The election sparked weeks of protests by critics of President Ahmadinejad
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Iran has released on bail the last of the British embassy employees arrested in Tehran in connection with last month’s election protests.
Hossein Rassam – the embassy’s chief political analyst – was one of nine local embassy staff originally held.
He was charged with inciting the unrest over President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s re-election and is due to stand trial.
Britain has denied Tehran’s accusations that embassy staff had been involved in instigating mass demonstrations.
Abdolsamad Khorramshahi, a lawyer for the released employee, said he had left Tehran’s Evin prison, and that bail had been set at about $100,000 (£61,000).
British Foreign Secretary David Miliband welcomed Mr Rassam’s release, adding: “The detention of Embassy staff was completely unjustified.”
Protest ban
Violent street protests broke out after President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was re-elected in the 12 June vote.
At least 20 people are thought to have died during weeks of clashes.
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IRAN UNREST
12 June presidential election saw incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad re-elected with 63% of vote
Main challenger Mir Hossein Mousavi called for result to be annulled for electoral fraud
Street protests saw at least 17 people killed and foreign media restricted
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All gatherings were banned and the protests have died down in recent weeks.
Iran has repeatedly accused foreign powers – especially Britain and the US – of stoking the demonstrations.
Opposition candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi says the vote was rigged in favour of Mr Ahmadinejad.
The president and Iran’s main election body, the Council of Guardians, have rejected the charge.
On Friday former President Ali Akbar Rafsanjani called for the release of jailed protesters.
Speaking at Tehran University, he also said many Iranians still doubted the election results, and that the media should be allowed to discuss the dispute openly.
“It is not necessary to pressure media. We should allow them to work freely within the law,” he said.
As Mr Rafsanjani spoke, thousands of opposition supporters rallied near the university – the first opposition demonstration for more than a week.
bbc.co.uk
Iran violence over civilians should end
June 23, 2009
United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has called for an immediate end to arrests and the threat and use of violence by authorities in Iran.
He urged them to respect fundamental civil rights, “especially the freedom of assembly and expression”.
His comments came as there were further clashes in the capital Tehran.
Iran’s legislative body, the Guardian Council, said there were no major polling irregularities in the 12 June election and ruled out an annulment.
The ruling was reported by state television on Tuesday.
A spokesman for the Guardian Council, Abbas Ali Kadkhodaei, was quoted by the English-language Press TV as saying the council had found “no major fraud or breach in the election”.
The ruling came after a rally on Monday had taken place despite warnings against such gatherings by the Revolutionary Guards.
A spokesman for Mr Ban said he had been following the situation in Iran with “growing concern” and was dismayed by the post-election violence, particularly the use of force against civilians.
A statement said: “He calls on the authorities to respect fundamental civil and political rights, especially the freedom of expression, freedom of assembly and freedom of information.”
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 There are lots of people but they are scattered  Eyewitness,
in e-mail to BBC Persian TV |
He called on Iran’s government and opposition to resolve their differences peacefully through dialogue and legal means.
“He urges an immediate stop to the arrests, threats and use of force. The secretary general reiterates his hope that the democratic will of the people of Iran will be fully respected,” the statement read.
Some 1,000 people gathered in Haft-e Tir Square despite the warning from Iran’s Revolutionary Guards against holding unapproved rallies.
Basij militiamen wielding clubs were brought in to reinforce the police.
The guards, an elite armed force, vowed to crack down on new street protests over the presidential election results.
On Friday, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei banned protests, prompting street violence in which at least 10 people died.
Severe reporting restrictions placed on the BBC and other foreign media in Iran mean protest reports cannot be verified independently.
Clubs and tear gas
Eyewitnesses said hundreds of riot police were used to drive the protesters from the square on Monday.
BBC Persian TV received an e-mail from one person saying: “There are lots of people but they are scattered, and lots of police guards. They are firing bullets in the air and using tear gas against the crowds.”
The Revolutionary Guards have close ties to the country’s supreme leader.
Video has emerged of Iranian police making arrests on Saturday
In a statement posted on their website, they said their troops would break up street protests and force protesters from the streets.
“Be prepared for a resolution and revolutionary confrontation with the guards, Basij and other security forces and disciplinary forces,” they said.
“The guards will firmly confront in a revolutionary way rioters and those who violate the law.”
