Obama to meet Middle East leaders

President Barack Obama will meet Israeli and Palestinian leaders on Tuesday to try to relaunch peace talks.

Mr Obama will hold separate talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, before a joint meeting.

Face à Nétanyahou, Obama répète son soutien à la création d’un Etat palestinien

LE MONDESans surprise, Barack Obama a réaffirmé, lundi 18 mai, son soutien à la création d’un Etat palestinien à l’issue d’un entretien avec le premier ministre israélien, Benyamin Nétanyahou. “Nous avons parlé des moyens de relancer des négociations sérieuses sur les questions d’Israël et des Palestiniens”, a dit le président américain, ajoutant que la “solution à deux Etats” servait les intérêts des deux camps.

Obama s’exprimait à l’issue d’un entretien à la Maison Blanche avec Nétanyahou, qui effectuait son premier déplacement à Washington depuis son retour à la tête du gouvernement israélien, le 31 mars. Il a également rappelé que la “feuille de route” de 2003 soutenue par les médiateurs internationaux fixait à Israël la nécessité de geler toute activité de colonisation dans les territoires palestiniens. Nétanyahou, dont la coalition intègre des partis hostiles à cette solution à deux Etats, a estimé pour sa part que les Palestiniens devaient s’administrer eux-mêmes mais n’a fait nulle mention d’un Etat palestinien proprement dit. “Nous ne voulons pas gouverner les Palestiniens. Nous voulons qu’ils se gouvernent eux-mêmes”, a-t-il dit. L’objectif de créer un Etat palestinien avait été réaffirmé fin 2007 à Annapolis par le prédécesseur de Nétanyahou, Ehoud Olmert, et le président de l’Autorité palestinienne, Mahmoud Abbas, réunis dans le Maryland par George Bush.

”Se vuoi la pace prepara la guerra”

Naoki Tomasini

www.peacereporter.net

03/04/2009

Il nuovo ministro degli Esteri israeliano chiude le porte al processo di pace e esclude la restituzione delle alture del Golan

Appena preso possesso del ministero degli Esteri del nuovo governo di Bennjamin Neranyahu, Avigdor Lieberman, il leader del partito dell’estrema destra isreliana, ha dettato la nuova linea politica. Già mentre si porfilava il suo incarico nel delicatissimo ministero, c’erano molte perplessità su quello che una figura radicale come lui avrebbe potuto fare. Ma giovedì i timori si sono trasformati in realtà. Sono bastate poche frasi nel discorso di isediamento, per spazzare via anni di processo di pace.

Who killed Annapolis?

Apr. 2, 2009
, THE JERUSALEM POST

Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman has made a stormy entrance. The “ultra-nationalist” (BBC and al-Jazeera); is “blunt and belligerent” (The New York Times); “aggressive” (Haaretz) and a “racist” (Yasser Abed Rabbo). This new government will make “no concessions for peace” (Guardian) and “spurn the peace process” (CNN)

Why the uproar? Because Lieberman announced: “The Israeli government never ratified the Annapolis accord.”

Guerra, economia e democrazia Bibi & Co. non faranno prigionieri

di Zvi Schuldiner
IL NUOVO GOVERNO

Benjamin Netanyahu, il disastroso primo ministro israeliano dal ‘96 al ‘99, tornato poi come ministro delle finanze tatcheriano nel 2003, ha presentato al parlamento israeliano il più ampio governo della sua storia: 30 ministri e 9 vice ministri. Molti credevano in un «nuovo Netanyahu» e ieri il nuovo primo ministro ha dimostrato che la sua maggiore preoccupazione risiede nel manipolare l’apparato politico.

Netanyahu takes office in official ceremony at Beit Hanassi

Apr. 1, 2009
JPost.com Staff , THE JERUSALEM POST

Incoming Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu took office Wednesday in a ceremony at Jerusalem’s Beit Hanassi, and said that his government was faced with many pressing challenges.

“We will have to roll up our sleeves and start working straightaway, as soon as we step out of this office,” Netanyahu said.

Netanyahu sworn in as Israeli PM

 AL JAZEERA INTERNATIONAL

Binyamin Netanyahu has been sworn in as Israel’s new prime minister after parliament approved the broad coalition he had assembled during weeks of wrangling.

The Knesset voted 69-45 for the new government, which is comprised of Likud, Yisrael Beitenu, Labor, ultra-Orthodox Shas and the Jewish Home party.

Netanyahu returns to the prime minister’s post he held between 1996 and 1999.

