden innerparteiliche Diskussionen über seine mögliche Nachfolge in den Medien gestreut: In preparation for the release of the final Winograd report, which, as a member of the committee told Channel 1, would be "fire and brimstone," Kadima has begun considering the potential fallout, including the potentiality that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert would be forced to step down. Kadima and Labor officials began studying succession laws to determine under what circumstances Olmert's deputy prime minister, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, could succeed him without forcing an election. However, Interior Minister Meir Sheetrit, also of Kadima told Army Radio Monday morning that "if Prime Minister Ehud Olmert will be forced to resign following the publication of the Winograd report, Kadima will not make his stand-in, [Foreign Minister] Tzipi Livni, prime minister. According to the party's constitution, primaries will be held, and I, Meir Sheetrit, intend to be a candidate." [Ich halte es zum heutigen Zeitpunkt eher wahrscheinlich das man Livni direkt übergeht und die Variante "Barak" in Betracht zieht: PM Olmert darf bis zu Neuwahlen im Herbst 2008 an der Macht bleiben, Kadima soll es unter sich ausmachen mit welchem Kandidaten[in] sie in den Wahlkampf ziehen möchte. Ein sofortiger Rücktritt ist derzeit eher nicht denkbar. Die Äusserungen Sheetrits, das Livni nicht die natürliche Nachfolgerin von Olmert im Amt ist deuten an das sie den etablierten Olmert-Freunden doch etwas zu popular wird. Früher fiel sie auf in dem sie gegen den Strom aus dem Rahmen fiel. Nun hat ihr Populismus die Gnade der israelischen Mehrheit erlangt, wie die Reaktion auf die Attacken gegen Ägypten zeigen.] Zudem darf Livni staatstragende Punkte sammeln: Identification with Israel is weakening among Diaspora Jews, as is knowledge of Jewish history and identification with the Jewish people, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said at Sunday's cabinet meeting, following the presentation of a report by the Jewish People Policy Planning Institute. ... "In Israel today, the common denominators are Hebrew and military service, and these represent Israeliness - not something that is a shared experience with the Jews of the Diaspora. We have to strengthen in Israel the understanding of our Jewish essence as a people, the meaning of the existence of a Jewish and democratic state," the foreign minister continued. [Der Jahresbericht kann hier als Zip-Datei herunter geladen werden. Natürlich auf eigene Gefahr. Website.] Natürlich sind das Allgemeinplätze, die Livni von sich gibt. In der Präsentation deutet sie jedoch Kompetenz in den Fragen an, die normalerweise im Kadima-Spektrum nur auf Auswärtiges bezogen werden: Die Araber sollen das Existenzrecht Israels anerkennen. Was aber diese Existenz eigentlich ist [jewish? Ja, was ist das?] wird sorgsam ausgeklammert, da man sich keine interne Richtungsdebatte wünscht, sondern nur bushistisches "Stay the Course" im Programm hat. Livni erscheint mir durch die Jahre 2006 + 2007 gewachsen. Ich denke die Erfahrung des Todes ihrer Mutter Ende letzten Jahres hat sie zudem deutlich verändert. Mit ihr ist zu rechnen.

Vor dem Besuch des IAEA-Chefs el-Baradei in Teheran gab er ein Interview in der al-Hayat das bislang nur auf arabisch vorliegt. Yoah Stern kann arabisch besser als ich: We hope to visit Syrian site of IAF strike - However, he did not mention Syria in this context. Ähm... Äääää. Vielleicht kann er doch nicht besser arabisch als ich.

Update Friedensesel. Gerade ist mir ein Zitat von Bush in die Hände gefallen das das gestrige noch toppt: "The new president of the United States might not support the idea of a two-state solution, or it might take him a while before he starts to address the Israeli-Palestinian question." [Neee, das ist eben nicht falsch. Giuliani zB ist ausgesprochener Gegner eines Palästinenserstaates. Aber... so kann ich doch nicht auftreten...]