The Basij militia was involved in quelling earlier protests during more than a week of demonstrations against the re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
‘No memorial service’
Meanwhile, the fiance of Neda Agha-Soltan, the young woman whose violent death during clashes in Tehran on Saturday was recorded on video and uploaded to the internet, has described the events leading up to her shooting in an interview for BBC Persian TV.
She had been sitting with her music teacher in a car, stuck in traffic, when she decided to get out because of the heat.
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 The authorities are aware that everybody in Iran and throughout the whole world knows about her story Caspian Makan
Fiance of Neda Agha-Soltan |
“She got out of the car for just for a few minutes [and] that’s when she was shot dead,” said Caspian Makan.
Mr Makan quoted eyewitnesses as saying she appeared to have been targeted deliberately by “paramilitaries in civilian clothing”.
He added that officials had prevented mourners holding a memorial service at a mosque on Monday.
“The authorities are aware that everybody in Iran and throughout the whole world knows about her story,” he told the BBC. “They were afraid that lots of people could turn up.”
Election results show Mr Ahmadinejad won the 12 June election by a landslide, taking 63% of the vote, almost double that of Mir Hossein Mousavi, his nearest rival.
The Guardian Council, which oversees the electoral process, said it had found some evidence of voting irregularities but the number had “no effect on the result of the elections”.
An independent British analysis of the disputed election results has found irregularities in the reported turnout, as well as “implausible” swings in the vote in favour of Mr Ahmadinejad.
Analysts from St Andrew’s University and the Chatham House think-tank said votes in favour of Mr Ahmadinejad in a third of the provinces would have required an “unlikely scenario” of voting patterns.
bbc.co.uk
TEHRAN, Iran – Iran’s government said Sunday it arrested the daughter and four other relatives of former President Hashemi Rafsanjani, one of the country’s most powerful men, in a move that exposed a rift among the ruling Islamic clerics over the disputed presidential election.
State media also reported at least 10 more deaths, bringing the official toll for a week of confrontations to at least 17. State television inside Iran said 10 were killed and 100 injured in clashes Saturday between demonstrators contesting the result of the June 12 election and black-clad police wielding truncheons, tear gas and water cannons.
Police and members of the Basij militia took up positions in the afternoon on major streets and squares, including the site of Saturday’s clashes. There was no word on any new clashes Sunday, although after dark many people in Tehran went to their rooftops to shout “Death to the dictator” and Allahu akbar,” a common form of defiance in recent days.
State-run Press TV reported that Rafsanjani’s eldest daughter, Faezeh Hashemi, and four other unidentified family members were arrested late Saturday. On Sunday evening, it said the four others had been released but that Hashemi remained in detention. However, Iran’s ambassador to France Seyed Mehdi Miraboutalebi said on France’s RFI radio that Hashemi had been released.
Last week, state television showed images of Hashemi, 46, speaking to hundreds of supporters of opposition candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi. He alleges fraud in the June 12 election, which the government said President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won.
After Hashemi’s appearance, hard-line students gathered outside the Tehran prosecutor’s office and accused her of treason, state radio reported.
The arrests are the strongest sign yet of a serious divide among Iran’s ruling clerics.
Also Sunday, Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani said on state television that the number of people questioning the election results was large and “this group should be respected and one should not mix this big population’s account with a small group of rioters.”
Rafsanjani, 75, heads two powerful institutions. One of them, the cleric-run Assembly of Experts, has the power to monitor and remove the supreme leader, the country’s most powerful figure. The second is the Expediency Council, a body that arbitrates disputes between parliament and the unelected Guardian Council, which can block legislation.
The assembly has never publicly reprimanded the unelected Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei since he succeeded Islamic Revolution founder Aytollah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1989. But the current crisis has rattled the once-untouchable stature of the supreme leader with protesters openly defying his orders to leave the streets.
Underscoring how the protesters have become emboldened despite the regime’s repeated and ominous warnings, witnesses said some shouted “Death to Khamenei!” at Saturday’s demonstrations — another sign of once unthinkable challenges to the virtually limitless authority of the supreme leader.
Rafsanjani was deeply critical of Ahmadinejad during the presidential campaign and has the potential to lead an internal challenge to Khamenei.
His daughter’s arrest came as something of a surprise: In his Friday sermon to tens of thousands of worshippers, Khamenei praised Rafsanjani as one of the architects of the revolution and an effective political figure for many years. Khamenei acknowledged, however, that the two have “many differences of opinion.”
Khamenei has accused foreign media of making “malicious” attempts to portray a schism among the ruling clerics. At Friday’s prayers, he acknowledged that all four presidential candidates “have differences, but all of them belong to the system.”