Netanyahu Strikes Conciliatory Note

IHT

By ISABEL KERSHNER

Published: March 31, 2009

JERUSALEM — Israel’s incoming prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, struck a somewhat conciliatory tone toward the Palestinians in an address to Parliament on Tuesday, promising negotiations toward a permanent accord. But Mr. Netanyahu, the leader of the hawkish Likud Party, stopped short of endorsing a two-state solution for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, a point of potential friction with the United States. President Obama has called the advancement of the two-state solution “critical.” Mr. Netanyahu opposes the idea of a sovereign Palestinian state, proposing a more limited form of self-rule instead. Hours before he was to be sworn into office, Mr. Netanyahu said his new government “will work toward peace on three tracks — economic, security and political.” “We do not want to exercise our power over the Palestinians,” he said. “Under the final settlement, the Palestinians will have all the rights to govern themselves except those that endanger the security and existence of the state of Israel.” Mr. Netanyahu said his government would seek peace with the Arab and Muslim world. He also spoke of the dangers of extremist Islam. “The biggest threat to humanity and to Israel is that of a radical regime armed with a nuclear weapon,” he said, alluding to Iran. Mr. Netanyahu’s governing coalition is dominated by right-wing and religious parties but also includes the Labor Party, which represents the center-left. Mr. Netanyahu replaces Ehud Olmert, whose centrist Kadima Party will now lead the opposition. Mr. Netanyahu, 59, who is Israeli-born and earned a bachelor’s degree at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has a rich past in Israeli politics. He was prime minister from 1996 to 1999, but his government fell apart after he reluctantly forged agreements with Yasir Arafat, the late Palestinian leader, for Israeli land transfers in the West Bank. Ehud Barak, the leader of the Labor Party, will remain defense minister in the new government. The appointment of Avigdor Lieberman, an outspoken politician and the leader of the nationalist Yisrael Beiteinu Party, as foreign minister has alarmed many abroad. Mr. Lieberman is best known for his contentious policies — and at times insulting remarks — toward Arabs. In Israel, however, public criticism focused on the sheer size of the new cabinet, swelled by Mr. Netanyahu’s attempts to satisfy his coalition partners’ competing demands. With some 30 ministers and eight deputy ministers, the cabinet has grown into the largest in Israel’s history, prompting charges that it will prove unmanageable and constitute a waste of public funds during a recession. In 1996, Mr. Netanyahu prided himself on his establishment of a lean cabinet of 18 ministers. The government established by Mr. Olmert in May 2006 numbered 25. In her first speech as chairman of the opposition, Tzipi Livni, the leader of Kadima, described Mr. Netanyahu’s government as “bloated” and stuffed with “ministers of nothing.” Of more pressing international concern is the future of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. The result of Israel’s February elections was a marked shift to the right, injecting a degree of uncertainty over the future of this round of talks, which began at an American-sponsored conference in Annapolis, Md., in November 2007. Mr. Netanyahu said Tuesday that his government will support a “Palestinian security apparatus that will fight terrorism” — an apparent reference to the forces being trained in an American-backed program under the Annapolis framework. Mr. Netanyahu has so far emphasized his plans for economic development in the West Bank. His refusal to endorse the two-state solution has led to skepticism and despondency on the Palestinian side, exacerbated by fears that his government will expedite Jewish settlement expansion in the West Bank. Khalil Shikaki, a prominent Palestinian political analyst, said that economic development will not provide any guarantee against an eruption of Palestinian violence down the road. Briefing reporters in Jerusalem on Monday, Mr. Shikaki noted that the last two intifadas, or uprisings, broke out in 1987 and 2000 when economic conditions in the Palestinian territories were relatively good. Palestinian politics are also complicated and in flux, with Hamas, the Islamic militant group, governing Gaza and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s control confined to the West Bank. Mr. Abbas’s mainstream Fatah movement was expected to start a new round of reconciliation talks with Hamas in Cairo on Wednesday. A previous round ended without results. Meanwhile, not all Israelis buy into the gloomy forecasts of strained relations with Washington. “As long as Hamas is in power in Gaza, we are off the hook,” said Efraim Inbar, a political science professor at Bar-Ilan University. Under these circumstances “nobody can pressure Israel to do anything,” he said in a telephone interview. Mr. Inbar argued that the two-state solution is an “obsolete paradigm,” and that the Palestinian territories should revert to Egyptian and Jordanian control.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/01/world/middleeast/01mideast.html?_r=1&ref=middleeast

Ehud Olmert ‘cut-price flat for favours’ case is closed

Times

Jerusalem Police have closed a corruption investigation involving Ehud Olmert, the outgoing Israeli Prime Minister, who faces two indictments. Investigators have failed to find significant evidence “that illegal acts were carried out on behalf of Ehud Olmert and closed the case”, a spokesman said.

The Cremieux Street case involved Mr Olmert’s purchase below market price of a Jerusalem flat, allegedly in exchange for political favours when he was mayor of the city.

He is still under investigation over suspicions of unlawful appointments that he allegedly made while he was Trade and Industry Minister from 2003 to 2006, the police spokesman said.

General Menahem Mazuz, the Israeli Attorney, has notified Mr Olmert of his intention to charge him over two separate allegations that he multiply billed foreign trips and that he unlawfully accepted cash-stuffed envelopes from a US financier, Morris Talansky.

This month police recommended that Mr Olmert be indicted for allegedly granting preferential treatment to a factory represented by a friend. Mr Olmert, who says that he is innocent but stepped down on September 21, has been questioned by police 16 times. (AFP)

Police drop Olmert bribery case

BBC NEWS

26 March 2009

Israeli police have closed one of the criminal investigations against Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s for lack of evidence, a police spokesman said.

The probe was into his purchase of a house in Jerusalem significantly below market price while mayor of the city.

“The head of the investigation team reached the conclusion there isn’t concrete evidence of any illegal act,” police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said.

Mr Olmert denies wrongdoing, though a series of probes caused him to resign.

The 63-year-old, who only has days left in office, still faces possible indictment on charges of fraud and breach of trust.