Cheshvan 3, 5771, 11 October 10 04:21, by Chana Ya'ar
(Israelnationalnews.com) U.S. President Barack Obama signed a waiver last week that allowed him to transfer funds to the Palestinian Authority, while relaxing some of reporting requirements. The announcement of the waiver, published October 7, did not include information on the amount or its purpose.
The requirements, dubbed a “routine bureaucratic measure necessitated by terrorism laws” by the PA-linked Ma'an news agency, are actually a complex 12-section network of legislation, the Palestinian Anti-Terrorism Act of 2006, which states the U.S. policy to promote “the cessation of terrorism and incitement in institutions and territories controlled by the Palestinian Authority...”
The legislation requires exemptions be “in the U.S. national security interests" as Obama cited in announcing his signature of the waiver. The Act also requires that the proposed recipient is "not a member of, or controlled by, Hamas or any other foreign terrorist organization.”
However, as recently as last year, PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad spent NIS 90 million ($21.5 million) to rebuild Hamas-ruled Gaza, with tax revenues transferred by Israel with the understanding that the money would go to PA civil service salaries. Instead, Hamas directly received the funds, and no money was deposited in the workers' accounts in Gaza banks, an outright violation of the agreement.
The legislation requires the Secretary to “ensure such assistance is not provided to or through an individual or entity with terrorist ties” and prohibits the use of such funds “to recognize or honor individuals or the families of individuals who commit terrorism.”
The Act also urges members of the international community to avoid contact with, and to “refrain from financially supporting the terrorist organization Hamas until it agrees to recognize Israel, renounce violence, disarm, and accept prior agreements, including the Roadmap,” a term former President George W. Bush coined for his Middle East diplomatic process.
The legislation restricts the U.S. from sending foreign aid to Hamas-controlled areas of the Palestinian Authority.
It requires the president to certify that no PA ministry, agency, or instrumentality that receives U.S. funding is controlled by Hamas, “unless the Hamas-controlled PA has publicly acknowledged the Jewish state of Israel's right to exist and is adhering to all previous agreements and understandings with the United States, Israel and the international community, including agreements and understandings pursuant to the Roadmap.”
The exemption requires the president to also prove “the Hamas-controlled PA has made demonstrable progress toward purging from its security services individuals with ties to terrorism, dismantling all terrorist infrastructure and cooperating with Israel's security services, halting anti-American and anti-Israel incitement, and ensuring democracy and financial transparency.”
Exemptions allowed under the legislation, upon certification to Congress, include assistance for administrative and personal security costs for the office of PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, and to cover the expenses for his official activities, as well as funding for the judiciary branch of the PA and other entities.
Arabs Renege on Funding Pledges to PA
While the Obama administration looks for ways to provide some of the $500 million in annual funding it has allocated, rich Arab nations are doing just the opposite – Arab states this year cut financial aid to the PA.
PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad told reporters in New York last month after a meeting with Gulf Arab ministers that he was hoping to raise some half a billion dollars from the group.
“We're hopeful that we really get the support and assistance that we need,” Fayyad said, but thus far, Arab nations have not stepped up to close the gap.
“We really expect the Arab and Gulf states to live up to their pledges,” added Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere, who chairs the PA donors group. Stoere, U.S. officials and others have called on Arab nations to step up their economic support for the PA.
PA Finance Ministry figures showed some $583.5 in budget support last August – but only 22 percent of that came from Arab donors. The rest was provided by international funding sources, including the United States and the European Union.
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Abbas/Obama Turn Down Calling Israel ‘Jewish’ in Return for Freeze
Cheshvan 3, 5771, 11 October 10 06:16, by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu
(Israelnationalnews.com) The Palestinian Authority Monday swiftly turned down Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s offer for a renewal building freeze if PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas were to recognize Israel as Jewish.
Both Abbas’ spokesman and his chief negotiators told foreign news agencies that Prime Minister Netanyahu can forget about his proposal. Spokesman Nabil Abu Rdainah told Reuters, "The issue of the Jewishness of the state has nothing to do with the matter.”