Iran’s regime continued to impose a blackout on the most serious internal conflict since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
But fresh images and allegations of brutality emerged as Iranians at home and abroad sought to shed light on a week of astonishing resistance to hard-line Ahmadinejad and Khamenei.
The New-York based International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran said scores of injured demonstrators who had sought medical treatment after Saturday’s clashes were arrested by security forces at hospitals in the capital.
It said doctors had been ordered to report protest-related injuries to the authorities, and that some seriously injured protesters had sought refuge at foreign embassies in a bid to evade arrest.
“The arrest of citizens seeking care for wounds suffered at the hands of security forces when they attempted to exercise rights guaranteed under their own constitution and international law is deplorable,” said Hadi Ghaemi, spokesman for the campaign, denouncing the alleged arrests as “a sign of profound disrespect by the state for the well-being of its own people.”
“The government of Iran should be ashamed of itself. Right now, in front of the whole world, it is showing its violent actions,” he said.
Thousands of supporters of Mousavi, who claims he won the election, squared off Saturday against security forces in a dramatic show of defiance of Khamenei.
Iran has also acknowledged the deaths of seven protesters in clashes on Monday.
State media also reported a suicide bombing at the shrine of Khomeini on Saturday killed the attacker and injured five other people.
There was some confusion about the overall death toll. English-language Press TV, which is broadcast only outside the country, put the toll at 13 and labeled those who died “terrorists.” There was no immediate explanation for the discrepancy.
Amnesty International cautioned that it was “perilously hard” to verify the casualty tolls.
“The climate of fear has cast a shadow over the whole situation,” Amnesty’s chief Iran researcher, Drewery Dyke, told The Associated Press. “In the 10 years I’ve been following this country, I’ve never felt more at sea than I do now. It’s just cut off.”
Iran has imposed strict controls on foreign media covering the unrest, saying correspondents cannot go out into the streets to report.
Reporters Without Borders said 23 journalists were arrested over the past week. The British Broadcasting Corp. said Sunday that its Tehran-based correspondent, Jon Leyne, had been asked to leave the country. The BBC said its office remained open. The U.S.-based newsmagazine Newsweek said its journalist Maziar Bahari was arrested Sunday morning and had not been heard from.
Also Sunday, Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki held a news conference where he rebuked Britain, France and Germany for raising questions about reports of voting irregularities in hardline Ahmadinejad’s re-election — a proclaimed victory which has touched off Iran’s most serious internal conflict since the revolution.
Mottaki accused France of taking “treacherous and unjust approaches.” But he saved his most pointed criticism for Britain, raising a litany of historical grievances and accusing the country of flying intelligence agents into Iran before the election to interfere with the vote. The election, he insisted, was a “very transparent competition.”
That drew an indignant response from British Foreign Secretary David Miliband, who “categorically” denied his country was meddling. “This can only damage Iran’s standing in the eyes of the world,” Miliband said.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel urged Iran anew to conduct a complete and transparent recount.
In Washington on Saturday, President Barack Obama urged Iranian authorities to halt “all violent and unjust actions against its own people.” He said the United States “stands by all who seek to exercise” the universal rights to assembly and free speech.
Obama has offered to open talks with Iran to ease a nearly 30-year diplomatic freeze, but the upheaval could complicate any attempts at outreach.
Republican senators criticized Obama on Sunday for not taking a tougher public stand in support of the protesters, with one saying the president had been “timid and passive.”
Israeli President Shimon Peres applauded Iran’s pro-reform protesters Sunday, saying the young should “raise their voice for freedom” — an explicit message of support from a country that sees itself as most endangered by the hard-line government in Tehran.
Saturday’s unrest came a day after Khamenei sternly warned Mousavi and his backers to all off demonstrations or risk being held responsible for “bloodshed, violence and rioting.” Delivering a sermon at Friday prayers attended by tens of thousands, Khamenei sided firmly with Ahmadinejad, calling the result “an absolute victory” that reflected popular will and ordering opposition leaders to end their street protests.
Mousavi did not directly reply to the ultimatum.
His camp, meanwhile, denied reports that he had proclaimed himself ready for martyrdom on Saturday.
“Mousavi has never said this,” his close ally, Qorban Behzadiannejad, told the AP. Mousavi’s Web site also said statements that Mousavi was preparing for death were inaccurate.
____
Kole reported from Cairo. Associated Press Writers Ali Akbar Dareini in Tehran, Brian Murphy in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and Sebastian Abbot in Cairo contributed to this report.