In Kürze: Senior Likud sources have accused Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of intervening to prevent US President George W. Bush from meeting with opposition leader Binyamin Netanyahu when he comes to Israel on Wednesday. ++++ Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh on Sunday called on France to provide assistance to the Palestinians, saying he welcomed "all international efforts" aimed at enhancing security in the region, AFP reported. In a letter to French President Nicolas Sarkozy, Haniyeh said the Gaza government is "prepared to cooperate with all international efforts to establish security and stability in the region." ++++ Ten families from Sderot, whose loved ones were either killed or seriously wounded by Kassam rockets, are set to file a major suit against the Egyptian government on Monday afternoon, Israel Radio reported. The families blamed the Egyptian government for deliberately assisting terror organizations in smuggling weapons and explosives into the Gaza Strip. [Website Shurat HaDin] ++++ Israel will tell U.S. President George W. Bush [for the 258th time] during his visit to the region this week that it is committed to acting expeditiously to dismantle unauthorized West Bank settlement outposts, a spokesman for Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Monday. Israel has pledged repeatedly to take action on the outposts, generally small encampments settlers have set up in the West Bank to break up territory the Palestinians claim for a future state. Olmert spokesman Mark Regev did not say how quickly Israel would take down the dozens of outposts.

Nadav Shragai, "Mr. President, would you devide New York?": If Ehud Olmert as we knew him when he was mayor of Jerusalem could speak to U.S. President George W. Bush, he would almost certainly say the following: "Mr. President, Ehud Olmert may be prime minister today, but his mandate is limited. Neither the Jewish people worldwide nor the citizens of Israel have authorized him to negotiate over Jerusalem, the Old City and the Temple Mount. No one authorized him to restrict construction in the city's new neighborhoods. Even during the Camp David negotiations with the Palestinians in 2000, it was agreed that they would continue to exist and develop. We built Har Homa, former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and I, to prevent the Arabs of Bethlehem from overflowing into Jerusalem. We must complete this process. Don't hinder us from doing so. ++++ Akiva Eldar, "Settlements are an obstacle to Zionism": After recognizing "Jewish population concentrations" in the territories, President George W. Bush brought down from the attic the old American position under which the settlements are an obstacle to peace. Bush was not entirely accurate. The settlements are not an obstacle to peace. What would happen if the Palestinians were to announce tomorrow morning that they welcome the settlers and are relinquishing their demand for an independent state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, with its capital in East Jerusalem? What would we do if Hamas were to lay down its arms and unilaterally declare a hudna (temporary truce) for 50 years? What would we say if the Palestinians were to demand that Israel annex the territories, including Kiryat Arba and Hebron, Nablus and Itamar? In that case, the settlements would not be an obstacle to peace. They would be the epilogue to the Zionist story. ++++ Eyal Chowers, "Peace and the nation-state": President George W. Bush arrives in the region this week in an attempt to revive the peace process, as Israelis and Palestinians have failed to make significant headway since the Middle East summit in Annapolis, Maryland. Many believe that this lack of progress is due to Israel's opaque settlement policy, the violence in Gaza, and the fact that the gaps and the mistrust between the parties are essentially too great. The Bush administration itself appears hesitant to exert the necessary pressure for an agreement, perhaps because past agreements were violated anyway by one or both parties (notably the Oslo Accords, the Wye Agreement and the road map). But something deeper, it seems, clouds the air and prevents genuine progress: a lack of a new political imagination.

ACH!: Israeli and Palestinian negotiators are to meet Monday ahead of the arrival of US President George Bush, Israeli and Palestinian officials said. Palestinian officials said Israel Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, lead Palestinian negotiator Ahmed Qurei and their full negotiating teams will try to decide the makeup of the subcommittees that will negotiate key issues in dispute, such as sovereignty over contested Jerusalem, a solution for Palestinian refugees who lost their homes in the war that followed Israel's 1948 establishment, and final borders. Ich dachte: The agreement being finalized between Livni and Qureia changes the format of negotiations over the core issues which, until talks stopped in 2001, were discussed in three different committees [27.12.]

There are more than 100 unauthorized settlement outposts in the West Bank, but less than half are due to be evacuated under former prime minister Ariel Sharon's promise to U.S. President George W. Bush. Sharon promised only to evacuate outposts established after March 2001. According to the Defense Ministry, there are about 25 such outposts; Peace Now puts the number at around 50.