PA negotiator Saeb Erekat told the French news agency AFP, "This order has nothing to do with the peace process or with the obligations that Israel has not implemented. This is completely rejected.”
Prime Minister Netanyahu’s challenge, made in his speech marking the opening of the winter session of the Knesset, effectively put the ball back into the court of Abbas and may take the limelight off the United States.
The Arab League on Saturday gave the Obama administration 30 days to pressure Israel into reviewing the recently-expired 10-month building freeze as a condition for the return to direct talks on establishing the Palestinian Authority as a sovereign state on land restored to Israel in the Six-Day War in 1967.
Prime Minister Netanyahu’s preparedness to renew the building freeze is the clearest evidence to date that the United States offered Israel several guarantees if it were to renew the freeze. The Obama administration reportedly promised that the freeze would last for 60 days and would be the final opportunity for both Israel and the PA to agree on borders of the proposed new Arab state.
The U.S. government also promised not to support any United Nations resolutions dealing with the PA and Israel for a period of one year, the deadline U.S. President Barack Obama has set for a peace agreement. His government also offered several security guarantees.
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Netanyahu Ready to Extend ‘Freeze If Abbas Calls Israel ‘Jewish’
Cheshvan 3, 5771, 11 October 10 05:46, by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu
(Israelnationalnews.com) Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu threw the “diplomatic ball” back in to the court of Palestinian Authority PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas Monday, offering to renew the building freeze on new homes for Jews in Judea and Samaria if Abbas recognizes Israel as a Jewish State.
"If the Palestinian leadership will unequivocally say to its people that it recognizes Israel as the national state of the Jewish people, I will be ready to convene my Cabinet and ask for another moratorium on building," Netanyahu told the Knesset at the opening of its winter session. "Just as the Palestinians expect us to recognize their state, we expect reciprocal treatment.”
He said that a clear statement by Abbas on the Jewish character of Israel “would create wide-ranging trust among the Israeli people, who have lost trust in the Palestinian will for peace over the last 10 years."
He reminded legislators that the 10-month freeze that expired three weeks ago was designed to meet Abbas’ condition for sitting down with Israel for face-to-face discussions on the proposed new Arab country within Israel’s current borders and to be headed by the PA.
"The Palestinians wasted 10 months and now they demand to continue the [settlement] freeze]. I hope their demand isn't a ploy to avoid the concessions that must be made in order to achieve a peace deal,” Prime Minister Netanyahu said. "Unfortunately up until now the Palestinians have not responded to this call and the United States is searching for different ways to continue the talks," he said.
The Prime Minister quoted David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s first Prime Minister, who once declared, "The State that will rise will be Jewish in its function, purpose, and aim. Not a country of Jews settled in a land but a state for Jews, the Jewish people.”
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PA TV: Prizes for Ignoring Israel
Cheshvan 3, 5771, 11 October 10 02:22, by Hillel Fendel
(Israelnationalnews.com) While Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu tries to convince Abbas to admit that Israel is a Jewish state, PA Television continues to educate the PA public towards the denial of Israel’s existence altogether.
Palestinian Media Watch reports that a daily quiz program on PA TV during the month of Ramadan asked contestants to name “cities in Palestine” – and then awarded prizes to those who named cities in Israel.
The show host went even further, however, and told one woman player who did not know the “correct answers” on her own, “Say the names after me: Jerusalem, Gaza, Ramallah, Haifa, Jaffa, Bethlehem." PMW noted that though Jerusalem, Haifa, and Yafo (Jaffa) are cities in Israel, and not under PA control, the woman was handed $100 for repeating the “correct” answers.
[flash:125065]
Many other contestants similarly named the above cities as being in "Palestine" and earned the $100 reward.
In addition, contestants were asked to name countries bordering “Palestine,” and received prizes even though – or because – they ignored Israel.
Many commentators have said that though Jewish construction in Judea and Samaria has been portrayed as the main issue holding up the current Israel-PA talks, the continuing PA incitement against Israel should actually be the main stumbling block thereof.