One Iranian dead as shots fired at Mousavi rally
June 15, 2009
By Parisa Hafezi and Fredrik Dahl
TEHRAN (Reuters) – Iran’s hardline Islamic Basij militiamen killed at least one person on Monday and wounded more when their building was attacked by demonstrators protesting an election they say was stolen by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
An Iranian photographer at the scene witnessed the shooting, which came during a demonstration by tens of thousands in the capital Tehran in support of opposition candidate Mirhossein Mousavi who has appealed the election result.
Gunfire was also heard in three districts of wealthy northern Tehran, residents said.
Speaking before the shooting, Mousavi said he was “ready to pay any price” in his fight against election irregularities, his Web site quoted him as saying.
Members of Iran’s security forces have at times fired into the air during two days of the Iranian capital’s most violent unrest since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, and used batons to beat protesters who have pelted police with stones.
The Basij militia is a volunteer paramilitary force fiercely loyal to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei who has the final say on all matters of state in Iran.
Earlier during the rally, a Reuters reporter said Mousavi supporters had formed a human chain outside the Basij building in order to prevent any trouble when demonstrators passed it.
Shouting “Allahu Akbar” (God is greatest), the crowds converged on Revolution Square, where Mousavi addressed part of the crowd through a loud hailer and held his fists clenched above his head, in a sign of victory.
Mousavi said he was not optimistic about his appeal against the result of Friday’s election to the 12-man Guardian Council, six of them selected by Khamenei, six elected by parliament.
“Many of its members during the election were not impartial and supported the government candidate,” Mousavi said, referring to Ahmadinejad. “I’m urging government forces to stop violence against people,” Mousavi said.
The protest took place in defiance of an Interior Ministry ban and was a reply to Ahmadinejad’s state-organized victory rally, which also drew vast crowds to Azadi Square on Sunday.
Residents said there had also been peaceful pro-Mousavi demonstrations in the cities of Rasht, Orumiyeh, Zahedan, and Tabriz on Monday.
“MILES OF PROTESTORS”
Supporters stretching along several kilometers (miles) of a Tehran boulevard waved green flags, Mousavi’s campaign colors, and held portraits of him aloft as they tried to take pictures on their cellphones — even though his words could not be heard above the noise of the crowd.
Iran row fires campaign’s end
Mr Ahmadinejad drew thousands of people to his final rallies
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Final campaigning for Iran’s presidential poll has been overshadowed by a row over accusations made by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Huge crowds have been gathering on the streets, as rival candidates hold their last election rallies.
In a letter published by several media, ex-President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani urged Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to rein in the president.
Mr Ahmadinejad alleged Mr Rafsanjani and other politicians were corrupt.
He is thought to be in a tight race with his main rival, reformist Mir Hossein Mousavi. Two other candidates are standing.
‘Bottom of history’
The BBC’s John Leyne in Tehran says the crowds gathering in the capital in support of rival candidates sound more like boisterous football crowds than election campaigners.
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The campaign at first appeared to be relatively dull, our correspondent says, but there has been an amazing surge of enthusiasm since the first of several TV debates.
Speaking to thousands of supporters in Tehran in the last hours of campaigning, President Ahmadinejad accused rivals of lying about the state of the economy and using smear tactics against him.
“Such insults and accusations against the government are a return to Hitler’s methods, to repeat lies and accusations … until everyone believes those lies,” he said, quoted by local media.
Iranians would “send them to the bottom of history”, he added.
Mr Ahmadinejad said specifically that he would respond on state TV to criticism by use of graphs of his handling of the economy by Mr Mousavi and another candidate, Mohsen Rezai.
But an aide to the fourth candidate, Mehdi Karroubi, said that, while all the candidates had been given slots on TV, Mr Ahmadinejad’s was much longer than the others’.
“In protest at this illegal and unfair action, Mousavi and Karroubi will be boycotting their TV appearances,” Easa Saharkhiz said, quoted by AFP news agency.
Instead the two candidates would address a joint rally in central Tehran, he added.
‘Effective action’
Mr Rafsanjani remains powerful 12 years since he gave up the presidency
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The last day of campaigning was also coloured by an intervention by Mr Rafsanjani, who was Mr Ahmadinejad’s main opponent in the 2005 elections, and was himself president from 1989 to 1997 and currently heads the Expediency Council – Iran’s main political arbitration body.
In an open letter to the supreme leader published by several newspapers, he said Mr Ahmadinejad’s statements threatened to undermine the Islamic revolution.
He had personally told the president to take back his remarks, which he described as “irresponsible and untruthful”, he said. He asked Ayatollah Khamenei to resolve the dispute.
“I ask your eminence, given your position, responsibility and personality, to solve this problem and act in a way you deem right to take effective action in eliminating the mutiny,” the former president said, quoted by AFP news agency.
Fourteen high-ranking clerics echoed the complaint.
bbc.co.uk
Israeli government rejects oath of loyalty
May 31, 2009
Loyalty to the state has long been a controversial subject in Israel
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The Israeli cabinet has rejected a controversial proposal to require Israeli citizens to take an oath of loyalty to the Jewish state.
Under the plan, introduced by the ultra-nationalist Yisrael Beitenu party, citizenship would be granted only to those who swore allegiance.
The proposal angered Israel’s Arab minority, which comprises 20% of Israel’s population.
The plan can still be brought before parliament, but is unlikely to succeed.
The measure was thrown out by eight votes to three at a meeting of the Cabinet on Sunday.
Yisrael Beiteinu , which won the third most seats in February’s election, sought to introduce the oath as well as a ban on annual commemorations denouncing the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948.
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ISRAELI ARABS
Comprise 20% of the population
Descend from Palestinian inhabitants pre-1948
Hold 12 seats in the 120-member parliament
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During the election campaign, the party focused on perceived disloyalty among Israeli Arabs, drawing widespread criticism as well as support.
Many Israeli Arabs mark the Nakba , or the Catastrophe, when about 700,000 Palestinians fled or were forced from their homes in the war which followed Israel’s declaration of independence.
bbc.co.uk
North Korea fires more rockets, says U.S. hostile
May 26, 2009
By Jack Kim
SEOUL (Reuters) – North Korea, defiant in the face of international condemnation of its latest nuclear test, fired two more short-range missiles off its east coast on Tuesday and accused the United States of plotting against its government.
In a move certain to compound tensions in the region, South Korea said it would join a U.S.-led initiative to intercept ships suspected of carrying weapons of mass destruction, something Pyongyang has warned it would consider a declaration of war.
South Korea’s Yonhap news agency quoted a government source in Seoul as saying the North had test-fired one surface-to-air and one surface-to-ship missile off its east coast. The missiles had a range of about 130 km (80 miles).
North Korea could also launch by Wednesday more short-range missiles, perhaps toward a disputed sea border with the South, South Korean media quoted government sources as saying.
North Korea fired off three short-range missiles on Monday.
The nuclear test on Monday, the North’s second after one in 2006, drew sharp rebuke from regional powers, and U.S. President Barack Obama called Pyongyang’s nuclear arms program a threat to international security.
The demonstrations of military might have also taken a toll on Seoul’s jittery financial markets, worried about the impact of North Korea’s growing belligerence in a region which accounts for a sixth of the global economy.
Underlining concerns over how far the North might be prepared to raise the stakes, Obama assured South Korean President Lee Myung-bak of Washington’s unequivocal commitment to defense on the long-divided peninsula, where some two million troops face off.
There is little more Washington can do to deter the ostracized North, punished for years by international sanctions and so poor it relies on aid to feed its 23 million people.
Analysts say the latest military grandstanding is also aimed at bolstering leader Kim Jong-il’s steel grip on power at home so he can better engineer his succession — with many speculating he wants his third son to take over.
The nuclear test is also bound to raise concerns about proliferation, a major worry of the United States which has in the past accused Pyongyang of trying try to sell its nuclear know-how to states such as Syria. Some analysts say it also has close military ties with Iran.
“The DPRK’s nuclear test not only poses a serious threat to peace and stability on the Korean peninsula, and southeast Asia and beyond, but also represents a grave challenge to the international non-proliferation regime,” South Korean disarmament ambassador Im Han-tauck told the U.N.-sponsored Conference on Disarmament in Geneva.
SECURITY COUNCIL CONDEMNATION
The U.N. Security Council condemned the nuclear test and is working on a new resolution.
Interfax news agency in Moscow quoted a Russian Foreign Ministry source as saying the adoption of a tough resolution was probably unavoidable because the Security Council’s authority was at stake.
reuters.com
Obama’s ‘’solutions” will endanger Israel
May 20, 2009
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Daniel Doron, 05.16.09, 03:00 PM EDT
Irving Kristol said that whomever the Gods want to teach humility they first tempt to resolve the Middle East conflict.