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France May Recognize Unilateral PA Country
Cheshvan 3, 5771, 11 October 10 10:57, by Chana Ya'ar
(Israelnationalnews.com) France has threatened to recognize a unilateral declaration of statehood by the Palestinian Authority if final status talks with Israel are “delayed.”
French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner was quoted Sunday in an interview with the Arabic-language newspaper al-Ayyam as saying his government would not rule out the possibility of recognizing the unilateral establishment of a new PA country.
Kouchner, who himself is Jewish, said France would consider the option if PA talks with Israel were to suffer from “delays,” although Paris preferred the two-state solution to be negotiated between the two entities.
A United Nations-brokered resolution to the years-long deadlock, however, remained an option, he said.
“The international community cannot be satisfied with a prolonged deadlock,” he said. “I therefore believe that one cannot rule out in principle the Security Council option,” he added, according to the AFP news agency.
Earlier this year, PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad warned he would move to unilaterally declare statehood in 2011 if no agreement had been reached by that time.
Fayyad, who formerly worked for the World Bank, is popular with the international community, although he has made few allies among his own government and has made a number of enemies.
He was later forced to backtrack from the statement after PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas told interviewers that he opposes the unilateral establishment of a PA state.
Lieberman Rejects Pressure
Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, meanwhile, rejected pressure by Kouchner and Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Moratinos in a meeting in Jerusalem Sunday night.
“Before you teach us how to resolve conflicts here, I expect at the very least that you solve all the problems in Europe,” Lieberman reportedly told the two men.
“In 1938 the European community decided to appease Hitler instead of supporting the loyal ally Czechoslovakia, and sacrificed it without gaining anything. We have no intention of becoming 2010's Czechoslovakia and will insist on Israel's vital interest,” he said.
www.IsraelNationalNews.com
Shoes to be Thrown at Obama Shoe Photo
Cheshvan 3, 5771, 11 October 10 12:32, by Hillel Fendel
(Israelnationalnews.com) A protest will be held this at 7 PM evening outside the United States Embassy in Tel Aviv against the undue pressure being exerted by the Obama Administration upon Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.
Among the attention-arousing gimmicks scheduled for the protest will be the throwing of shoes – a common Moslem protest act – at a cardboard likeness of President Obama. The specific target will be a large photo of Obama with his feet up on the table, speaking firmly to Netanyahu. “Obama shows us his shoes, we’ll show him our shoes,” the organizers say.
The ten-month freeze on Jewish construction in Judea and Samaria ended without being renewed, and though for nine months the Palestinian Authority did not take advantage of it to enter into negotiations, it now demands a renewed freeze or else it will withdraw from the talks.
Obama has been rumored to have offered Netanyahu various incentives to renew the freeze, and is doing little or nothing to refute the approach that Jewish construction is the major obstacle to the talks.
Hey Obama, This is not the Way Friends Act
Uri Bar’am, spokesman for the Zionist Activism group that is organizing the protest, explained: “Our purpose is to address the American public and Obama directly and say, ‘This is not the way to act.’ They tell us that they are our friends, but Obama’s brutal behavior by forcing us to accept a racist state alongside us created by ethnic cleansing of Judea and Samaria is simply not acceptable to the Israeli public.”
Bar’am emphasized that the Israeli public must work together and cohesively against the common external enemy, and not against Netanyahu. “If our leader gives in to Obama, the public will respond, but now is the time to strengthen Netanyahu and apply the counter-pressure that will allow him to withstand the American pressure,” he said.
Many people mistakenly think, Bar'am said, that the nationalist public has no real say: “The media presents a false, left-wing picture, but it’s time for us to stand up and make our case as well. The Arab leaders say they can’t give up on Jerusalem and the ‘right of return’ because their ‘people won’t let them.’ Well, we can say the same! The Nation of Israel prays three times a day to return to Jerusalem, we remember Jerusalem at every joyous and sad event, we worked to return to Jerusalem, and we are back here! Let’s not forget our bonds with the Land.”
Bar’am said that his organization is a secular group, and that many of its members do not live in Judea and Samaria.
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