Solving this conflict has been so difficult because it has always been misconstrued. As a result of confusion about the conflict’s nature, the solutions that were nevertheless tried, such as the Oslo agreement establishing the Palestinian Authority, or Israel’s unilateral withdrawal from Gaza, resulted in costly failures. The suffering of Israelis and Palestinian Arabs increased.
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The most common approach to the Arab-Israeli conflict, held by the well-connected Peace Now camp, holds that the conflict is about nationhood and territory. It blames Israel for the conflict, claiming Israel’s reluctance to fully withdraw its settlements from the West Bank (it did from Gaza) denies the Palestinian Arabs a contiguous territory and enough living space to assert their sovereignty.
This must be why the Obama administration seems to believe that pressuring Israel to immediately accept a Palestinian Arab state and to withdraw to the 1967 boundaries will bring about peace. Obama seems determined to take serious risks to pursue what he believes is a strategic imperative and a moral duty. Indeed, the two-state solution seems like the decent and rational solution to the conflict. But there are many serious doubts about its feasibility.
Advocates of the two-state solution consider themselves political realists. But they always stress the historical and judicial justification for establishing a Palestinian state. They see it as not only politically necessary but an absolute moral imperative, doing justice to a dispossessed people.
But should not the establishment of such a state–which the Europeans so strongly promote–adhere to the European Union’s 1993 Copenhagen Political Criteria for new members, which states, “Membership criteria require that the candidate country must have achieved stability of institutions guaranteeing democracy, rule of law, human rights, and respect for and protection of minorities”?
Clearly a Palestinian Authority state will not even remotely meet such criteria. What moral justification is there, then, for forcing a vulnerable Israel, threatened by an irredentist Palestinian state, to help establish it when a powerful European Union refuses to take much smaller risks in the case of Turkey?
The chances that the U.S. will be able to assure that the Palestinian Arab state will live in peace with Israel are very small indeed. For powerful historic, political, social and economic reasons, all Arab states have evolved dictatorial regimes and rapacious elites. They rationalize their oppression by fomenting hatred against other nations, especially against non-Muslims. A Palestinian Arab state will not be an exception. (Pakistan and Turkey, which were supposed to be the exceptions, are regressing to the state of the others.)
While Israel has impeded the evolution of Palestinian Arab society toward statehood, it is not the major culprit. Until Oslo, relatively free economic interaction between Israel and the Palestinian Arabs resulted in spectacular economic growth in the West Bank and Gaza. This created an informal peace process that greatly improved Arab life and promoted a Palestinian civil society committed to peace.
But external economic setbacks compounded by increasing Israeli bureaucratic oppression reversed this prosperity. Increasing Arab frustration finally exploded in 1987 in a popular uprising that led to the 1993 Oslo accords. The Palestinian Liberation Organization, a terrorist organization, was invited to set up a Palestinian Authority as a preparation for an independent Palestinian state living in peace beside Israel.
But Arafat’s Authority was not interested in living in peace with Israel; it wanted to destroy it. Arafat gladly sacrificed Palestinian welfare, even lives, for this purpose. Ruining the Arab economy and using a totalitarian propaganda campaign to blame Israel for Palestinian misery, Arafat exploited Arab anger to escalate the conflict.
He succeeded because the conflict between the Palestinian Arabs and Israel is only superficially about nationhood and territory. Since the 1948 partition of Palestine, British Mandate Arabs had several opportunities to create an independent state. Jordan and Egypt ruled the area until 1967; recently, they could have done so after Oslo, after the Gaza withdrawal. But they did not, because they were intent on first destroying Israel.
As long as this is so, granting the Palestinian Arabs a state will not result in peace, but in continued war.
As for the historic and legal claims for a Palestinian Arab state, the argument that the Arabs seek the restoration of “stolen Palestinian lands” is sheer fabrication. The area of the former British mandate of Palestine (which included Jordan) was for centuries under the Ottomans an empty, deserted land.
It was so desolate and malaria-infested that a national Palestinian Arab state never existed there, nor were there significant private property holdings in Palestine. Private rights never amounted to more than 4% of the land; 96% remains to this day mostly arid and government-owned. Palestine, as Mark Twain found it in 1860, was an empty “prince of desolation.” There was not even a Palestinian people–the few inhabitants considered themselves Syrian.
Palestine became a “promised land” again only after Jewish pioneers, in the second half of the nineteenth century, miraculously revived it, making it the most developed land in the region. It was then also that, as a result of their clash with Zionism, the Arabs started identifying themselves as Palestinians. So much for their “stolen” rights.
The claim that “illegal settlements” are an obstacle to peace is absurd too. Jewish settlements occupy less than 4% of the West Bank territory, mostly constructed on deserted government land. The reason the Arabs want them removed (but not Arab settlements in Israel) is that their radical leadership cannot tolerate any Jews living among them. All Arab lands were ethnically cleansed after 1948, forcing more than 1 million Jews to flee countries in which they had lived long before the Muslim occupation.
The Arabs’ struggle to retrieve “stolen Palestinian lands” is really an attempt to get rid of all Jews in the Middle East. The Palestinian Authority maps of Palestine never mark an area as the state of Israel, and their leaders refuse to recognize the Jewish right for a national state.
International law too does not support Arab claims to a state in former Palestine. The last international adjudication of the rights to this territory took place in the post-World War I peace conference in San Remo, Italy. The victors generously granted the vast former Ottoman territories to newly formed Arab states (like Arabia, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Iraq). Less than 1% of these vast territories were to be given in trust to the British to establish “a Jewish national home.”
The League of Nations decided that the Jews had a stronger legal claim to Palestine, their historic and national homeland. The Arabs, represented by Emir Faisal, agreed. They were happy to receive huge areas of land for such a small price. Fiasal welcomed the Jews back to their homeland. Only later British colonial machinations incited the Arabs to renege on this fantastic (for them) deal.
The conflict persists because the Arabs, and the Palestinians in particular, cannot forget their 1948 defeat by the Jews. It is a blot on their honor that only the destruction of Israel can wipe out.
But the greatest difficulty in the immediate establishment of a Palestinian Arab state is the unlikelihood that it can be established and maintained right now. It is not by accident that the Arabs missed several opportunities to establish such a state.
“There is a substantial lag between Arab countries and other regions in terms of participatory government,” a 2002 U.N. Arab Development Report stated. “This freedom deficit undermines human development and is one of the most painful manifestations of lagging political development … de facto implementation (of democratic rule) is often neglected and … deliberately disregarded,” in all Arab lands, the report concluded.
The Arab experts who prepared this report cast doubt on the viability of Arab states, sharply criticizing Arab education, economic retardation, deep poverty, social rifts and the inferior status of women, all making Arab states dysfunctional.
The creation of yet another dysfunctional Palestinian Arab state will not only mortally threaten Israel, its irredentist nature will inflame the region. As importantly, it will continue making the personal and communal life of Palestinian Arabs unbearable. Remember what happened in Gaza after Israel vacated it: the wanton destruction of the hot houses Israel left behind to enable the Gazans to make a better living from agriculture; the rule of oppression and mayhem Hamas has instituted in Gaza; the continued impoverishment and immiseration of their hapless citizens. Is this the kind of government America wants extended to the West Bank?
But this will inevitably happen as a result of the premature formation of a Palestinian state. Within a very short time, it will disintegrate and be taken over by the extremist Hamas movement.
As in Gaza, a Hamas West Bank government, an Iranian proxy, will quickly launch missile attacks against Israel. From the West Bank, however, the missiles will not hit a sparsely inhabited Negev but the densely populated heartland of Israel, the greater Tel Aviv metropolitan area. They will hit Israel’s only links to the world, Ben Gurion International Airport and the ports of Haifa and Ashdod.
Worse, Israel’s military staging areas, its airfields and its most strategic assets will come within the range of such missiles, making Israel indefensible. For eight years, Israel, the U.S. and others failed to stop Hamas from shelling Israel from Gaza; why should they be more successful when Hamas governs the West Bank?
Eventually Israel will be forced to go to war and re-occupy the West Bank. Such a campaign, as the recent Israeli Gaza operation demonstrated, will involve bloody fighting in densely populated areas, many casualties and great destruction. It won’t spare the civilian population. As in the past, masses of Palestinian Arabs will flee the battle areas to Jordan. The human and political costs of such a new wave of refugees are too horrible to contemplate. They may threaten Jordan’s survival. This is surely not what the “realists” want, but can they honestly dismiss the probability that this may happen?
Chances that advocates of a Palestinian state will be convinced by such arguments are small. It is hard to dispel faith with facts. President Obama and his advisers seem convinced that they will succeed where others failed.
The vision of instant peace is very enticing, but it will take more than faith to make peace. Faith may move mountains, but it cannot remove all the obstacles that prevented peace until now.
Israel may have to accede to Obama’s demands. But since there are great risks involved in the two-state solution, it would be fair for Obama to assure Israel that the U.S. will protect it from its serious consequences, should they unexpectedly materialize, as they have in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iraq.
Daniel Doron is president of the Israel Center for Social and Economic Progess.
forbes.com
Reuters – A two-week old argali mountain goat stands next to a domestic sheep wich became his surrogate mother … MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russian prosecutors initiated a criminal investigation Tuesday into the use of helicopters to hunt endangered goats by senior officials, a case that has revealed the playtime pleasures of Russia’s elite.
Seven people died in a helicopter crash in January, including Russian President Dmitry Medvedev’s personal envoy to parliament and a top regional wildlife protection official.
Environmentalists have said photos from the crash site, in remote mountains near the border with Kazakhstan, appeared to show the hunting party had shot endangered Argali goats — famed for their large curly horns.
There are only about 200 Argali left in Russia and it is illegal to shoot them.
Prosecutors had already started investigating how the helicopter could crash in good weather, but had not acted on calls from environmentalists and a petition signed by 6,000 people to investigate the shooting of the Argali.
The photos and accusations of illegal hunting by Russian officials helped catapult the story into newspapers and grabbed the attention of ordinary Russians.
“By referring this case to the investigation committee, the Prosecutor-General considers that this incident drew widespread public attention,” Interfax news agency quoted Marina Gridnyeva, a spokeswoman from the Prosecutor-General’s office, as saying.
The Prosecutor-General’s office confirmed it had referred the case to the investigation committee which launches criminal cases but declined further comment.
Vladimir Krever, head of green group WWF’s biosphere program in Russia, said hunting from helicopters was illegal in Russia but was a pastime favored by some wealthy hunters, who are prepared to pay up to $2,000 per hour.
“This has only been revealed because of the air crash,” he said. “This is the first case where there has been such an investigation and where the public will know real reasons and results of illegal hunting.”
Four people survived the crash, including the Altai region’s deputy governor although he has since resigned.
(Editing by Paul Casciato)
yahoo news
NATO has expelled two Russian diplomats over a spy scandal
April 30, 2009
BRUSSELS (Reuters) – NATO has expelled two Russian diplomats over a spy scandal, a move Moscow’s ambassador said was intended to set back efforts by Russia and the United States to repair relations.
Tensions between the former Cold War foes also rose on Thursday over agreements which Moscow said gave it control over the borders of two rebel regions in Georgia.
NATO ordered out the diplomats on the same day the alliance resumed formal talks with Russia at ambassadorial level, eight months after contacts were suspended over Russia’s five-day war with Georgia last August.
“Two Russian diplomats have been told they are not welcome here,” a NATO diplomat said.
The diplomat said they were expelled over the case of Herman Simm, an Estonian jailed for treason in February for handing more than 2,000 pages of information to handlers in Russia’s SVR Foreign Intelligence Service.
A statement from the Russian mission to NATO said the move set the wrong tone for the process of resuming NATO-Russia cooperation and Russia’s ambassador to the alliance Dmitry Rogozin said the response would be “harsh and decisive.”
The statement said Russia was still considering its response but the expulsions, which came one week before alliance military exercises in Georgia which have angered Russia, “might call into question” a meeting of NATO-Russia foreign ministers expected in the second half of May.
The diplomats were attached to the mission Russia has at NATO even though it is not a member of the military alliance. One was the son of Vladimir Chizhov, Moscow’s ambassador to the European Union, and the other a senior adviser to Rogozin.
Russia said the expulsions were driven by elements inside the Western alliance that wanted to undermine ties with Moscow.
“A crude provocation has been made in relation to two employees of Russia’s permanent mission to NATO on an absolutely trumped-up pretext without any clear explanation,” Russia’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
ROW OVER PACTS WITH REBEL REGIONS
The 28-nation alliance separately criticized pacts giving Russia direct control over the de-facto borders of Georgia’s South Ossetia and Abkhazia regions.
Russia took formal control over the borders of the two regions under the agreements, which were signed by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and the leaders of the rebel regions.
NATO spokesman James Appathurai said the signing of the agreements contravened the peace deals brokered by the EU after Russia’s brief war with Georgia.
“This is in clear contravention of the 12th August and 8th September agreements negotiated by the European Union and is not in the interests of long-term peace and security in the South Caucasus region,” Appathurai told reporters.
reuters.com
